Sixty Years Later: 'If They Came for me Today'

Would Fort Lee be the same without Horizon House? 

The  original low-rise buildings of the complex were designed by a local resident, G. Gentoku (George) Shimamoto. A trained architecht, he was working for Kelly and Gruzen in Jersey city when the skyline of Fort Lee began to change.

An exhibit, Japanese American Internment Project – If They Came for me Today, tells the story of 14 Japanese Americans, many like Mr. Shimamoto, as well as George Yuzawa of Dumont, who lived out their lives here in Bergen County.

Until very late in life, Mr. Shimamoto continued his professional career. He worked on the design of Japan House, for the Japan Society in New York City, and a private residence for the Rockefeller family, and he was instrumental in reparations to Japanese-Americans, who had suffered forced evacuation. He himself had spent over two years in an Internment Camp after the outbreak of World War II. 

The exhibit is in the Treasure Room Gallery, at The Interchurch Center, 475 Riverside Drive in NYC. Those whose pictures and memories are depicted are typical of people like Mr. Shimamoto, who died in 1994 at the age of 89, and Mr. Yuzawa, who passed away last fall at 97. 

Sixty years ago, on February 19, 1941, Americans of Japanese descent – including Mr. Shimamoto and his wife – were among 120,000 Japanese-Americans evacuated from their homes, through Executive Order 9066. 

After resettling and raising their families, both gentlemen were instrumental in at last bringing about reparations to all Japanese-Americans. In 1988, the United States Government approved redress of $20,000 to each surviving Japanese-American who had been interned. 

I spoke with Mr. Shimamoto at that time and was impressed by his simple acceptance that the United States had made a mistake. He was not bitter and expressed love for this country.

In the aftermath of Japan attacking the United States at Pearl Harbor two months earlier, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the order, which targeted Japanese-Americans predominantly from the West Coast. With two weeks notice, these Americans had to sell and dispose of businesses and property, to go into internment camps, which were often hastily erected at former racetracks and barracks. 

Those whose stories are told in the exhibit are still living, and their photographs are shown along with essays by a younger generation, to ponder the question which is the title of the exhibit and can be applied to post-September 11 fears for Americans of middle-eastern origin:

”If they came for me today” ...