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4-Topaz Internment Camp
When and how did you learn that you were going to be relocated to Topaz?
We were told that we were going to be relocated, but again they didn't tell us where we were going to be relocated. They said the camps are all set now and they're going to send us out. It was a very sad time because we had made new friends and got really close to them because you're really living with people. You're so close to each other. From Santa Anita they went to about five or six different camps and their would be people that we knew. We would go out there every day to say good-bye to our friends from L.A., mostly people from L.A. were in Santa Anita, but they would go off all over. So they went to Arkansas, they went to Poston, Arizona, they went to Wyoming, and they went to many different places. Each day would be a day that people were going. We found that we were going to Topaz maybe about couple days before we left. My sister worked in the administrative office and she's the one who told us. She said they were talking about it and I think we're going to Topaz. We were very happy that we were going back to Topaz because my sister was there at the same time we were losing our friends. We get mixed feelings, but looking forward to reunion.
Are you still in contact with your friends?
I've lost contact with them. I meet them every so often. The Japanese community is fairly small and we're very close to one another and when I go to Japantown I see some of the people that I knew in camp. Some of the people that I knew in Santa Anita. In fact some of my good friends are people from Santa Anita. We also see people from L.A. that we knew in Santa Anita. I would see a lot of them in the JACL.
How long were you Santa Anita before you went to Topaz?
About six months. I was there for six months and it's still very vivid to me. I guess what I remember most is that I remember a lot of things, a lot of stories. One of the things that we did, which again is funny now, is that we had a fair, July 4th we put on a fair in Santa Anita. I was with the recreation department and we put on a fair and we called it "Anita Fanita". Somebody came up with that name—crazy. It was really something everybody looked forward to, it was fun, we had people in arts and crafts groups and so they made stuff they showed. We didn't sell anything because nobody had any money, but we just exhibited different things. We had people in poetry classes so that they exhibited their poetry, writing groups, we had some baseball, and some activities. I guess we didn't have soccer but we had baseball. They put on exhibition shows of baseball. We had classes, classes in English. Of course we had boys scouts and girls scouts and they put on a show. We had drama club so they put on a show.
The Japanese people who were from Japan, they were called kibei, they are American citizens who were sent to Japan and came back just before the war. You know my husband was a kibei. He was sent to Japan and he came back, but he came back way before the war. They were very interested in drama, and again it was very fun to see the dramatic presentations that they put on. The Issei, the immigrant group also got into the whole act and they put on a show. They did a wonderful pantomiming show that we grew up with and they did some of that. There were moments of joy in camp when we had our Anita Fanita fair. On Sunday nights we would put on (Ruth Watanabe), who was a music major, and she brought all her records with her. She was from L.A. so people brought it to her while we were in camp. She would put on concerts. We would listen to symphonies. Sunday night and we would be sitting in the tears of Santa Anita racetrack, all sitting there, and we watched the sun go down. The sunset—and they would play concert music and they would play symphonies and concertos and all kind of music. It was again some moments that were pleasurable to share it with people that you cared about. That was something important. It wasn't all bad.
Can you describe one of the dramatic shows?
I'll have to tell you some of the funny—I’ll tell you one that the immigrant parents put on. It was all in pantomime. No, they had music—now somebody must have brought a record—but it was of a fisherman and he would be so funny, because he would exaggerate his movements. We would just laugh, and laugh, everybody would just clap and laugh wanting him to repeat it, but he would do a fisherman thing that was so special, mimicking going after a sea bass. We would have that kind of mimicking acts that people would people would put on with the immigrant parents and we never saw our parents being that crazy before, but they would put stuff on. It was very helpful for them.
They also used to put on some of the Japanese—it was called Shin-gi. Some of the Japanese chanting. Kind of like telling stories in a chant-like way. So they would do things like that. As far as the American-Japanese—the Nissei were concerned—they would do little skits, skits of what it was like to be in camp. Skits of what it was like to eat at the dinner table in camp. Stuff like that to kind of make fun of what we were doing, but at the same time really enjoying that opportunity to act out things. check on the spelling of the chanting
We also had lots of singers. We had many good singers in camp. I think from the Los Angeles area they came. We had a choir and I can remember being in the choir. We would be sitting right next—I don't have a good voice, but I was in the choir because they needed people there. I would sing alto and right next—and my sister who also did not have a good voice would be would be sitting—she and I would be part of the alto group. Right next to us would be the sopranos and there were some wonderful sopranos. We always lost sight of where our alto went because we got so caught up with beauty of the sopranos, that he would—the orchestra leader would keep saying, "come on, don't forget your part, you have a part also". It was fun—we loved the choir. So we had enough of those kinds of activities, which made being in the camps a little bit easier. It helped people deal with the negatives of camps.
Was there a big difference between Topaz and Santa Anita?
Yes, very big difference. I think the big difference is that in Santa Anita we saw that it was going to be temporary and it was temporary—everything was, all right, hardship—but just temporary. Santa Anita also had these wonderful lemon trees and orange trees close by so whenever the wind blew you could smell. It had that scent of the oranges and it was—when you look out you can see the freeway, you can see a highway going through and you can see cars. It was much more "civilized" and it was—the air-conditioned main room where most of us were. Very different. You go to Topaz and your heart just really sank low because you go there and everything is gray, it's just gray. They had taken out all the sagebrushes. They had taken out whatever was growing so that they could put up these ugly barracks. The barracks were placed all in a row. They were—I was in barrack thirty-four three-D, so I know it went up to thirty-four. I think it went about thirty-six, but we were all in different barracks and different blocks.
