An unarmed man was shot and killed. His life was worth $1.
May 24, 1944: Shoichi James Okamoto was shot and killed by a sentry at Tule Lake, allegedly for not showing his pass.
Shoichi James Okamoto was 30 years old when he was killed at Tule Lake Segregation Center, one of the most heavily militarized of the ten incarceration camps used to imprison Japanese Americans during World War II.
He wasn’t escaping. He wasn’t armed. He was just working.
Okamoto was a civilian truck driver, employed by the U.S. government inside the camp. On that day, he reportedly failed to present his pass at a checkpoint near a gate. They got into an argument when the military sentry opened fire.
Shoichi James Okamoto died the next day.
There was an investigation, a court-martial, and a ruling:
The soldier was fined $1.
It was the cost of the bullet that had to be replaced. So maybe Okamoto’s life wasn’t even worth a penny, at least to them.
Okamoto’s death was not an isolated incident of injustice. It reflected the toxic mix of wartime hysteria, racism, and unchecked military power that defined the incarceration experience — especially at Tule Lake, where thousands were labeled “disloyal” simply for protesting their treatment or answering “No” on a loyalty questionnaire.
But even then, a one-dollar penalty. What an insult to injury.
That’s what a Japanese American life was worth in 1944. How much is it now?
Life Behind the Barbed Wire, or Lack Thereof
Shoichi James Okamoto wasn’t the only Japanese American killed by a military guard during WWII. A year earlier, James Hatsuaki Wakasa was shot in the back at Topaz for walking too close to the fence.
Both were unarmed. Neither posed a threat.