Jack Yoshihara (OSU Football player)

In 1941, the Oregon State University football team reached the Rose Bowl for the first time in the school’s history and then proceeded to upset no. 2 ranked Duke—an exciting experience for any college student, just being at the game and cheering on your teammates who you’ve left blood, sweat, and tears on the field with. But for Jack Yoshihara, that experience was taken away from him before he could even reach it.

While practicing with his team in mid-December like he always had during the season but that day was different. As one of Jack’s teammates recalls

"I will never forget that day," said George Zellick, a teammate of Yoshihara's. "It was late afternoon. It was drizzling. We noticed two men coming onto the field. They were very well-dressed, wearing overcoats and hats. You could tell they were different people. They met with the coach and, the next thing we new, Jack left with them. It was the first indication that Jack had a problem."

It was at that moment that Jack was transported to Minidoka internment camp in Idaho where Jack spent the next few years of his life. In an interview with Chris Foster of the Los Angeles Times on November 22, 2008, Jack reveals the conditions of the camp in which he lived:

"The wood floors were really dirty and the big mistake we made was hosing them down. All the animal manure underneath came though the floors."

The next fall, Yoshihara and his parents were sent to Minidoka, where it dipped to minus-21 degrees in the winter and hit 104 during the summer.

"They just had barracks, with wood siding and a tar roof," Yoshihara said. "We could see the dust come through the walls when the wind blew. And it always blew.

Jack’s story is the story of many Japanese Americans during World War II, who had their lives stripped away from them at such a young age. It’s hard to imagine how life would be under those conditions and to persevere and live the rest of your life without any hard feelings is really tough. America’s internment of its own citizens is a disgrace and shows the lengths at which the United States government will go in the name of self-defense. In a similar way, U.S. citizens who the government believes to merely look like a terrorist are interrogated or taken in for questioning—it shows that the United States doesn’t learn from its mistakes and that it is still very paranoid about its own citizens whether they are innocent or not.

Thai Nguyen