Life at Manzanar: Jim Morita
This article was written by Matthew Jacob
This article was published in How We Played the Game: Baseball at Manzanar, 1942–1945
Jim Morita poses for a photo in April 2026 at the age of 100. (Courtesy of the Manzanar National Historic Site)
Jim Morita was born on December 19, 1925, in Fresno, California. His birth name was Masatoshi Morita. The “Jim” or “Jimmy” was added later, but he doesn’t know who chose that nickname or when it was picked.1
His father, Kamekichi Morita, was born in 1885 in Hiroshima, Japan. Kamekichi arrived in America at the age of 14, initially living with a relative in Hawaii, which was then a US territory.
About three years later, Kamekichi moved to California. Morita’s mother’s name was Masano; she was born on a farm several miles west of Hiroshima and was still living in Japan when the marriage was arranged.2 Morita’s parents were married through a “picture wedding,” a practice in which a man and woman married on the recommendation of a matchmaker who exchanged photographs of the prospective bride and groom.
Several years after the wedding was agreed to, Masano traveled by ship to reach California and meet the man she had vowed to wed. By then, Kamekichi was living in Fresno.3 The young couple lived on Fresno’s D Street, which was close to Japanese-owned businesses and a Buddhist temple. Morita’s parents were Buddhists.4
In 1929, when Jim Morita was 4 years old, his family moved to Florin, a small town just south of Sacramento. His father opened a barber shop there.5 The family’s living space and Kamekichi’s barber shop were in the same building. Although Masano cooked and managed the household, she also worked outside the home performing farm labor such as pruning vines and picking fruit.6
Jim was one of nine children. The family mostly ate Japanese foods, but once in a while, his oldest sister, Marian, would cook a more American-style dish, such as wieners or spaghetti, which Jim considered “a treat.”7
During the summers, Morita and his siblings worked as day laborers with his parents. They would wake up at 3:00 AM, climb into a flatbed pickup truck, and be driven to a farm where they would pick hops. The children would do this until early afternoon and return home.8
Baseball was at the center of Morita’s leisure activities.9 He often pitched when he and his grammar school classmates organized a ballgame. Morita said he and his friends “had to make do” with broken or second-hand bats, balls, and gloves.10
“Maybe every other day or so, we were out there in the school yard playing baseball,” he recalled. “That’s about the only activity I did. They didn’t have any basketball courts. …But we did play baseball, a lot of it.”11
Morita didn’t recall what led him to assume the role of a pitcher. “I just started pitching, and I was gifted with control,” he remarked.12
Morita remembered watching prewar baseball games played by a semipro Japanese team called the Florin Athletic Club. The team played clubs from nearby Stockton and the Bay Area. One of the team’s pitchers was Herb “Moon” Kurima, who got his nickname because his father made moonshine whiskey.13 Kurima was well-known as a hurler who produced a lot of strikeouts.14 Kurima was incarcerated at the wartime camp in Jerome, Arkansas. (To honor Japanese Americans’ baseball contributions, the Los Angeles Dodgers opened an exhibit at Dodger Stadium in 2022 that included a pair of cleats Kurima had worn.)15
High school was the first phase of Morita’s education in which the student body was integrated. Yet, Morita said he and his brothers had little interaction with Caucasian boys except for “when we used to get in fights” with them.16
Nonetheless, Morita remembered his high school years fondly. He made his mark in athletics, but not in baseball.17 Morita participated in track and set high school records for the half-mile and the 110-yard low hurdles.18 “I had made real good friends and never ran into any problems—except for a few times—until the war started,” he said. Morita said that the one non-Japanese friend he had during high school remained a friend even after the attack on Pearl Harbor.19
Our World yearbook photo of Jim Morita taken in 1944. (UCLA Library Special Collections)
