Togo W. Tanaka, a former journalist and businessman whose reports on life inside the Manzanar Internment camp illuminated divisions in the Japanese American community after the attack on Pearl Harbor, has died. He was 93: Togo W. Tanaka dies at 93; journalist documented life at Manzanar internment camp.
As editor of the English-language section of the Rafu Shimpo, Tanaka helped oversee the last issue in the spring of 1942 before 110,000 Japanese Americans on the West Coast were rounded up under Executive Order 9066 and forced to relocate to detention centers scattered across several states.
Tanaka was sent to Manzanar, where he worked as a camp historian documenting the internee experience for the War Relocation Authority. He also wrote reports for a UC Berkeley study on the evacuation and resettlement of Japanese Americans during the war.
According to historians, Tanaka's diligent reporting on every aspect of camp life, including political factions dividing Manzanar's population, apparently got him into a lot of trouble. HIs reports are considered a rare and intelligent window into not just Manzanar but Japanese American life in pre-war Los Angeles.
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