UC Berkeley News: ‘Never Again': Library Exhibit Tells Story Of WWII Japanese American Incarceration

Press release from UC Berkeley News:

February 14, 2022

Sam Mihara remembers where he was when he heard the news.

On Dec. 7, 1941, Mihara, then 9 years old, had gone to see a movie near his Japantown neighborhood in San Francisco. When he emerged from the theater, the community was abuzz: The Japanese had attacked Pearl Harbor.

The second-generation Japanese American recounted the bewildering — and seminal — moment in a 2012 interview with The Bancroft Library’s Oral History Center. “(My family was) pretty much caught off-guard,” he said. “And dad’s immediate reaction, by the way, was ‘My god, we’re going to be accused of being sympathizers with the Japanese government.’”

The elder Mihara leapt into action. As a newspaperman, he had a large home library. He had a movie camera, too, and often filmed the San Francisco area.

This press release was produced by UC Berkeley News. The views expressed here are the author’s own.