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.
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