I wonder what the weather was like. San Francisco in April is a season when winter and spring fight for supremacy. There can be summer-like weather one day and hail the next. I wonder if the cherry blossoms were blooming.
My grandfather had a beloved cherry tree in his garden on Pine Street, behind the Victorian flat the Takahashi family rented from their Greek landlord, who stored their belongings when they were taken away. Family lore reports that the tree did not bloom in subsequent years, while the family languished behind barbed wire in the Utah desert.
The rapid emptying of Japantown in April and May 1942 is reflected in letters my mother received while she was incarcerated in Tanforan. The letters were written by a Nisei friend awaiting “evacuation” in Japantown as her once-vibrant neighborhood became a ghost town.
Read “Left Behind” on our Topaz Stories website.
The Topaz Stories Team
Contact us if you have a Topaz Story to share.
Follow us on Instagram @topazstories
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)