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Joni was just three-years-old when she was declared an enemy alien, even though she was an American citizen.
President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order9066 under the Alien Enemies Act after Pearl Harbor. It forced approximately 122,000 people of Japanese descent to report to the government for, what they called, evacuation. Joni and her parents were stripped of their belongings and shipped off to the internment camp, Minidoka, in the Idaho desert. It took decades for Joni to fully grasp the magnitude of what she’d lived through, and to realize how important it is for her to speak out.
Many Roads to Here is a production of The Immigrant Story.
This episode was produced by H. Conley, who also handled the audio editing, with post-production by Gregg Palmer. The original interview was conducted by Sankar Raman in April 2025.
Thank you to St. Andrew Lutheran Church in Beaverton for the use of their space to record the interview.
This episode is a part of a series exploring the stories and experiences of Asian Americans in a climate of Anti-Asian rhetoric and increasing violence. It is produced as part of the Oregon Rises Above Hate coalition and made possible by a generous contribution by Anne Naito-Campbell.
To learn more about the Oregon Rises Above Hate Coalition, please visit https://oregonrisesabovehate.com.
For more stories, visit theimmigrantstory.org/manyroads, listen live at prp.fm, or stream us wherever you get your podcasts.
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