Richard de Queiroz was a teenager in Los Angeles in February 1942, when President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order requiring that “all persons deemed a threat to national security” be  removed from the West Coast.  

Richard’s father was from Mexico, and his maternal grandparents were from Japan. His ancestry meant he was a “threat,” according to the government. He was about to become one of more than 120,000 people in the U.S. of Japanese descent to be incarcerated in World War II internment camps. 

Richard and his family were sent to the Granada War Relocation Center, also known as Camp Amache, in Granada, Colo. He was interned there for two years, from ages 15 to 17. He had a girlfriend there. After she left the camp for a school in Connecticut, Richard wrote her letters. 

Alan de Queiroz, Richard’s son, has those letters today.  

“It was almost like summer camp or something,” Alan said. “As a kid, that’s the impression I had from him. … If you read them, there’s actually nothing in there that would indicate there’s anything unusual going on.” For example, Richard wrote to his girlfriend about going to dances and buying records in a nearby town. 

“But then every once in a while, some things come up,” said Alan. “There’s one letter where he talks about how some of his friends feel like they have no place in this country. Other things that he said later made it clear that it had actually scarred him pretty deeply.”  

Richard told Alan that he distrusted the country, and that he thought something similar to the incarceration of Japanese residents could happen again—if not to the Japanese, then to some other group.  

Alan, along with three other locals of Japanese heritage, will gather at the Nevada Museum of Art to discuss the stories of Richard and others who were incarcerated in the camps. Among the reasons for the gathering are to recognize the 83rd anniversary of FDR’s order, and to honor the people affected by it.  

“The bigger point is to remember in general that it’s this ongoing struggle,” said Alan. “It’s not like suddenly prejudice has disappeared or something. I think of the day of remembrance as a time to recognize the need to fight oppression of all kinds, not just mistreatment of immigrants, but also mistreatment of many other groups, whether they’re defined by ethnicity, race, religion or gender identity.” 

He added that such mistreatment feels more prominent now than it has in recent years, citing President Trump’s often-repeated false claim that “other countries are emptying out their prisons and insane asylums and mental institutions and sending their most heinous criminals to the United States.” 

Alan hears in Trump’s claim the echoes of the fed’s assertion that Japanese Americans were in cahoots with Japan during WWII. “There’s actually no evidence that that was happening,” he said. 

Nevada Humanities and the Japanese American Citizens League present The Power of Stories: Remembering Japanese American Incarceration, featuring Alan de Queiroz; Nancy Mattson, whose parents were interned in Arizona; Meredith Oda, a professor of history at the University of Nevada, Reno; and Rhoda Kealoha Thalman, a board member of the Japanese American Citizens League. The event takes place from 6 to 8 p.m., Wednesday, March 12, at the Nevada Museum of Art, at 160 W. Liberty St., in Reno. Admission is free, but registration is required. To learn more or register, visit www.nevadahumanities.org. 

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