Yae Wada (The Band’s Visit)
Yae grew up in Berkeley and Oakland, CA and operated a beauty salon before the war. She was 23 when she was incarcerated in Tanforan. From Topaz, she and her husband resettled in Cleveland. Yae returned to the East Bay after the War. In March 2019, Yae attended San Mateo High School’s Day of Remembrance to express gratitude for an act of kindness by its war-time faculty and band members. In 2019, Yae was interviewed as part of an article on the Topaz Stories Exhibit at J-Sei in Emeryville, CA. You can read the article here. Yae passed away in 2023 at the age of 103.
Cynthia Wright (The Lost Sketches of Topaz)
Cynthia was born in Southern California and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She worked in high tech for 15 years until moving to Salt Lake City, Utah with her husband Joe in 2005. They have three daughters. Cynthia became interested in learning more about her grandparents’ history at Topaz after coming across a Topaz Story on Instagram that sparked her curiosity, having only vaguely known about Topaz. She has since spent the past two years researching and learning about the history in order to preserve and share the story.