Alumni Parent Teaches Students about Japanese Internment

Alumni Parent Teaches Students about Japanese Internment

By Head of Community Engagement Gordon Mathis

On Monday, May 15, Ailene Nakamura, mother of Del Abney ‘22, spoke with American history students about her family’s experience with the relocation of Japanese-Americans during World War II.

Ms. Nakamura’s father, his siblings, and their mother were removed from their farm in California and sent to detention centers in 1942, months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. She recounted the story of her family’s experiences during the duration of the war. Her father volunteered for military duty and served with distinction in the Office of Strategic Services, which preceded the CIA. Her grandmother and younger aunts spent the war years in relocation camps.

She spoke with students about ethnic prejudice against Japanese along the West Coast and throughout the United States. Students learned two Japanese words: issei (first generation immigrants to the US) and nisei (children of immigrants born in the US and thus American citizens); the US government incarcerated both groups during the war years. Ms. Nakamura also taught the students about court cases argued before the Supreme Court that challenged this practice; each time the Supreme Court found in favor of the government’s actions.

Ms. Nakamura has presented this ugly facet of American history to Galloway students for several years. We remain grateful to Ms. Nakamura for her willingness to share her family’s story with our students, and we look forward to her return to teach just one chapter of the full story of the history of the United States.