I do not have any of the letters that my mother wrote from camp. They were dispersed, to Nisei friends scattered all over the country by the “relocation,” to relatives in Hawaii, to non-Japanese friends still in California, to friends serving in Europe. Some may still exist in a dusty basement somewhere.
What I do have is a handful of letters from friends that my mother received and kept from those years. They create a reflection, like hearing only one side of a conversation from which a complete dialogue might be imagined.
As the 76th anniversary of my mother’s family’s incarceration nears, snippets from these letters provide a personal glimpse into history.
US Department of the Interior. Public domain.
Because the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast happened in stages, those transferred earliest were the pioneers, conveying information and impressions from local “assembly centers” to those awaiting “evacuation”; and then, later, from “permanent relocation centers” in the interior to those still awaiting transfer (to destinations unknown).
In the spring of 1942, Nisei friends in San Francisco awaiting relocation wrote to my mother, whose family had already been removed from their home in San Francisco to a temporary assembly center at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno. Letters show the desperate loneliness of being left behind as neighborhoods empty, friends and relatives disappear, every day eerily quiet like Sunday morning in Japantown, except that even the churches gradually empty:
May 4, 1942
To my mother, Bldg. 80 – Apt. 3, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, Calif.
From a Nisei friend, Post St., San Francisco
Thanks a lot for your card and hints of what to bring. I sure wish we were there right now. It’s surprisingly lonely here now…
None of our friends on the other side of Sutter are there any more…
We’re expecting orders tomorrow (Tues) & will I be disappointed if it doesn’t come.
My clothes have been packed for a whole week now… I’m just wondering if I’ll be able to get all the creases out…
The urgent questions, reflecting practicality and hope:
What do people wear in the daytime?” …
Is your place far from the washrooms?
Any chance of finding a job?
May 5, 1942
To my mother, Bldg. 80 – Apt. 3, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, Calif.
From the same friend on Post St.
Finally got our orders this morning, to leave by Monday 11:00 a.m. The army jeeps are just tacking the signs up now…
It doesn’t say where to — but guess it’s Tanforan, I hope…
Continue to Letters to Tanforan: Good Friends
Image: US Department of the Interior. Public domain.
Practicality and hope and amazing fortitude. I can only imagine my mother in a similar situation. She’d be spitting nails in every direction – and to what end? I wonder whether the incidence of stress related illness resulting from the “evacuation“ would have been higher or lower if more of those “removed” had more openly expressed their shock and anger – The scene in Farewell to Manzanar which Jeanne’s mother smashes her best dishware piece by piece when offered a fraction of its value- speaks volumes, but I Wonder whether that sort of reaction was that common.