It was so different. The weather was so different. We were in Los Angeles, where it was hot, but it wasn't that uncomfortable. When we go to Topaz and summertime in Topaz is like hot and uncomfortable, very uncomfortable. People couldn't sleep because it was so hot. The dust storms would come two or three times a day. We would have dust storms because all the hedges of everything were pulled away so all you had was the desert dust. When it was wintertime and it snowed, your feet would—you would be about two inches taller because you would have the ice and sand and mud underneath. You would be taller and everybody said "Well, look at how tall I got!" because of the physical conditions of camp. The physical conditions were different and then that sense of permanence. I guess two things: the physical difference and then the sense of permanence that we were going to be here. We thought "My god, are we going to be here the duration of the war?" That put a real fog onto everything. We didn't know how we were going to deal with that. So it was hard, yes. Actually everybody would say, "Assembly center was a lot more fun than the permanent center". Because of the sense of permanence, I think.
Did you have a job?
Yes. I had a job because there weren't too many college graduates at the time that I was there. I was one of the people that—I was in psychology and so they put me in charge of some social workers and we were social workers in the camp. At the same time, for the immigrant population they appointed block manager. I think in my thing I said they called them "blockheads", and they were. My father was a block manager. The small items that people had that they brought up to him were basically wondering, "How come he gets more of this than somebody else?" or, "How come the people in the kitchen are bringing home some of the food that we're not getting?" and those kinds of small requests. We would get things like "My son and I are having a hard time". You'd figure their teenagers—the kids are teenagers and living in these small corners, constantly supervised with people around them. It was very difficult for a family.
One of the things that happened in my family was that my brother—we never saw my brothers—my two brothers were off in the morning in Topaz. They would go off in the morning with their friends and then we wouldn't see them till they went for a shower and then they came back late at night. My mother would be very upset because we never ate together. My sister and I ate with our friends and my brothers had disappeared. They were always looking for the best mess hall. They and their friends would go off to the different mess halls to see which had the best had the best cook and which one had the best food and etc. We never saw them and I really lost track of my brothers at that time.
I know that people were afraid—in fact I think my brother said—my brother was at UCLA later, he became a professor. He said that they did a study of all the juvenile delinquency was very big in camp basically—not because they were put in jail or anything, but because the complaints by parents about their children. It was not one to strenthen the ties between teenagers and their parents. It was hard, yes.
Did you have a good relationship with your parents?
Yeah. I had a good relationship with my parents, because I was twenty years old and so I was not—then I began to go around with Ernie. I wasn't running around going to dances anymore like I was in Santa Anita. My parents were relieved in a sense and I was the youngest girl.
They have such a difference, the Japanese family. Such a difference between boys and girls. Boys had a lot of freedom. My parents never asked them where they went, what they did, or anything. But we were just really tightly under their supervision. In camp, we were there, there was no place we could go. We got along well with my parents. My parents were very kind. We never thought so when we were teenagers. It turned out they were kind.
Did you meet Ernie at Topaz?
Yes. I met Ernie in camp. I met Ernie—we kind of like worked together and he forgot that we worked together. That surprised me that he forgot, because he was with housing and I was in social services and we were under what they called "Human Services." So we were under the same umbrella, and we would have meetings together. George (.....) was in charge of it was Ernie's friend. That's where I first met him. But I was still going around with other people at that time and in touch with some of the young men that I knew in Santa Anita. I found Ernie to be very—I hate to use the word earnest—but he was very earnest. He was so different from the boys that I knew. Most of the young men that I knew were part of the American Dream. "Oh well, we're going to get married, and we're going to have a nice house", and all this stuff. And he's talking about political action! I'm thinking, "Where is he coming from?" He was talking about doing things so that the world would be a better place for people. It was very interesting for me. He invited me to go to some of the discussion groups that the Nisei Demos were having.
The first time I went I was just aghast because there was a big sign that says—we went to Carl's room and Carl I think was a Communist—there’s a big sign that says "Workers Of The World Unite” and I thought I knew a little bit about Marx. I had it in college, and I thought, "My god what am I getting into?" It was a very interesting group because they had people who knew so much about things that were terribly foreign to me. I knew nothing—for example they talked about things like the poll tax, that the people in the South had to pay and I said, "Well what's a poll tax?" and they said "You went to Cal and you didn't know about the poll tax?” I said "No, I didn't know. I never heard about it." So they explained a lot of things about what was going on in the South. Then we began to talk about this war. About World War II. Again we talked about the fact that it was a war that needed to be won, but it was wrong for them to put us in. What could we do? That kind of a social group—with people who were much more intellectual than any of the other groups that I was with—which were basically dance groups, play groups, we used to do all kinds of fun things. I found him very serious and it kind of jarred me. I got to know him and he was a lot lighter than I thought. It was kind of interesting because I was drawn to the intellectual part of his group.
