In 1941, the community of Lompoc, CA was home to a small but thriving Japanese American agricultural community anchored by the Guadalupe Produce Co., founded by an Issei immigrant from Hiroshima.
After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, 28 Issei men from Lompoc were arrested by the FBI and “disappeared.” One of them was Masazo Furuya, a foreman for Guadalupe Produce. His daughter Ritsuko, not quite five at the time, can never forget seeing an FBI agent handcuff her dad; and as he was taking him away, her little brother wrapped his arms around the FBI agent’s legs to try to stop him.
Japanese Americans hoped that sharing the stories of the trauma inflicted on our community by forced removal and mass incarceration during WWII (without due process) would remind our country never to repeat the mistakes of the past. Unfortunately, these scenes are now being replayed daily by those in power who would target entire populations–citizens and non-citizens (legal or not) alike, just as we were targeted in 1942–and erase all our histories altogether. We must not let them.
Read Ritsuko Furuya’s story, “Taken Away.”
The Topaz Stories Team
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Media Coverage:
Watch “Utah Historians Run Exhibit on Japanese American Internment,” abc4 News, 2/19/2025).
Read “Utah Once Said ‘Never Again’–Do We Mean It? Deseret News, (2/26/2025).
Read “Topaz Stories Exhibition: A Way to Remember the Past.” SUU News, 2/7/2025.
Read ‘Topaz Stories’ exhibit travels Utah showing human side of WWII internment (KSL.com, May 24, 2024)
Read ‘Topaz Stories’ mines the history of a Japanese American internment camp (ParkRecord, May 18, 2024)
Read Remembering Japanese American Internment–Day of Remembrance (Rosie the Riveter Trust blog, March 24, 2024)
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) (This video appears to have been taken down, and abc4 has not responded to inquiries as to why.)
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)