The Mexican American who chose detention with his Japanese neighbors in WWII

In late March of 1942, barely three months after declaring war on Japan, the U.S. government began to forcibly "evacuate" Japanese American citizens from their homes on the West Coast and in southern Arizona, in what would become the largest forced relocation in American history. At least 112,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese heritage were detained for the duration of World War II, including nearly 30,000 mostly school-age children.

At that time, anti-Japanese resentment was such that few Americans stood up for their fellow citizens. Nearly every major daily newspaper in the country backed internment. Many published outright racist anti-Japanese propaganda. Public, political and judicial support for the detentions of Japanese was formidable.

The only elected leader to take a public stand against internment was Colorado Gov. Ralph Lawrence Carr. While later honored with a statue by Denver's Japanese American community, Carr was rewarded by the voters with a prompt defeat in the next election. For Japanese American citizens suffering this hostile, unjust and humiliating action, friends were hard to come by. 

The Japanese have a saying: "Shikata ga nai," meaning, "It can't be helped." And that was the feeling among them and the few non-Japanese Americans who supported them. The friends that the Japanese Americans had could do little more than shake their hands and wish them a safe return as everyone held back tears. Most Americans were more than happy to see them go.

By May, the forced removals reached Los Angeles. As the Japanese families of the diverse Temple Hill neighborhood were being rounded up, tagged for removal and sent to Manzanar camp in California's Owens Valley, a 17-year-old Mexican American named Ralph Lazo was planning to do more than shake hands and say goodbye.

Most of us imagine that when the stakes are high and the chips are down, we will rise to the occasion and stand on the side of the oppressed, the wronged, the victimized. Most of us never get that chance. In the middle of this outbreak of extremism and fear, Lazo saw his chance to choose a side, and he took it.

One morning, he packed a bag and wrote a note to his dad stating that he'd gone to camp for the summer. He caught a train to Manzanar, where he reported for internment with his fellow classmates from Belmont High School. Though he could not know it at the time, Lazo became the only non-spouse, non-Japanese who voluntarily relocated to Manzanar. 

Since California declared anyone with 1/16th or more Japanese lineage as subject to internment, Lazo didn't need to look very Japanese. He didn't need the darker features of his Mexican American mother, Rose Padilla. Camp authorities did not challenge Lazo, and he was admitted to the facility. That was many months before his father became aware of Ralph's actions, but he did not object. 

For the next two and a half years, Lazo stood in solidarity with his classmates, friends and neighbors, and bore witness to their plight. He was elected class president in 1944, and remained at Manzanar until he was drafted into the U.S. Army in August 1944. Only then did authorities discover that Lazo was Mexican American, not Japanese American. He went on to serve as a staff sergeant in the South Pacific, where he fought with distinction and earned a Bronze Star for heroism in combat.

After the war, Lazo returned to Los Angeles, where he earned degrees in sociology and education from UCLA and Cal State Northridge, respectively. He became a teacher and a mentor to Hispanic and disabled students, whom he encouraged to attend college and to vote. 

Lazo remained a lifelong friend to and a strong advocate for the Japanese American community. He helped raise funds in support of a class action lawsuit seeking reparations for the wrongful and illegal detention of Japanese Americans during the war. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times in 1981, Lazo urged the paper to focus on the injustice done to those who were detained. 

“Please write about the injustice of the evacuation,” he said. “This is the real issue.”

The efforts to correct that injustice resulted in the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan, in which the U.S. government officially apologized for the internment of Japanese Americans, calling it the result of "race prejudice, war hysteria and a failure of political leadership." The act also provided $20,000 each for interned citizens.

By refusing to allow hysteria to vilify people he knew to be good, by choosing to share the injustice thrown upon his fellow citizens by living it with them in quiet solidarity, and by fighting steadily for justice over decades, Lazo proved himself to be a great Mexican American and a credit to all Americans.

The spirit of Lazo lives on wherever people take a stand against injustice toward others. It lives on in our thriving border community, where millions of Mexicans and Americans strive for solidarity and community in the face of efforts to separate us with a wall. It lives on in thousands of acts of kindness, whenever people leave water for desert travelers or stop to help someone in need without looking for thanks or a photo-op.

As you spend time reflecting this Memorial Day, take a minute to remember the resounding example set by quiet leaders like Ralph Lazo.

Ralph Lazo's story is told in the 2004 narrative short film “Stand Up for Justice: The Ralph Lazo Story.”