The burning horse

by Thomas H. Heuterman

For the tribes of the Yakima Indian Federation, the word "yakima" meant "beautiful land," but for the Japanese settlers in the early 'twenties, "yaki" meant "burning," and "uma" meant "horse." Their ideographs take on additional significance when considering the racist campaigns directed against them by the American Legion, the local, state, and congressional politicians, the newspapers of the Yakima Valley, and the Hearst papers in Seattle and California. The media in the 'nineties are focusing attention on strained Japanese/American trade relations and on ceremonies, exhibits, and religious services to mark the end of the War in the Pacific. Dr. Heuterman details the Japanese-American experience in the two decades leading to the internment, after the outbreak of World War II, of western-region Issei and Nisei, the immigrants and first-generation Japanese Americans who came to farm the marginal lands of the Yakima Valley in eastern Washington after World War I. Professor Heuterman, di