Bob Fletcher: What Honor Looks Like in America

I love my country, but that doesn’t mean it is without fault.  One of the most shameful times in this nation’s history is when we chose to inter Japanese-Americans in concentration camps at the beginning of World War II.  That action can not be defended.  It can not be excused.  It can only be mourned, regretted and held up as example of the mentality of the mob. 

            Yet, through every dark sky there shines some point of light.  Bob Fletcher, who died on May 23 at the age of 101, was just such a bright spot.  Mr. Fletcher worked as a California agricultural inspector.  As such, he must have known, first hand, the work ethic, morals and cultural integrity of the Japanese families who worked in the agriculturally rich central valley of California.  When these families were forced to leave their land and move to internment camps three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mr. Fletcher quit his job so he could manage the fruit farms of three Japanese families. 

            Of the 120,000 Japanese sent to camps, many grew fruit in orchards around the town of Florin, near Sacramento.  Many of these Americans of Japanese descent had been in California since 1890, yet that did not earn them a fair hearing in the court of public opinion.  They were herded up, their private lives examined, their loyalties considered suspect, and their futures thrown into limbo. 

            In the midst of what must have been a morass of conflicting emotions, fear, anger and depression, Al Tsukamoto approached a man that he did not know well except by his reputation.  Fletcher was considered to be an honest man and Mr. Tsukamoto, about to be imprisoned by his country based on nothing but his heritage had to trust someone.  Tsukamoto approached Fletcher with a business proposal.  Fletcher would manage the farms for three Japanese families.  He would pay the taxes and mortgages, keeping the farms going.  In return Fletcher could keep all the profits until the Japanese could return. 

            Think of the leap of faith this involved!  These Japanese families, despite what was being done to them, had faith not just in Fletcher, but faith that this country would see the error of it ways and release them from their concentration camps.  I am humbled by such devotion to hope. 

            Bob Fletcher left his government job and labored over three farms for three years.  He worked 90 acres of land through 18 hour days.  He lived in a bunkhouse reserved for migrant workers, paid the bills and kept, not all, but only ½ of the profits.  When the three families returned they found their farms intact, money in the bank, and a house cleaned and readied for their return.

            Fletcher’s willingness to save the Japanese farms was not applauded by many citizen’s of Florin where the Japanese success was resented (hatred and demonization of hard-working, successful people was not new in 1942 and has not died in 2013).  But this didn’t faze Fletcher who is quoted in a 2010 interview in the Sacrament Bee as saying, “I didn’t believe in the evacuation…It was obvious they had nothing to do with Pearl Harbor.”

            Like many people of quiet courage Bob Fletcher didn’t see himself as extraordinary.  What he did see was a massive wrong which he could make partially right.  He had personal honor, character, strength and dogged determination.  I call that principled living.  Just as the internment shames me, Bob Fletcher makes me proud.

            Live so that each action you take could become a universal law, and keep the faith.