By JONATHAN VAN HARMELEN, Rafu Contributor

In May 2023, Norman Ishimoto traveled to the Jerome-Rohwer Pilgrimage with a purpose: to thank Rosalie Gould for saving Rohwer.

Ishimoto has a special connection to Arkansas. The son of Rohwer and Jerome incarcerees, Ishimoto had visited the camp sites before in 1989. During that visit, he remembered the mystical feeling of entering the remnants of the camp cemetery. By the time of his next visit, though, Rosalie had helped restore the cemetery and the rest of the camp to its former glory.

The former mayor of McGehee, Rosalie Santine Gould became one of the leading figures in the effort to preserve the history of the two Japanese American concentration camps in Arkansas.

The daughter of Italian immigrants, Rosalie Santine was born in Lake Village, Ark. in 1926. After attending university and a brief stint in medical school, she married Joe Gould and settled in Rohwer, Ark. In the wake of her husband’s death in 1965, Rosalie immersed herself in local community work.

Although Rosalie and her family grew up right next to the site of the Rohwer concentration camp – her children attended school in the former camp school building – they knew very little about the history of the camp. In May 1982, while serving as president of the McGehee Women’s Chamber of Commerce, Rosalie was asked to organize a dinner for former inmates of Rohwer who were planning a pilgrimage to the site.

The dinner opened Rosalie’s eyes to the wartime experiences of Japanese Americans in Arkansas. After speaking with several former inmates about their time in camp, she embarked on a decades-long project to save the remaining parts of Rohwer camp. The desire to preserve Rohwer was one of many things that motivated Gould to successfully run for mayor of McGehee. She became the first woman mayor of the town and served from 1983 to 1995.

At the dinner, she also became acquainted with Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel, the former art teacher at the Rohwer camp high school. During the war years, Vogel became friends with several of her students and preserved their art creations from camp. Vogel and Gould became friends, and shortly before her death in 1994, Vogel entrusted Gould with her students’ art.

Vogel’s collection of art was the beginning of a large collection of artifacts from the Rohwer camp amassed by Gould. Soon, her home became a museum dedicated to the history of Rohwer, with thousands of former inmates visiting to see relics of the camp.

Today, many of the artifacts are housed at the Japanese American National Museum and at the Butler Center for Arkansas Studies. At the Butler Center, there is an exhibit of camp artwork ranging from Henry Sugimoto’s candid paintings of life at Rohwer to handmade carvings from wood harvested from the nearby forest. As many incarcerees kept their art, or, tragically, discarded it, the Rohwer collection is a rare exception of camp artwork still residing near the original camp site. Aside from Allen Eaton’s collection of camp artwork that was catalogued in his 1952 book “Beauty Behind Barbed Wire,” Rosalie’s collection is one of the largest of Japanese American camp art.

As time went on, Rosalie’s campaign to preserve the Rohwer camp site gained the attention of Japanese Americans on the West Coast. The Rafu Shimpoquoted Gould in July 1990 as saying that “the camp was a well-kept secret to most of us” in Arkansas. TheRafualso highlighted former Rohwer inmate George Sakaguchi’s campaign to help raise awareness of the Arkansas camps.

Gould and Sakaguchi soon began working together; in 1992, they worked to obtain National Historic Landmark status for Rohwer.

In July 1992, the National JACL awarded the Edison Uno Memorial Civil Rights Award to Gould for her work to preserve Rohwer. In their citation for describing why she was chosen for the award, the JACL stated:

“In 1989, the JACL Midwest District Council took up the project of restoring the existing monuments at the site of the former Rohwer Relocation Center, and erecting a memorial monument at the site of the former Jerome Relocation Center. Mayor Gould was asked to serve on the fundraising and planning committees. Because of her strong conviction that the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II was a grave wrong. Mrs. Gould has devoted much of her time and energy to these projects, making sure that work is properly carried out.”

In 1994, Rosalie stepped down as mayor of McGehee. In retirement, she still remained active in the preservation of Rohwer. When Assistant U.S. Attorney General Rose Ochi visited Rohwer in 1997, Gould and Richard Yada (a resident of Little Rock who was born at Rohwer) accompanied Ochi as guides around Rohwer.

After finishing her tour, Ochi summed up her experience: “It is heartwarming to meet others throughout the country, not all of whom are Japanese Americans, who are committed to preserving the history and remembering the injustice we faced during World War II. I think there is a lesson here regarding racial reconciliation.”

Right before the Rohwer Pilgrimage, Norman discovered that Rosalie had moved to Texas and was unable to attend. Instead, he found another way to acknowledge her efforts. He went to a nearby store and purchased several cards with the goal of having all pilgrimage attendees sign them for Rosalie. He first approached George and Brad Takei shortly after an event and told them he wanted to send the cards to Rosalie. When he mentioned her name, Norman described Takei’s response:

“He went into a trance and then said: “I remember the first time I met Rosalie in her living room, she showed me so many beautiful things…” and for a minute or two, he was “transported” into her home looking at the Nisei artwork. After a minute or two, he snapped out of it, signed his name by Brad’s, and they walked out of the building.”

Shortly after, Norman went to the following session, grabbed the mike, and asked people to autograph the cards distributed around the auditorium. By the end of the session, all of the cards were filled with notes of thanks to Rosalie. The next day, he walked several miles to the nearest post office to mail the cards to her.

A few days later, when the card arrived at Rosalie’s retirement community in Texas, her daughter was there to give it to her. “It was the first time seeing my mother moved to tears,” Vivienne Schiffer recalled, one of the few such moments in Rosalie’s long life.

Schiffer has followed in her mother’s footsteps in leading efforts to keep alive the history of Rohwer. While caring for her mother, Vivienne became intrigued by her stories about Rohwer and the inmates she befriended over the years. Those stories led her to produce a film and a book about Rohwer. In 2016, she directed and produced her own documentary. Titled “Relocation, Arkansas,” the film chronicled the histories of Rohwer and Jerome, the memories of their former inmates, and their impact on Arkansas history.

Schiffer dedicates a portion of the film to her mother’s own work to restore Rohwer camp and lobby the National Park Service to declare it a National Historic Site. The film boasts an appearance from former President (and Arkansas native) Bill Clinton. The film was screened nationally on PBS, and received dozens of awards from independent film festivals.

Schiffer has also written a novel, “Camp Nine,” which tells the story about a young girl living in Arkansas during World War II who witnesses her community change as a camp is built for detaining Japanese Americans. 

As for Norman, the card to Rosalie is one of many good deeds from his life. During the 1970s, Norman and his wife Harriet collaborated on several projects, such as working on a campaign to award retirement credits to Nisei federal civil service retirees for their time spent in camp. With help from the JACL the campaign succeeded, and was one of several small victories that set the stage for the redress movement ten years later.

Since their retirement from the federal government, Norman and Harriet have remained busy attending several pilgrimages to former camp sites and researching about their family’s incarceration experience. But for Norman, this trip to Arkansas will always remain special because of Rosalie.

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Jonathan van Harmelen is currently a Ph.D. student in history at UC Santa Cruz specializing in the history of Japanese American incarceration. He holds a BA in history and French from Pomona College and an MA from Georgetown University. He can bereached at [email protected].

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