Setsuko's Secret

August 24, 2020
Higuchi, chair of the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation, examines “the triumphs and the turmoil” of Japanese-Americans interned by the U.S. government during WWII in this evocative account. Higuchi’s parents met as sixth-graders at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center, where they were held from 1942 to 1944, and her mother, Setsuko Saito Higuchi, insisted that the “camp” was “fun” because it’s where she met her husband. Only after Setsuko’s death from pancreatic cancer did Higuchi, who took over her mom’s work at a museum at the Heart Mountain site, learn about the hunger, humiliation, and loss she had suffered. Higuchi interviewed friends and relatives in the U.S. and Japan, and delved into the history of the internment camp, including the refusal of young male internees to comply with a military draft. She also details the roles of President Franklin Roosevelt, Lt. Gen. John DeWitt, and California attorney general Earl Warren in justifying, devising, and implementing the relocation policy, and chronicles the war years of prominent Japanese Americans including Hawaii senator Daniel Inouye and U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta. Throughout, Higuchi describes the traumatic effects on the children and grandchildren of the 120,000 incarcerees. The result is a well-informed and deeply moving study of the long-term effects of a dark chapter in American history.