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Memo to the Incarcerated Women of Minidoka
NPS Collections - Minidoka NHS, MIIN 99 – Boilermen Strike Letter. Donor: Gene Itogawa, on behalf of Tom and Suma Matsumoto
Article Written By Nicole Martin, PhD
“A delegation of women representing families in all the blocks of the camp have come to me making demands that they have hot water immediately.”
This remarkable line begins a January 1944 memorandum, written by an administrator to the “boilermen, janitors, and janitresses” of the Minidoka incarceration site.1 It reveals an often-overlooked dimension of wartime incarceration: acts of resistance led by women. Due to racial prejudice, innocent Japanese Americans were assumed to be disloyal to the United States. At the same time, societal expectations pressured women to refrain from voicing their dissent. In spite of these concerns, Japanese American women bravely demanded that administrators address their dehumanizing living conditions.2
The Boilermen Strike
Dozens of “women representing families” came together because they had been without hot water for several days due to a labor strike. In late 1943, the War Relocation Authority (WRA)—which oversaw the incarceration sites—had issued orders from Washington, D.C. headquarters: Minidoka had to reduce the number of boilermen and janitorial staff while increasing the number of hours they worked. By early January 1944, the 160 incarcerated men and women who worked these jobs decided to strike in protest of unfair labor conditions. They shut off hot water throughout the camp, only sparing the hospital in order to protect the community’s most vulnerable.3
National Archives and Records Administration via Densho Digital Repository
Camp Living Conditions
A lack of hot water during the winter made already unbearable camp conditions worse. The Minidoka incarceration site was built in Idaho’s high desert. The barracks had been hastily built with green wood that had shrunk, leaving gaps in the uninsulated walls, letting in the cold from freezing temperatures and high winds. Having been forced from their homes in the west coast exclusion area, sometimes in a matter of days, most were not prepared for the high desert winter conditions or the crude construction.4One formerly incarcerated woman remembered,
“It was cold in the winter, oh my goodness it was cold. When our Bruce was born in December…the icicles hanging there [the water tower] were dangerous weapons, they were huge. That’s how cold it was in Idaho in the winter.”5
Courtesy of the Bigelow Family Collection, Densho Digital Repository
In addition to the intolerable cold, the camp’s crowded and unsanitary conditions only worsened without hot water. There were six families per barrack and twelve barracks per block. Each block had one mess hall and one bathroom facility meant for over 300 people to share, in a camp that confined almost 10,000 people at its peak. Outbreaks of food poisoning and tuberculosis were common in such packed conditions. Without hot water, washing diapers and keeping children clean became nearly impossible, further increasing health risks to the community at large.
Women’s Community Influence
After being without hot water for two days, seventy-five Issei and Nisei women organized a sit-in at the offices of the camp’s assistant director. The women successfully insisted a letter be sent on their behalf as “women and mothers” to the WRA director in Washington, D.C. They demanded the administration immediately restore the hot water by meeting the resolutions of the striking workers. They made a simple but powerful argument from their perspective as mothers, wives, and sisters.
“Many of us have sons, husbands, and brothers in the armed forces doing their share for this country,” they wrote, “and yet we have to go through these hardships when a little effort on your part may straighten out this uncomfortable situation in which we are only victims of circumstances.”6
It is telling that it was women who confronted the administrators, rather than the striking workers or the camp’s block managers. Acts of resistance were not always viewed favorably amongst incarcerees. Many Japanese Americans felt tremendous pressure to prove their loyalty to the United States by complying with the government’s orders. But during the sit-in, the women deflected any blame placed on the boilermen by the assistant director. Their association with the domestic sphere was a strength in this particular circumstance. By explicitly framing their efforts through their role as mothers, it likely encouraged other workers and community members to also stand in solidarity with the strikers. Soon after the women’s letter was sent, negotiations began and hot water was restored within a week.7
The women’s support in the labor strike is all the more significant when considering the imbalance of power that defined life in confinement. Incarcerees were surrounded by armed guards, had restricted communication with the outside world, and were forced to rely on authorities for food and necessities. The boilermen’s situation shows how these conditions exacerbated the potential for camp workers to be mistreated. Furthermore, Japanese Americans were vulnerable to possible punishment. The courage of the Minidoka women to protect their families and community brought a sense of decency to a “home” that was anything but decent.8
1 To learn more about current best practices of terminology for the history of the mass incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII, see Terminology and the Mass Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II (U.S. National Park Service) (nps.gov).
2 For a more comprehensive overview of Japanese immigrant women’s organizing efforts during mass incarceration, See Nina Wallace, “Issei Mothers Played an Important—and Largely Forgotten—Role in the Japanese American Draft Resistance Movement,” Denshō, May 5, 2021.
3 "Boilerman Issue Cuts Off Hot Water Supply. Negotiations Held Throughout Week to Straighten Out Labor Troubles," Minidoka Irrigator, January 8, 1944; "Hunt Has Hot Water As Boilermen Return: 5-Point Recommendation Acceptable To Director, Maintenance Workers," Minidoka Irrigator, January 15, 1944.
4 For more on the environmental conditions in the camps, see Connie Y. Chiang, Nature Behind Barbed Wire: An Environmental History of the Japanese American Incarceration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018).
5 Kay Sakai Nakao, interview by Debra Grindeland, Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community Collection, Denshō Digital Archive, February 25, 2006.
6 Letter from “Ladies of Hunt Relocation Center” to Dillon Myer, January 6, 1944. Cited in Wallace, “Issei Mothers.”
7 For other workers responding to the strike by not working, see "Boilerman Issue Cuts Off Hot Water Supply.” On loyalty, see Brian Niiya,“Japanese American Creed,” Denshō Encyclopedia; and Hanako Wakatsuki, Mia Russell, and Carol Ash, Minidoka National Historic Site (Charleston, S.C., Arcadia Publishing, 2018).
8 For more on how Japanese immigrants were barred from naturalizing in the U.S. and Asian exclusion in the early twentieth century, see “Naturalization Act of 1790” and “Immigration Act of 1924,” Denshō Encyclopedia.
Last updated: June 11, 2024