The sandstorms were so bad. I had to wear my bandana to cover all of my face and tie it at the back of my head. The sand came inside our room, especially by the window sills, an inch thick.
When snow turned to ice, I used to slip while walking to school since the treads from my snow boots had worn out. Ordering new snow boots from a catalog was possible, but not a priority for my parents when there were eight of us children. All of our clothes and shoes were ordered from the Montgomery Ward catalog. When we ordered shoes, my mom would trace my feet on a paper and enclose it together with the order since she wasn’t sure what size I wore. When I got my shoes, it was too narrow and hurt my toes so badly, I threw a tantrum. My father scolded me and said I had to wear them regardless, so I eventually developed a corn on my left little toe. Years later, as an adult, it still bothered me, so I finally had a minor toe surgery to remove a segment of the bone in that toe.
My parents were Manzo and Hatsumi Takeshita, and I was born in 1935, the eighth of nine children. One older brother had died before the War at the age of two. My two eldest brothers, Satoshi Spencer and Yuzuru John, were Kibeis, partly educated in Japan before returning to California in 1940. Before the War we had lived in San Mateo, where my father had a landscaping/gardening business.
In Topaz, my father got a job as a carpenter to help build the high school, so he was able to drive a truck home. He would give my little brother and me a ride in the front seat. Our block was #37, at the end of the perimeter of the camp, so he would drive us back and forth next to the barbed-wire fence. That was such a TREAT!
We were only in Topaz for about a year. My older brothers, Satoshi and Yuzuru, answered “no” and “no” to questions 27 and 281 of the “loyalty” questionnaire all those over 18 years of age had to fill out. Years later, Yuzuru explained: “We were American citizens by birth but deprived of our constitutional rights when we were singled out to be put away behind barbed-wire fences. Our only “guilt” was the accident of having been born of Japanese.”
I didn’t understand at the time why we all had to go to Tule Lake, a “segregation center” for those designated as “disloyal”; but I learned later that my parents also answered “no-no” to keep the family together.
In Tule Lake, because we thought we would be deported to Japan, we started attending Japanese school. We couldn’t speak a word of English among friends or family; if we did, classmates were allowed to pinch us. It was almost like a game. I learned Japanese language, math, cultural things. To this day, the multiplication table comes to mind in Japanese rather than in English.
When the war ended, some families took the first boat to Japan, including Satoshi Spencer, my oldest brother. He later explained that because he was bilingual, he thought he could help Japan recover from the War. But when he got there, he immediately telegraphed us “Don’t come back.” People in Japan were starving–there was no food, shelter. So we returned to San Mateo.
Fortunately my uncle (my mother’s younger brother and family) had his own home before the War so he graciously shared his home with us. My father resumed his landscaping business, picking up customers here and there; my older sisters worked as school girls (live-in nannies) while going to high school; brother Ben worked for a family too, cleaning up their pigeon coop, etc. Roy delivered papers on his bike.
By this time I was 10, but I had to go back to the 3rd grade instead of the 5th grade because I’d forgotten all of my English. I was so embarrassed, especially since I had to go back to the same school I attended before the War. Before camp I had a good friend, Louise; she even wrote me a note while I was at Tanforan Assembly Center. But now I couldn’t even make eye contact with her. I was a different person, feeling ashamed. It was difficult assimilating back to “civilization.”
My older siblings said: “Don’t tell anyone even among the Japanese community that we were in Tule Lake since we were branded ‘disloyal’.” Plus, hearing people say “Japs live here” in the mixed neighborhood… I think back and wonder “How did I survive that double whammy of discrimination?” However, within a matter of months, my English came back and I got new friends; but the stigma of being two years older than my classmates, etc., stuck with me all through high school. I attended summer school and told my counselor that I wanted to graduate as soon as possible. I was 19 years old when I graduated from San Mateo High School in 1955.
My father died in 1953 so college was not in the picture. I was so envious of my friends who did go on to college. Brother John was in college, and Ben and Roy served in the Korean War and went on to college with the GI Bill. Even my younger brother Yosh quit community college and joined the Air Force. My older sisters had gotten married by then so someone had to stay with our mother and “bring home the bacon.” Some of my older siblings did chip in to help out with my meager salary from Pacific Telephone & Telegraph, where I worked in the stenographer pool. Working in San Francisco was the best thing for me: I finally blossomed and got out of my shell. I worked my way up to be a secretary to a college recruiter in the personnel department and worked there for eight years before getting married.
In hindsight: I am glad the evacuation happened when I was young because children are resilient, and as long as I had my family around me, I felt relatively secure. But for my parents, given only a few months to get rid of all of our belongings except what each could carry; and my older brothers and sisters, some in high school about to graduate, where normally you would look forward to making plans for a job or college–their future was unknown. How difficult it must have been for them. Yes, my whole camp experience had a major impact on my life–a mixture of both good and bad!
I’m now 86 years old. As I age, there will be inevitable changes; but I shall flow with those challenges with a grateful heart and a settled mind.
1Question 27 asked if subjects were willing to serve in the armed forces of the United States on combat duty. Question 28 asked if subjects would renounce loyalty to the Emperor of Japan. The questionnaire was a misguided attempt by the government to determine who was loyal and who was not; in reality, it penalized those who were Buddhist, Japanese speaking, and angry over the loss of their constitutional rights; and it caused tremendous divisions within the community.
About the contributor: Michiko Takeshita Mukai was born in 1935 in San Mateo, CA. At the age of six, she, her seven siblings and parents were incarcerated in Tanforan Assembly Center, then Topaz in Utah and later, Tule Lake, CA. After the War, she returned to the San Francisco Bay Area and graduated from San Mateo High School. She worked for Pacific Bell, then married and had two sons. She worked as a teachers’ aid in the San Mateo Elementary School District for 14 years. Her grandchildren are now grown, but she still dog-sits their “babies.”
Copyright Michiko Mukai, 2022. All rights reserved.
My experience is similar in that when our family came back to US, I was put 2yrs back. I had the opportunity to leave high school early to go to college. Our family was in Tule Lake and deported to Japan where I was born.
Thank you for sharing, Henry. I hope you don’t mind if I share a link to your presentation for the San Bruno Public Library on the Day of Remembrance. Your three-part family story was fascinating and very moving: https://youtu.be/eGNyx0TNlOI
Thank you so much Ruth for collecting this wonderful stories! It’s important to understand and remember our collective history as Americans.