I’ll Show You Bastards
Charcoal, acrylic on printed paper
13” x 19”
Charcoal, acrylic on printed paper
13” x 19”
On a morning in 1942, Shigeo Hamamoto (born in 1915 in Gardena, California) was securing his property just before his entire family was forcibly relocated to the Manzanar internment camp.
“As Uncle Shig was looking around, he spotted two ‘junkmen’ with their horses and flatbed wagons parked along Coldwater Canyon. He asked what they were doing there and one of them told him it was none of his business, and that it was a free country. Since we were being forced to camp, that statement must have really pissed off Uncle Shig.
He yelled at them, ‘I know why you’re here; you’re going to steal everything we leave behind!’
Then he said, ‘I’ll show you bastards,’ and started a fire, a huge fire. He started to throw everything into the fire, all the things we had to leave behind. Tools, beds, tables, plow, household goods and all leftover clothes and anything we could not take with us.”
— “Uncle Shig and the Junkman” by Victor Muraoka
Like tens of thousands of Japanese Americans, the Hamamoto family was given only days to evacuate. Most families could take only what they could carry. All persons of Japanese ancestry—citizen and immigrant alike—were sent to remote camps surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards.
Shigeo later refused to affirm his loyalty to the U.S. government under duress. He answered “No–No” to the controversial questions on the so-called loyalty questionnaire and was transferred to Tule Lake Segregation Center, where many who resisted were held.
