About

About the Friends of Topaz

The Friends of Topaz Committee was formed in response to a need for the Topaz Museum Board to connect with younger members of the Japanese American community. For years, it was members of the Nisei generation who had supported the vision of a museum. Many returned to Delta again and again, bringing artifacts and generously donating in hopes of a future museum. Members of the Topaz Museum Board reciprocated by attending Topaz reunions in California; but eventually the Nisei aged and the reunions ceased. 

I had always promised myself that I would go see Topaz again after visiting once before with my family when I was a teenager. That trip to Delta was, in my mind, a “side trip”—an unwanted detour from our family vacation. At the time, there was no museum and no preserved site. My parents inquired at the local variety store if anyone remembered Topaz camp. They told the clerk that they had married in camp in 1943 and had purchased their first dishes and glasses in that very store. My fifteen-year-old sister, Ellen, and ten-year-old brother, Don and I complained about the Utah heat and did not appreciate the reasons Mom and Dad had brought us to Delta. Even though we had heard Topaz stories while growing up, we never fully understood the injustice that took place. 

Years later, when I did understand the consequences of E.O 9066, I promised myself that I would one day go back to examine Topaz with my new-found awareness. That day came in 2012, when my husband Paul and I made that trip and met Jane Beckwith, who escorted me around the Topaz site and brought me to the very spot which had once been the doorway to my Dad’s barrack. At that moment, I felt great sadness about what had happened, and at the same time, enormous respect for Jane and the Board and all those Nisei who had vision and were so committed to preserving the Topaz story. Subsequently, when I was asked if I could help organize a museum fundraising event in the Bay Area, I could not refuse. I cobbled together a group, which at first, consisted of family, friends, and fellow J-Sei Board members. Eventually, the Friends of Topaz Committee was formed; it expanded exponentially and we continued to support the museum far beyond that initial fundraiser. The primary focus of the Friends of Topaz is now outreach in order to ensure future support for the Topaz Museum.   

Ann Tamaki Dion, 2019

The Friends of Topaz would like to thank our contributors for sharing their stories with us. In addition, we would like to acknowledge a few of the other individuals who supported our efforts to preserve and share these Topaz Stories:

The Topaz Stories Project

The Topaz Stories Project is (at present) a collection of almost 80 narratives by Topaz survivors and their descendants. This collection began with our own family stories, and has grown to include many others, recounted to us over cups of tea by aging Topaz survivors, or mailed or emailed to us by family members or friends. Some were excerpted from longer memoirs written by survivors who had passed, and shared with us by their children or grandchildren. Some include personal photographs not shared publicly before.

“Never has it been more important to fight against the demonization and dehumanization of those who look ‘different.'”

It took a long time for many Japanese Americans to talk about the camps—the memories were too painful, the divisions caused within the community, even families, too deep. When they began speaking out, it was to ensure that such a miscarriage of justice would not happen again. As the generation of survivors grows smaller each year, we hope that their individual faces and varied voices will be a lasting reminder of the human consequences of injustice.

A Topaz Stories exhibit including more than 50 stories was held at J-Sei in Emeryville, California, from June-September 2019 (see coverage in the Mercury News). Its success generated interest from the Utah Capitol Preservation Board; and an exhibit at the State Capitol building in Salt Lake City (initially planned for 2020 but postponed due to COVID) finally opened on January 18, 2022 and was on display throughout the entire year that marked the 80th anniversary of Executive Order 9066 and the incarceration.

It has always been our vision to put these stories online, and to share them with the world. Never has it been more important to fight against the demonization and dehumanization of those who look different. Stories have the power to reveal humanity, build empathy; and so, with this website, we hope to keep the stories alive.

Ruth Sasaki, Topaz Stories editor

The Topaz Stories Project Team

We are a dedicated team of volunteers: Ann Tamaki Dion is a retired Oakland schoolteacher; Kimi Kodani Hill is the family historian of her grandfather, Chiura Obata; Jonathan Hirabayashi is a former museum exhibit designer; Barbara Saito is a medical writer and retired pharmacist; Ruth Sasaki is a writer and retired creator of e-learning on global diversity; Ken Yamashita is a genealogist and retired librarian; and Kay Yatabe is a retired physician and board member of J-Sei.

The Topaz Museum

The Topaz Museum opened in 2015, culminating a long journey that began with the donation by a Delta family of half of a surviving Topaz recreation hall building that had been used as the Boy Scout Lodge on Block 42. The Topaz Museum Board has now acquired all 640 acres of the city of Topaz, which became a National Historic Landmark in 2007. The grand opening of the museum was in 2017.

The museum is located in Delta, Utah, 16 miles from the Topaz incarceration center.

(Updated 4/7/2023)