Henry Koyoma: Interned at Jerome, Arkansas and Tule Lake
Henry Koyama, born in Lomita, California in1936, is a third generation Japanese-American who experienced the Japanese internment camp of World War II and was in the service from 1959 to 1961 stationed in Germany. Koyama’s parents were farmers before Pearl Harbor that were very well off at the time. Koyama has an older brother of one and a half years, an older sister of four years, and a younger brother of 4 years.
When Executive Order 9066 was enacted, Koyama and his family were forced to pack up all their belongings in a month and travel to an internment camp. The first stop on the way to camp for Koyama’s family was an assembly center in Santa Anita. However, Koyama only stayed at the assembly center for a few days before being sent to the internment camp at Jerome, Arkansas.
After staying at the camp in Jerome, Arkansas for a couple of months, Koyama and his family were sent to Tule Lake because they were preparing to be sent to Japan because Koyama’s father was born in Japan. But, Koyama and his family were never sent to Japan.
Koyama and his family then stayed at the camp at Tule Lake for over three years until the end of the war. In camp Koyama and his younger brother attended Japanese school while his older brother and older sister attended American school.
During his free time, Koyama would play with the younger kids, and when the guards were not looking, Koyama and the other kids would sneak out of camp and play in the woods. When the war ended, Koyama’s
father, older brother, and older sister left camp first in 1945 so that they could find a place for the family to stay and get settled. Once they were all ready, Koyama’s mother, he, and his younger brother left camp in 1946 and went back to Lomita, where Koyama’s father had found a trailer to live in at the time.
Koyama later married in 1960 and now lives comfortably in Lomita, California and has children and grandchildren.