A DEGREE OF RESPECT INTERNED STUDENTS GETTING DIPLOMAS.Byline: Karen Maeshiro Staff Writer LANCASTER - Tom Shiokari may be 78 years old, but today he will don a cap and gown and walk across a stage in a graduation ceremony - something he never got to do 61 years ago in Lancaster. Shiokari was 15 when he and his family were forced to board a bus guarded by soldiers at the old Palmdale train station and were taken to an internment camp in Arizona. They were among 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry, many of them American-born, who were ordered relocated by the U.S. government to 10 internment camps in the western United States Noun 1. western United States - the region of the United States lying to the west of the Mississippi River West Santa Fe Trail - a trail that extends from Missouri to New Mexico; an important route for settlers moving west in the 19th century in 1942 following the attack on Pearl Harbor Pearl Harbor, land-locked harbor, on the southern coast of Oahu island, Hawaii, W of Honolulu; one of the largest and best natural harbors in the E Pacific Ocean. In the vicinity are many U.S. military installations, including the chief U.S. . For the next two years, Shiokari lived at the Poston Relocation Center relocation center, in U.S. history, camp in which Japanese and Japanese-Americans were interned during World War II. Fearing a Japanese invasion, the military leaders, under authority of an executive order, defined (Mar. , erected on an American Indian American Indian or Native American or Amerindian or indigenous American Any member of the various aboriginal peoples of the Western Hemisphere, with the exception of the Eskimos (Inuit) and the Aleuts. reservation, where he finished high school in buildings made by internees out of adobe because there was not enough lumber. He went on to study engineering at the University of Nebraska and later at University of California, Los Angeles UCLA comprises the College of Letters and Science (the primary undergraduate college), seven professional schools, and five professional Health Science schools. Since 2001, UCLA has enrolled over 33,000 total students, and that number is steadily rising. , and then worked in the aerospace industry until retiring 12 years ago to live in Rancho Palos Verdes Rancho Pal·os Ver·des A city of southern California on a channel of the Pacific Ocean west of Long Beach. Population: 42,100. . Today, he and his wife, Nobuko, who was interned at Manzanar, will attend the special graduation ceremony in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. made possible by state legislation that authorizes school districts to retroactively award diplomas to students who were interned during the war. ``Sacramento went through all this trouble to do this. Well, I thought I'd better follow through. It has no value, but it's a nice gesture that they would go and do that,'' Shiokari said. ``It's just like when I graduated from college. It's a great feeling. It's a milestone.'' About 60 ``graduates'' will take part in the event at Los Angeles Trade Technical College. They will wear donated gowns, march down an aisle to ``Pomp and Circumstance,'' and when their name is called, receive a special certificate. The actual diploma from their school district will be mailed later. About 170 people in Los Angeles County applied for belated diplomas, but not all can attend the ceremony, said Vicky Limon, marketing coordinator for the Los Angeles County Office of Education, which helped put on the event. ``It's quite touching. I had a gentlemen who was obviously in a state where he is barely able to walk and speak, but he was concerned about making sure that he receives his diploma,'' Limon said. ``He wanted to make sure we got his application and came in person to drop it off. It was quite emotional.'' Shiokari was born in 1927 in Lancaster, where his parents farmed alfalfa alfalfa (ălfăl`fə) or lucern (l  sûn`), perennial leguminous plant (Medicago sativa on a 70-acre ranch about 11 miles west of the city. They were among about a dozen Japanese families who farmed in the area. When Shiokari was just a year old his father, Masajiro, was killed in a farming accident. His mother, Haru, married a cook from Los Angeles named Fred Kobayashi, who took over the farming business. But within a week of the Pearl Harbor attack Pearl Harbor attack (Dec. 7, 1941) Surprise aerial attack by the Japanese on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on Oahu island, Hawaii, that precipitated U.S. entry into World War II. In the decade preceding the attack, U.S. , the FBI jailed Shiokari's father, who had become a leader in the Japanese-American community. For a while he was detained in a makeshift jail in Tujunga. At the time, Shiokari was a sophomore at what was then Antelope Valley This article is about the Los Angeles County region. For the census-designated place in Wyoming, see Antelope Valley-Crestview, Wyoming. The Antelope Valley Joint Union High School, the only high school in the valley, Shiokari recalled. He came home from school to find his father gone. ``My mom, she was a very strong woman. She took