In September of 1942, Tanforan internees began to be transferred to Topaz Relocation Center in the Utah desert. They wrote from ancient trains carrying them to an unknown and unknowable future, drawing comfort from the kindness of Pullman dining car waiters: September 21, 1942 To my mother, Bldg. 80 – Apt. 3, Tanforan Assembly […]
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Letters to Tanforan: Good Friends
Imagine what it must have been like to be a San Franciscan in 1942 who suddenly had friends and acquaintances rounded up en masse and removed to prison camps. Unfortunately, in the current Trumpian nightmare, it is all too imaginable as law-abiding neighbors, coworkers, and other community members are seized, detained, and often deported. But […]
Letters to Tanforan: Left Behind
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 […]