Update: (January 15, 2025): Congratulations to Shanna Farrell, Roger Eardley-Pryor, and Amanda Tewes of the U.C. Berkeley Oral History Center! In December their project, “Japanese American Intergenerational Narratives” was awarded the Oral History Association’s Mason Multi-Media Award for “outstanding oral history projects, collections, exhibits, and multimedia presentations for the public.” Among the (to date) 23 […]
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Tag: Topaz
Utah Exhibit Opens
A reception will be held in the Capitol rotunda on April 22 (4-6 pm), at which time, some of the contributors will travel to Salt Lake City to see the exhibit. The 26 writers who are represented in the exhibit are: First row: Ann Tamaki Dion, Amy Eto, Tamesuke Harada, Taneyuki Dan Harada, Norman Hayashi, […]
Utah Exhibit 2022
The Topaz Stories Exhibit in the Utah State Capitol is on! January 18-December 31, 2022 Utah State Capitol Building, 3rd floor mezzanine Salt Lake City, Utah The exhibit, postponed from a planned run in 2020 due to COVID, has been rescheduled to January 18-December 31, 2022 through the kind efforts of Max Chang, Brad Westwood […]
Topaz Stories Website Launched
Topaz Stories: Utah Exhibit Update
The expanded Topaz Stories Exhibit, which was scheduled to open in the Salt Lake City Utah State Capitol Building on June 6, 2020 and run through December 18, will be postponed due to the coronavirus situation. All plans are in limbo, so will keep you posted on updates. About the new exhibit Nine new stories […]
Topaz Stories Exhibit
The pieces in this collection came from a variety of sources: some were excerpted from longer memoirs left by Nisei survivors; others were passed down orally to family members or friends, and on to us by e-mail; still others, related directly to us in face-to-face interviews. It has been a privilege to receive and share […]
V-mails to Topaz
(This is Part 2 of “The Oda Boys”) V-mails (Victory mail) slowly made their way to barrack 4-5-E in Topaz from my mother’s foster brother Harry in the 442 in Italy: June 30, 1944 To Eddie (Harry’s brother), 4-5-D, Topaz, Utah From: Harry, Co. L, 442 I haven’t heard from you in so […]
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 […]
Topaz Letters: LIfe Goes On
The stories you hear from camp are often stories of what kept people going — the humorous incidents, baseball, dances, poetry clubs; love and dreams for a better, shared future; the everyday, human things that people clung to to keep from being consumed by the yawning abyss that had opened under their lives: My mother […]
Letters to Topaz: Venturing Out
In the fall of 1942, the War Relocation Authority (WRA), the federal agency in charge of the Japanese-American internment program, began planning what Densho Encyclopedia calls an “ethnic dispersal program”—more commonly referred to as “resettlement.” Japanese-Americans deemed “loyal” (by a somewhat arbitrary and extremely questionable process) could apply for leave from camp in order to […]