The day after Pearl Harbor, FBI agents arrived in Florin and summoned many Japanese Americans for questioning. Morita said officials set an evening curfew for people of Japanese descent and imposed restrictions on how far they could travel from Florin during daytime.20
Two months later, President Franklin Roosevelt signed an executive order that forced Japanese Americans into concentration camps.21
Along with other local families, the Moritas left Florin on May 25, 1942, destined for Manzanar. It was shortly before the local high school had scheduled its graduation ceremonies. Morita’s older brother Ken was a senior and would have graduated that June with the rest of his class had the family not been forcibly moved. Jim Morita had nearly completed his sophomore year.22
The vast majority of Japanese Americans from Florin were sent to a concentration camp in Arkansas. Morita’s mother became hysterical when she learned their family would be one of the few from Florin to be sent to Manzanar. “She broke down,” he said.23
Packing was its own ordeal. “Everything that you could carry was the only thing that we were able to take,” said Morita. “So it was pretty, pretty bad. We each had a duffel bag. Our clothing was mainly [what] we had in the duffel bag.” Before departing, Morita’s father was forced to sell his 1940 Chevrolet at a rock-bottom price.24 Other than his clothing, one of the few items Morita took with him to Manzanar was his baseball glove, which had plenty of wear and tear.25
When his family arrived at the camp, Morita recalled, it was “a beautiful day, just as calm as anything, but dusty when you got off [the train]. But that night, the wind blew and it was dust, sandstorm. The windowsill was covered with sand.”26
He and his family were assigned to Block 30, Building 9 at Manzanar. Since the barracks all looked alike, Morita said inmates relied on their block and building numbers to keep them from getting lost amid the maze of buildings. All of the Japanese people who came from the Florin area were assigned to live in Block 30.27
Morita said that meals served at camp mess halls were unappetizing, but the food slowly improved, mostly because of better vegetables that were grown in camp gardens. Inmates were fed a lot of potatoes, which had not been a significant food in the traditional Japanese diet.28
Working as a cook’s aide—washing vegetables and cleaning up after the cook—was one of several jobs that Morita held at Manzanar.29
Yet, a few of his jobs were more physically demanding. One of them was carrying a five-gallon tank of heating oil to each barracks to fill their Coleman stove with oil. Another job was working as part of a roofing crew, which rolled out a tarp, cut it to align with the roof, and then nailed it to the surface. “It was hard work,” Morita said.30 One summer, camp officials allowed Morita to travel to Idaho to work on a farm, harvesting potatoes and sugar beets.31
Of all the jobs he held, Morita’s favorite was serving as an assistant to Danny Iwata, sports editor of the Manzanar Free Press. His newspaper work paid him $16 monthly, which was the most he earned while at the camp. Inmates depended on the Manzanar Free Press to inform them of important events—people getting engaged or married, and those who had died. “Without the paper, you wouldn’t know anything,” he said.32
Morita’s parents never held a job at the camp. Although he had been a barber, his father did not cut or style hair at Manzanar. Instead, he often passed the time by playing chess or other board games. Morita’s parents occasionally got involved in activities at the camp’s Buddhist temple.33
When Morita wasn’t working or attending school, the primary challenge he faced was boredom. “All we did was—I was a young kid—sit around and BS all day,” he recalled. “That was the thing, smoking a cigarette and [we] couldn’t drink. There wasn’t any bar open, but we all smoked cigarettes.”34
Baseball was one of the few activities that both helped Morita pass the time and provided a dose of pleasure.35
He was inspired to play baseball at Manzanar after getting acquainted with a male inmate who had grown up in Japan and played baseball against American teams that toured the country. Morita was fascinated by the baseball-related photos that the man showed him. This Japanese-born baseball player ended up being the manager of the Red Sox, one of the Manzanar teams for which Morita played.36
