16. The resistance to the draft at Heart Mountain
Though the United States relocated the Nisei from the exclusion zones into internment camps it did not consider Nisei men of draft age too dangerous to be conscripted into the US Army. Those who indicated on their questionnaires they would be willing to serve were drafted (if they were physically qualified), those who did not were designated disloyal and sent to Tule Lake. The Heart Mountain War Relocation Center became known as the center of an attempt to make public and resist this obvious injustice on the part of the federal government. At Heart Mountain, located in the northwestern corner of Wyoming, 85 men of draft age and seven members of a committee who encouraged Nisei to resist the draft until their rights as American citizens were restored were arrested and convicted, sentenced to imprisonment if the federal prison system.
Despite the resistance by some, more than 800 Nisei from Heart Mountain accepted the draft and joined the United States Army. Two Nisei men from Heart Mountain were awarded the Medal of Honor, both of them posthumously. Near the end of 1944 Roosevelt rescinded the executive order which created the exclusion zones and the Japanese Americans were free to leave the camps and return to their homes, if they were still there, in early 1945. They also had the option of relocating elsewhere if they wished. Those who had been convicted of draft evasion remained in prison, in many cases for several years. Those who left the camps to return home received train transportation and a voucher for $25. Those with nowhere else to go remained in the camps while the government tried to decide what to do with them.