Written on April 15, 1943, four days after the murder of Hatsuaki James Wakasa by a Topaz guard, Junzo Hibino’s letter gives us a brief glimpse, through the eyes of an Issei man incarcerated in Topaz, of what it must have been like to feel powerless against the constant threat of violence in camp.
The voices of the Issei are rarely heard in Topaz lore. Because many of the Issei community leaders had been arrested after Pearl Harbor and separated from their families in DOJ facilities in other states, camp administration looked to the Nisei generation, who spoke English, as the leaders and representatives of the community. The Issei were disempowered, their stories rarely translated or preserved. A minority lived long enough to see reparations and the decades-later groundswell of interest in what happened in the camps.
Many thanks to Jean Hibino, who shared her grandfather’s letter, written in English to his son, Jean’s father. (First posted on this website on April 16, 2022.)
Read “Letter to a Nisei Son,” by Jean Hibino, on the Topaz Stories website.
The Topaz Stories Team
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Media Coverage:
Read Internee’s story told with ‘Topaz Collages’ (Wheel of Dharma, Vol. 5, Issue 3, March 2023).
Watch Topaz survivors tell their stories (abc4 news, 4/22/2022)
Listen to the “In the Hive” podcast with interviews with Ann Dion, Jonathan Hirabayashi, and Topaz survivors Jeanie Kashima and Joseph Nishimura (KCPW, 4/28/2022)
Read How a Utah exhibit about Topaz Camp looks to find empathy in ‘an ugly stain on American history (ksl.com, 4/22/2022)
Read “Topaz Stories rise from the dust,” (Department of Culture & Community Engagement, 4/2022)
Listen to KQED Forum, Day of Remembrance interview with Ruth Sasaki, 2/15/2022
Listen to Max Chang and Ruth Sasaki interviewed (KRCL RadioActive, 2/9/2022
Read On Topaz Stories and ‘Authentic Voice’, the Discover Nikkei interview with Ruth Sasaki (10/14/2022)
Listen to Remembering the Japanese American Incarceration, the Topaz Stories podcast with Ruth Sasaki and Jonathan Hirabayashi (6/2/2021)