Morita pitched for the Red Sox, which were a mediocre team. “We won some, we lost some,” he said. He later played for a team named the Solons, which were named for the Sacramento Solons, a Pacific Coast League team.37
The typical uniform “wasn’t too fancy” for ballclubs at Manzanar. Morita said that players would convert a sweatshirt into a baseball jersey by simply printing a name on the back.38
One day, Morita pitched against a team on which his brother Don played first base. Jim faced his brother only once at the plate, and the at-bat ended successfully—for Jim, that is. “I struck him out,” he said. The two brothers never talked about their brief confrontation on the baseball diamond.39
With an outfield fence, hitting a home run at Manzanar required a batter to circle the bases before the defense could retrieve the ball he had slugged. Morita said he hit one home run at the camp.40
Morita said baseball games were well attended, especially on weekends. Fans would enthusiastically cheer for their favorite teams. “I looked forward to playing baseball.”41 For Morita, stepping onto the mound and glaring toward the batter at home plate was a welcome distraction from the trauma of incarceration. “When I was playing ball, nothing else was on my mind,” he mused.42
About the only event that disrupted baseball for Morita occurred when he was diagnosed with appendicitis and needed an urgent operation. He had a difficult recovery, remained in the camp hospital for a full week, and was unable to play baseball for a few weeks.43
Morita started his junior year of high school at Manzanar in September 1942.44 He graduated in the spring of 1944. The auditorium where commencement ceremonies were held still stands and serves now as the Manzanar National Historic Site Visitor Center.45
Morita was about a mile away from the epicenter of the December 1942 riot at Manzanar, which resulted in the deaths of two inmates. His brother Don watched the initial events unfold as guards opened fire. “He came screaming and running into the barracks,” Morita remembered. “The next day the authorities declared martial law.”46
In February 1943, everyone age 17 and older at Manzanar was required to complete a loyalty questionnaire. Morita said his father told him to fill it out however he felt comfortable. At the time, Morita and his friends were very antagonized by what they had experienced, and this prompted Morita to reply in the negative when asked about his loyalty to the United States.47
Months later, Morita changed his mind. “I wrote to the government saying, ‘I’m loyal to the United States,’” he said. “‘Therefore, I’d like to change my no to yes.’” The government replied by informing him that he was classified as an enemy alien. However, this status did not stop the US military from drafting Morita during the Korean War.48
In 1945, Morita left Manzanar earlier than the rest of his family. He traveled to Idaho, where he had been told there were job opportunities. Morita departed with nothing but some clothes and a few dollars, and traveled by bus to Pocatello, Idaho, where he worked for a produce company and then a Japanese farm family. Interestingly, he worked on the farm alongside several German prisoners of war. Morita said the German prisoners were very young and seemed like “happy-go-lucky kids,” not sad or grim. Morita estimated he worked in Idaho for six to eight months.49
Once released from Manzanar, Morita’s parents hoped to return home to Florin. But their plans were dashed when the family learned that their living quarters, and all of the personal items stored there, had been destroyed by a fire. The cause of the blaze was unknown.50
Meanwhile, the Pacific war ended soon after US planes dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The family of Morita’s father lived far enough outside of Hiroshima that they were not killed or seriously injured by the bomb that struck the city.51
After Morita left Idaho, he joined his parents in the small town of Ivanhoe, California, 45 miles southeast of Fresno. When he arrived there, Morita was surprised to see his parents “living in a barn, dirt floor, and my mom used to sleep on the floor.”52
