Topaz

Kiyo’s story, part 8: 1942-1944

In Topaz, the Takahashi family consisted of nine people: Jichan, Bachan, Kiyo, Tomi, and Edwin (the youngest child); Yone-yan (Jichan’s younger brother) and his son, Kaz; Eddie Oda (an orphan informally adopted by my grandparents); and Yokoyama-san, a family friend and contemporary of Kiyo’s other brother Shig (who was a U.C. student who had managed to transfer to Ohio University to continue his education). Yone-yan no obasan and their two daughters, Shizu and Aki, had traveled to Japan to visit relatives and were unable to return until after the war.

The Takahashis were assigned two “apartments” — basically two rooms, 20’ x 20’ and 20′ x 24’— in Block 4; Kiyo, Tomi, Edwin, and my grandparents shared one; and the remaining four men and boys, the other. Needless to say, conditions were cramped and privacy was non-existent.

Kiyo found employment, for $19 a month (the highest pay rate available to internees), as a medical records librarian at the Topaz Hospital. Tomi, with a Cal degree in Education, helped organize the camp pre-school system and eventually became its director. Edwin was only twelve, so he attended school. Much time each day was spent waiting in line: for meals, for showers.

Although the Takahashis had lived in Japantown before the war, the conditions in Topaz were extreme: over 8,000 Japanese Americans were crammed together in less than one square mile of living space.¹ Some acquaintances might be housed in nearby barracks, but many neighbors were strangers. Everybody knew everyone else’s business; or if they didn’t then they wanted to find out. (And even if they didn’t want to know, they couldn’t help but overhear “private” conversations, arguments, and activities.)

Kiyo found herself the object of much marital speculation, with Issei mothers with suddenly too much time on their hands trying to secure her for their single sons. Tomi was also of marriage age (23), but was somewhat shielded by birth order (the eldest was supposed to marry first). The need for escape was often overwhelming.

In return for “good behavior,” Japanese-American prisoners could get a pass to leave camp and go into Salt Lake City. You had to climb in the back of a truck to get a ride to the station in Delta, the nearest town, so usually it was the young people who went. When Kiyo and her friends went, everyone in the block would ask them to pick up this or that, so that their whole time in Salt lake City would be spent shopping. They would bring empty suitcases with just a few clothes so that they could bring back all the requested items. When the train was crowded, they would have to sit on their suitcases in the bathroom all the way — a four-hour trip!

Kiyo remembered staying in a hotel with one of her Nisei woman friends.  A Nisei friend who had relocated to Salt Lake arranged a “date” with her brother and two of his friends. They couldn’t go drinking or dancing because Salt Lake City was a Mormon town, so they had to drive outside of the city and go to a “chicken dinner place” along the highway. She remembered being dismayed to realize that African-American soldiers in uniform were not allowed into those places, and they weren’t served at the counter of Walgreen’s.  

But occasional jaunts to Salt Lake City served as only a brief respite. As the War Relocation Authority’s “resettlement” program became more streamlined, many Nisei who were not constrained by family obligations sought to leave camp. My mother (Tomi), tired of waiting for Kiyo to marry first, married in 1943. She honeymooned in Salt Lake City with my soldier dad (their story is told in Life Goes On). In March, 1944, Tomi applied for, and was granted, indefinite leave clearance. She and my dad went to Chicago on one of his furloughs to check out the scene. They visited Tomi’s younger brother Shig, who was by now doing graduate work at the University of Chicago, as well as many other Nisei friends who had resettled in the Chicago area.

Tomi returned to Topaz feeling that she would also like to resettle and find work outside camp. She started planting the seed among her immediate family. There were options besides Chicago: a Nisei friend (from whom she had assumed the directorship of preschool programs in Topaz) had moved to Massachusetts to attend teachers’ college, and Tomi was being encouraged to go east on a work-study arrangement.

Faced with the prospect of being left with the sole responsibility for her parents, tired of her mother’s friends trying to marry her off to their sons, and buoyed by Tomi’s scouting report of prospects in Chicago, Kiyo made her own plans to leave. Shig could help her find a job through his university contacts. She would share an apartment with Shig near campus. Her application for leave was granted, and in October of 1944, Kiyo left camp for Chicago — leaving Tomi to take care of Bachan and Jichan for the duration.

1 “Facts about Topaz,” Topaz Museum web site. <http://www.topazmuseum.org/facts> Accessed 5/13/2018.

Kiyo’s Story, part 9: Chicago

This post was originally published on September 9, 2018.
Image: © R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.