John Nishio works to prevent history from repeating Changemaker: Former Chico State University Prof Nishio organizes pilgrimage

by Yucheng Tang
posted March 1

Editor: This is the second story in our monthly Changemaker series.

Former Chico State professor John Nishio has ample reason to organize a pilgrimage honoring Japanese American prisoners of war.

His father and grandparents were among those held captive during World War II, and as a biologist, he believes he’s found a link between his field of science and his family history.

Epigenetic markers are the environmental factors that impact gene expressions, he said. Some of these markers, or chemicals, he explained, can attach to the DNA and be transferred to successive generations.

Some of them, he said, “are related to stress, so the stress that my father experienced during the war could have been passed on to me.”

In 1942, the United States forcibly relocated and incarcerated 120,000 people of Japanese descent in 10 prison camps. Nishio’s father and paternal grandparents were all placed in the Jerome camp in Arkansas.

As co-founder of the Jerome Rohwer Committee, a non profit that is organizing its first pilgrimage in honor of the thousands of non-convicted prisoners who were placed in prison camps, Nishio believes in the importance of remembering history — especially in an era of growing challenges to immigrant rights.

“If we teach people what happened, there’s an inkling of a possibility that they may understand it enough that they won’t repeat it,” he said.

The Jerome Rohwer Committee has focused on the pilgrimage so far, but Nishio has a more ambitious vision.

“Because Jerome and Rohwer are the most eastward camps, if we could establish some educational centers in Arkansas, that would be the most eastward interpretive center for the U.S. concentration camps,” Nishio said. “People in the East would come to Arkansas to learn about that history.”

The Jerome camp was officially called the “Jerome War Relocation Center” and was located in southeastern Arkansas near the town of Jerome. The Rohwer camp was named the “Rohwer Relocation Center” and was 27 miles from Jerome.

The words “relocation” and “internment” to describe what happened are inaccurate, and now widely considered to be misleading euphemisms. Nishio, other Japanese Americans and scholars say the more accurate term is “concentration camps,” which is what Jerome and Rohwer are called by Densho, a nonprofit that documents this history.

“It’s ‘concentration camp,’ not ‘internment camp,’ not ‘relocation center,'” Nishio told ChicoSol. “[Internment] is what the government used to soften the crime they committed.”

Between 1942 and 1945, Jerome held 8,497 people at its peak; more than 8,000 were imprisoned at Rohwer in McGehee, Ark.

For those incarcerated, who lost properties, lands, and freedom, their experience in the camps became a lifelong trauma and a subject often shrouded in silence.

“If we teach people what happened, there’s an inkling of a possibility that they may understand it enough that they won’t repeat it” — John Nishio

Nishio, who was born in 1951, first heard of the concentration camp when his older brother wrote an essay on it for a high school assignment in 1965.

“I was in 8th grade then and I didn’t really understand what was going on,” Nishio said. “My parents never talked about it.”

In the 1970s, Nishio got exposed to this history at UC Santa Cruz. He started reading more about the concentration camps on his own.

“The civil liberties of the Japanese and Japanese Americans were completely taken from them,” Nishio said. “They gave up their property, they gave up their lives, they gave up everything forcibly. I shouldn’t even say they gave it up. It was stripped from them.”

Nishio, with his long white hair, white beard, and deep, expressive eyes, is usually a soft-spoken man, but when he talks about the camps, he becomes intensely serious.

“When you learn what the United States government did, if you’re not angry, then you’re not a human being,” he said.

He also started to understand his parents’ behavior more after learning that history. Nishio grew up in the Fresno area, and as a Japanese descendant, he never learned to speak Japanese or wear traditional Japanese clothing. That was an intentional choice by his parents, he said.

One of the few traditional elements in his childhood life was Japanese food, because food could be enjoyed only at home and not be seen by people outside the family.

“They didn’t want me to have an accent,” Nishio said. “They wanted us to fit in. I understand that my parents had pressure on them to help us succeed, to protect us. They were going to do everything to not have [incarceration] happen to their children.”

Diane Suzuki-Brobeck, a Japanese American who lives in Chico, had a similar experience in that she learned about the history as an adult. She said that both sides of her family were incarcerated in the camps. Her father was in Gila River in Arizona, and her mother was in Rohwer.

Growing up, she always thought the “camp” occasionally mentioned in her parents’ conversations was some summer camp. She talked with her parents about the camp for the first time in her 20s.

Her “patriotic and enduring” father always thought of the camp as the government’s protection for the Japanese community against racism and danger. She, however, is more inclined to believe what she once heard at a workshop: “If it was for our protection, why were their guns faced inwards rather than outwards?”

In 2001, when more and more third-generation Japanese Americans started recording the history, Nishio interviewed his father about his experience in the camp and taped the conversation. Nishio’s father, George Nishio, told a story that impressed his son.

When the Army came to the Jerome camp to recruit men to fight in the war, the older Nishio gave a speech, expressing his objection to the recruitment and to segregation in the military. “The fact that we’re here in prison is a violation of all the democratic principles that we learned and believed in, and then you have the nerve to ask us to join…,” the older Nishio said to his son, recalling his words from that moment.

When he finished, the camp residents applauded.

“He said that when he was done, the captain didn’t say anything, just packed up and left. So that’s why I think my dad kind of felt good about what he had done,” Nishio said.

This story inspired Nishio. Looking back, he wishes he had done more to learn about his dad’s experience during the war. He didn’t realize how many questions he still wanted to ask until after his father passed away.

Nishio moved to Chico in 2002 from Wyoming to teach at Chico State.

In recent years, Nishio said he has spent more time riding his bicycle, watching movies and reading a lot of news on his phone.

“I am always involved in the environment and politics on my Facebook page. I’m always writing stuff like that because I am very concerned about our culture,” he said.

In 2024, he formed the Jerome Rohwer Committee to raise funds for the pilgrimage that will begin on May 21. The committee has a fund at North Valley Community Foundation.

Suzuki-Brobeck is considering joining the pilgrimage to visit the site of her mother’s incarceration.

Both Nishio and Suzuki-Brobeck told ChicoSol that when 9/11 occurred and Muslims came under attack, the first people who came to their aid were the Japanese Americans, who had also suffered discrimination and unfair treatment.

“There’s no doubt that the Japanese Americans understood what was going on,” Nishio said. “We still support the Muslims. Now we’re supporting the Palestinians. [It’s the] same thing — people are turning others into enemies when they’re not.”

Yucheng Tang is a California Local News Fellow reporting for ChicoSol.

An addition was made to this story on March 3 to explain the terminology used to describe camps where thousands of Japanese American families were held.

We’re on the lookout for interesting people — particularly people who have flown under the radar — doing positive work in the community for our Changemaker series. If you have an idea, send it to chicosolnews@gmail.com