Within a couple of years, the family moved to another farm community, where Jim and his brother Ken worked as farm laborers, picking grapes. In the town of Acampo, California, Jim Morita became well acquainted with his next-door neighbors, who included his future wife. The two were married in 1952. That same year, Morita’s Issei parents were finally allowed to become naturalized as US citizens.53
Morita was drafted in March 1953, and the Korean War’s ceasefire was signed while he was taking basic training. He became part of the Military Intelligence Service and was sent to a US base in Okinawa, Japan. Morita remained in the military until February 1955.54
After returning home, Morita seized the opportunity offered by the G.I. Bill and, following in his father’s footsteps, trained to become a barber.55
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed a bill that provided a financial payment and a formal apology to Japanese people who were incarcerated during World War II. Morita was not impressed by the letter nor by the amount of money that he and his family received. “I didn’t think it was fair, but to us, it was money,” he said. “It was better than nothing.” By then, both of his parents were dead.56
Morita reached the age of 100 in December 2025. He has two adopted children and four granddaughters. When asked what he would want people to know about Manzanar, Morita focused not on the bleak, isolated terrain nor on the fundamental freedoms that its inmates lost. Instead, he insisted he would want people to know how his family and many others came together in a turbulent time to build a sense of community, cultivate gardens, and “convert that desolate place into a beautiful landscape—a different place, honest. After six months, it was different.”57
MATTHEW JACOB is a member of SABR’s Bob Davids chapter, and he has written multiple articles that were published by Baseball Research Journal. He is also coauthor of Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024). Besides telling the story of how Saperstein formed and showcased the Globetrotters basketball team, this biography explores the key roles that he played in Negro League baseball and MLB’s integration. Matthew is a Detroit Tigers fan, and he lives in Arlington, Virginia.
NOTES
1 Jim Morita, interviewed by Sarah Bone, Manzanar National Historic Site, Oral History Project, MANZ 1607, July 17, 2023, 1-2.
2 Morita, interviewed by Sarah Bone, 2-6. Hereafter, Bone, plus page number.
3 Bone, 7-9.
4 Bone, 11.
5 Bone, 14.
6 Bone, 17.
7 Bone, 16.
8 Bone, 17.
9 Bone, 27-28.
10 Jim Morita, telephone interview with author, March 21, 2025.
11 Bone, 29.
12 Bone, 29.
13 Vicky K. Murakami-Tsuda, “Japanese American Baseball,” Discover Nikkei, Japanese American National Museum, April 11, 2007, https://discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2007/4/11/ja-baseball/.
14 Bone, 32-33.
15 Sarah Wexler, “Honoring ‘Hidden Legacy’ of Japanese American Baseball,” MLB.com, July 20, 2022, htt://www.mlb.com/news/legacy-of-japanese-american-baseball-celebrated-at-dodger-stadium.
16 Bone, 23-24.
17 Bone, 29.
18 Bone, 24.
19 Bone, 24.
20 Bone, 35.
21 “Japanese American Incarceration,” National World War II Museum, accessed September 12, 2025, https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/japanese-american-incarceration.
22 Bone, 44-45.
23 Bone, 36.
24 Bone, 41.
25 Bone, 41-42, 68.
26 Bone, 44.
27 Bone, 46.
28 Bone, 54.
29 Bone, 51.
30 Bone, 48, 51.
31 Bone, 55.
32 Bone, 50, 52-53, 77-78.
33 Bone, 62.
34 Bone, 60.
35 Morita, telephone interview with author, March 21, 2025.
36 Bone, 66-67.
37 Jim Morita, telephone interview with author, July 28, 2025.
38 Morita, telephone interview with author, July 28, 2025.
39 Morita, telephone interviews with author, March 21, 2025, and July 28, 2025.
40 Bone, 70.
41 Bone, 68-69.
42 Morita, telephone interview with author, July 28, 2025.
43 Bone, 55-56.
44 Bone, 62-63.
45 Bone, 80.
46 John Sammon, “Camp Survivor Recalls Killings at Manzanar,” Nikkei West, accessed August 15, 2025, https://nikkeiwest.com/camp-survivor-recalls-killings-at-manzanar/.
47 Bone, 72-75.
48 Bone, 72-73.
49 Bone, 81-82.
50 Bone, 97.
51 Bone, 43.
52 Bone, 85.
53 Bone, 94.
54 Bone, 89-91.
55 Bone, 93.
56 Bone, 95-96.
57 Bone, 100.