'His life mattered': Descendants of Topaz inmates remember man killed 80 years ago

SALT LAKE CITY — More than 2,000 inmates gathered at a site at the Topaz War Relocation Center on April 19, 1943, to remember James Hatsuaki Wakasa, a man who was shot and killed by a sentry near a fence about a half-mile from them the week before.

With no access to flowers in the desert, the women in the camp folded thousands of paper flowers to make about 30 wreaths and ornaments for the event, says Nancy Ukai, who thoroughly researched Wakasa's life and death for 50 Objects, a history project to share the stories of the Japanese-Americans who were arrested and sent to relocation centers all over the U.S.

Ukai points out that the inmates had requested to come together at the site of Wakasa's death, which the U.S. military denied. But now, 80 years later, the children and grandchildren of Topaz survivors are finally able to give him a proper funeral with what they now know about him and his death.

Descendants from all over Utah and the world are gathering in Salt Lake City and Delta this weekend to remember a man who became a face of injustice in an event led by the Topaz Museum Board and the Wakasa Memorial Committee. The events will conclude with a ceremony at the site where Wakasa died.

"We are finally fulfilling the wish of our ancestors 80 years later," says Ukai, a member of the Wakasa Memorial Committee.

Who was James Hatsuaki Wakasa?

Congress passed a bill in 1988 that acknowledged the "grave injustice" of the relocation camps that "were motivated by racial prejudice, wartime hysteria and a failure of political leadership." But what happened to Wakasa was another injustice, said Floyd Mori, former president of the Japanese American Citizens League.

After finishing dinner on April 11, 1943, the 63-year-old Wakasa took his dog out for a walk on the grounds of the Topaz War Relocation Center when he was fatally shot by a guardsman in a tower more than 200 yards away.

There are differing accounts of what happened that evening. The U.S. military quickly claimed that Wakasa was shot after attempting to escape from the relocation center, which ended up in the newspapers the following day. The Salt Lake Telegram reported at the time that Wakasa "was attempting to crawl through the fence surrounding the residential area and failed to heed four warnings from sentries in two towers."

But the final military findings and accounts from others at the time tell a different story, Ukai says. Some witnesses said Wakasa was trying to help his dog that got caught in the barbed wire fence before he was shot. Meanwhile, the report found that Wakasa was shot in the chest and that he fell parallel to the fence, contrary to the report given directly after his death.

The guardsman was tried and cleared in a court martial trial quietly held weeks later, and inmates were never told about the findings, she said.

Inmates also constructed a memorial for Wakasa; however, guards told them to destroy it. They buried the monument instead. Ukai's research led to a forgotten map, which contained information that helped state and federal archeologists recover the monument a few years ago.

A descendant of Topaz survivors, Ukai became interested in Wakasa's life because all she knew of him was his death — and that didn't sit well with her.

"When you think about it, if your relative or your friend died in a violent hate crime, you wouldn't want them to be remembered for that," she said. "That also motivated me to try and learn more about him."

She dug through documents and retraced steps but the most definite information she could find came from self-reported information. Wakasa was born in Japan in 1880, attending high school in the Tokyo area before attending Keio University, majoring in economics and minoring in history. He ended up in the U.S. at some point, receiving postgraduate education at the University of Wisconsin between 1914 and 1916.

There aren't many collaborating records, though Ukai says they may have been lost in time. She adds that Wakasa may have worked on a ship at the point he came to America, which could explain why she couldn't find records of him coming to the U.S. There weren't as strict immigration requirements for ship workers at the time.

After finding so few records, she said she briefly questioned if Wakasa even existed at times. It's a thought she quickly dropped. The monument to his life left at Topaz is all the evidence that she needed to know who he was and how important he was to those who knew him.

"What we have is a thin paper trail on one hand and 2,400 pounds worth of evidence on the other that he existed," she said. "His life mattered."

Remembering Wakasa 80 years later

Eighty years later, descendants plan to retrace Wakasa's final steps before holding a similar ceremony to the one conducted in 1943 — this time in the spot it was intended to be in. Students from Utah, other U.S. states, and even as far as Japan, folded paper into flowers and cranes that will be left at an altar at the site where he died.

"Some of them even folded origami dogs, which really touched me," Ukai said.

The events will end with a purification ritual ceremony at the memorial stone, as a recital of the 143 other people who died at Topaz before it was closed down in 1945. Leaders of multiple faiths from California and Utah are a part of the weekend events.

Troy Watanabe, president of the Salt Lake City Buddhist Temple, explained that the events are meant to acknowledge what happened to Wakasa and the Japanese-American community in the 1940s so that it never happens again to anyone.

"We hope that — by coming to Utah to honor Mr. Wakasa, grieve over his violent death and the conditions that led to his murder — we can unite, heal and remember," he said. "Only when we gather as a community are we able to support each other's healing, to mourn, to mend and renew ourselves."

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