Peek in the Park: Leave Passes

By Ryley Brown, Park Ranger, Minidoka NHS

Tom Matsumoto’s Daily Work Pass, which allowed him to leave Minidoka for work from 8 am to 5 pm, presumably during the harvest season.

From the very beginning, when politicians and federal bureaucrats were planning to incarcerate Japanese Americans, labor was a driving factor. Some Japanese Americans who were removed from the West Coast never even made it to camp. They were relocated directly from the temporary detention centers to farms. When Japanese Americans arrived at camp, they were put to work building the rest of the barracks, and shortly afterwards they started to irrigate and farm land that was managed by the WRA. In May 1942, the WRA started granting Temporary Leave to Work. Thousands of men and women would leave the camp to work on surrounding farms.

In the collection on display at Minidoka, we have one of the passes that someone would have used to leave and return to camp. This one is mostly blank, but there are spots to record the number of days someone was away from camp, and how much their housing and meals would have cost. Some workers would leave camp for the day and return at night, but others would live on farms for an extended period.   

At first, many locals were wary of Japanese Americans working on surrounding farmland. In February 1942, the Twin Falls Times-News ran the headline, “Farmers Oppose Enemy Aliens.” Nevertheless, with the war causing a labor shortage, farmers quickly realized they would need more farm laborers. By September, the tone of papers had changed with the Idaho Daily Statesman writing:

“To save food-for-freedom crops threatened by the wartime labor shortage, hundreds of Japanese volunteer workers from Minidoka war relocation center are moving into the sugar beet, potato and onion fields of Idaho and Montana.”

But that article only referred to a small portion of the laborers sent out of camp. In 1942, around 10,000 workers from all 10 camps left to perform seasonal work. It’s estimated that they saved one-fifth of the country's sugar beet crop. For many people, this was a way to leave camp permanently. By 1944, more than half of these workers were able to convert their seasonal leave into indefinite leave.

The WRA touted these accomplishments as proof that “relocation” was successful. While Japanese Americans had a lot to be proud of, the language the WRA used obfuscated the cost of these programs. Japanese Americans were not “allowed” to work on farms. They were removed to rural parts of the country and given limited options – they were effectively coerced into this labor. Many of these laborers had to sell their farms for below the market value. By the end of the war, only one quarter of Japanese American farmers had land to return to.

For many, a leave pass like this one was a ticket to freedom – maybe for a day, maybe indefinitely. They could leave the barbed wire fence at least for a little bit. But it was also a reminder – especially as they received the large blue “RE-INDUCTION” stamp – that their freedom had been unjustly taken away.