Hiroshi Shimizu
Hiroshi Shimizu was born in Topaz WRA Concentration Camp to Kibei parents. Although he was a young child during the war, Shimizu can recall certain elements of his incarceration at Tule Lake Segregation Center and Crystal City DOJ Internment Camp. In this interview, he discusses multiple elements of his parents’ lives, including the cultural divide between Kibei and Nisei and how these differences manifested in the lives of Japanese Americans. He also describes the adversity faced by his parents, their attempt to repatriate, and how their experience during the war impacted their lives, detailing the Tule Lake Segregation Center and his father’s imprisonment in the “stockade.” Shimizu explains the pressures on Japanese Americans to renounce their American citizenship and repatriate, and how the terrible treatment of incarcerees at Tule Lake created a situation of mass renunciation of citizenship.