it very bravely. She was not in tears,'' Shiokari said. In February, Shiokari stopped going to school because of a curfew that required Japanese residents to stay within five miles of their home. And then the family received an order to evacuate their home by May 1942. They had about a month to make arrangements for their property and belongings. They put what they could not take with them - adults were allowed to bring two suitcases, children one - into one room of their house. Furniture, kitchen appliances, a Japanese shrine that is used to honor the dead - all were boarded up in the room and the family leased the ranch. Shiokari recalled the evacuation. ``We had to draw the shades. It was not until a couple of hours later they let us open the shades. We were then in the desert. ... When we got to camp, we didn't know where we were. About a month later we figured out it was Poston, Arizona Poston is a census-designated place (CDP) in La Paz County, Arizona in the United States of America. The population was 389 at the 2000 census. During World War II, Poston was the site of the Poston War Relocation Center, which was one of the United States' largest Japanese ,'' Shiokari said. The 12 other Japanese farming families also were sent to Poston, which consisted of three separate camps housing about 18,000 internees. Shiokari said the camp was a harsh experience but he remembers certain aspects with a bit of fondness. ``The thing that was noticeable, I recall, was when we first entered it there was high security, military guards. They slowly disappeared. When they disappeared we were free to leave camp. I would frequently take a hike to the Colorado River and go fishing and swimming. When it was cooler, I would head to the desert gulches and hunt for ironwood ironwood: see hornbeam. ironwood Any of numerous trees and shrubs, found worldwide, that have exceptionally tough or hard wood useful for timber, fence posts, and tool handles. ,'' he said. He brought home the hard and dark wood to his parents, who sculpted sculpt v. sculpt·ed, sculpt·ing, sculpts v.tr. 1. To sculpture (an object). 2. To shape, mold, or fashion especially with artistry or precision: it. ``We had lots of time in camp. You could play. There were no chores to do,'' Shiokari said. ``The hardship was on our parents because they really lost. But guys like me, a teenager, it was a chance for us to grow and get exposed to other parts of the world and be on your own,'' he said. Had he stayed in Lancaster, Shiokari said he would have become a farmer. ``But when you left the farm and went to camp, I thought maybe do something that I want to do,'' he said. Still, there were limits. ``You couldn't do what other boys were doing who were not in camp. You couldn't go to the corner drugstore to have a Coke or go to the movies. You were restrained within that mile-square fenced-in area,'' he said. The first thing he did when he arrived at the University of Nebraska was go to a corner drugstore and imbibe the All-American beverage. He attended Nebraska for two years before his family called him back to help with a new family venture. They had returned to Lancaster after getting out of camp in 1945 but found all their possessions gone. A week after they returned, shots were fired into the house while they slept at night. They sold the farm and opened a chop suey restaurant on West Adams Boulevard near the University of Southern California The U.S. News & World Report ranked USC 27th among all universities in the United States in its 2008 ranking of "America's Best Colleges", also designating it as one of the "most selective universities" for admitting 8,634 of the almost 34,000 who applied for freshman admission . Shiokari enrolled in UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX and graduated with a degree in general engineering in 1950 and went on to obtain a master's degree in engineering in 1960. He worked for Lockheed, did structural research work at a Santa Barbara firm, and then joined The Aerospace Corp., where he worked for 33 years. He has three sons and 10 grandchildren. Karen Maeshiro, (661) 257-5744 karen.maeshiro(at)dailynews.com CAPTION(S): 2 photos Photo: (1 -- color) Tom Shiokari was a teenager in Lancaster when he and his family were forced to board a bus guarded by soldiers at the old Palmdale train station and were taken to an internment camp in Arizona. Today he will get a high school diploma A high school diploma is a diploma awarded for the completion of high school. In the United States and Canada, it is considered the minimum education required for government jobs and higher education. An equivalent is the GED. . (2) Tom Shiokari sits near an actual building from a World War II internment camp at the Japanese American National Museum The Japanese American National Museum opened its doors in 1992. The museum is located in the Little Tokyo area near downtown Los Angeles, California. It is devoted to preserving the history and culture of Japanese Americans. in Los Angeles. Shiokari was interned as a teenager in Arizona. John Lazar/Staff Photographer |
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