August 19, 2023: "Swept Away"

This week we bring you a new Topaz Story.

(L): A Japanese American family poses in front of their grocery store, the Yamada Grocery, in Penryn, CA, in the 1930s. They are mostly young adults except for two young children. (R): Three generations of a Japanese American family pose in front of their barrack in Tule Lake concentration camp, circa 1942. Someone has created a name plate which hangs next to the door to identify its occupants. — *^{L: The Yamada Grocery, Penryn, CA, 1930s. R: The Yamada and Suzuki families in Tule Lake, 1943. Photos courtesy of Doris Yamada Yagi.}*

The Japanese American community in Penryn, California could never have imagined that a raging torrent would come to their quiet town and sweep them all away.

Doris Yamada’s family owned the Yamada Grocery–but in May 1942 the entire community was forcibly removed to nearby Arboga, or Marysville Assembly Center, a mosquito-infested swamp. The wave of war hysteria and racism next carried them to Tule Lake, where they spent over a year before being moved to Topaz in September 1943.

Doris’s parents, Shizuo and Shizuko Yamada, left camp in March 1944, leaving Doris and her siblings with grandparents, looking for opportunities on the outside. They first went to Kansas City; but it was Colorado that extended the branch that would offer them sanctuary. Colorado’s governor, Ralph Carr, was the only state governor of his time to speak publicly against the incarceration of Japanese Americans and to welcome them to his state.

Read Denver resident Doris Yamada Yagi’s story, “Swept Away.”

The Topaz Stories Team

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)

August 19, 2023: “Swept Away”

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