Ralph Lazo

Thanks for the April 5 article about Ralph Lazo, who chose to join his Japanese friends when they were interned at Manzanar. I look at the class picture and wonder how many of those shown fought and died for the country that interned their families? I’m glad you quoted the racist statements by news columnists of the time. It puts the lie to those who today claim we were only doing it for the safety of the internees.

It was also informative to learn that the California Farm Bureau was also behind this infamous chapter in American history. Could it be that the white farmers were jealous of the hard-working and successful Japanese farmers?

ALEX MAGDALENO

Camarillo

* The basis for your article--that Lazo was “the only non-Japanese in any of the internment camps”--is not true.

My Irish grandmother, Margaret Brennan Kawasaki, was interned in Poston. She immigrated to America from Ireland. In America she married my grandfather, Goro Kawasaki, himself an immigrant from Japan. They and their American-born children, John (my father) and Cecelia (my aunt), were forced to leave their homes and reside in Poston. Although my father rarely speaks of his time there, he said there were people of many nationalities living in Poston.

LAURA KAWASAKI NEWLAND

Ventura