“To this day, over 75 years later, I still remember some of the lines we had to recite—but still do not know what I was talking about.”
I was born in Alameda, California in 1930, but our family of nine moved to San Mateo, on the San Francisco Peninsula, when my father took over the landscaping gardening business from my grandfather. My grandfather had emigrated to the US in the late 1890s and wanted to return to Japan. In 1934, we visited him in Japan and left my two older brothers there to be educated. They rejoined our family in San Mateo five years later.
The War broke out on December 7, 1941, and on May 19, 1942, as a result of Executive Order 9066, all nine of us had to leave our home and walk to the location designated by the authorities to board buses to be sent to the Tanforan Race Track in San Bruno, about 20 miles south of San Francisco. I was 11 years old.
Then in September 1942, we were taken by train to a place called Topaz, Utah. In Topaz, our family was assigned to Block 37, which was in the last row of blocks, at the far end of the camp. In Topaz, most of my life was spent going to grammar school on weekdays and not having too much time to play because of the homework we had.
But in the spare time that we did have, I got involved in participating in plays. In Block 37, there was a Kibei fellow (born in the US but educated in Japan) named Mr. Kenji Takeuchi, who began to teach us how to do different kinds of skits in the Japanese language, which we performed in mess halls to entertain the Japanese-speaking internees.
I wasn’t that proficient in speaking Japanese, but because my two older brothers were Kibei and spoke Japanese a lot, and naturally my two parents spoke only Japanese, I was able to speak Japanese a little bit. But I remember one skit we did where I was playing the part of a famous General Onizuka of the Japanese Army during the Russo-Japanese War in the early 1900s. A narrator described the story and told what was happening. I would then speak out in Japanese and make speeches as directed.
The problem was that we really didn’t know what we were saying because the narration we spoke was in formal Japanese, and so we had to be taught how to pronounce the words as well as the ups and downs of the intonation, and at the same time, act out our actions as directed. To this day, over 75 years later, I still remember some of the lines we had to recite—but still do not know what I was talking about. In fact, I still remember that when we were performing, many of the Issei (first generation) and Japanese-speaking internees were shedding tears because of what we were saying. That’s how intense our performances were.
I remember doing other kinds of skits as well, but this one about General Onizuka was one of our best performances.
“…our family was sent to Tule Lake in Northern California, a ‘segregation center’ for those deemed ‘disloyal.'”
We were in Topaz for about a year. Then came the “loyalty questionnaire.” My two older brothers, who were Kibei, responded “No” to questions 27 (Are you willing to serve in the armed forces of the US on combat duty?) and 28 (Do you forswear allegiance to the Emperor of Japan?) to protest to the US government for putting American citizens into these so-called “camps.” So our family was sent to Tule Lake in Northern California, a “segregation center” for those deemed “disloyal.” We remained there until the end of the war.
Because our Topaz audiences were mostly the Issei, who are no longer with us, I’m not sure that there are people who still remember those performances in the mess halls. But for me, it was quite an experience, and made me feel, as I grew older, like I could do many things without fearing or being ashamed or bashful.
About the contributor: Ben Takeshita was born in Alameda, CA, but grew up in San Mateo, where his father ran the family landscape gardening business. The family was sent to Topaz, but was later transferred to Tule Lake. After the War, Ben graduated from San Mateo High School, then served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War. With a degree from UC Berkeley, he worked for the State Department of Employment until retirement. He lives in Richmond, CA with his wife Fumiko.
Copyright 2019, Ben Takeshita. All rights reserved.