by Ruth Sasaki
“Kiyo…found herself the object of much marital speculation, with Issei mothers with suddenly too much time on their hands trying to matchmake for their single sons.”
In Topaz, the Takahashi family was assigned to two “apartments” in Block 4. Jichan, my grandfather; Bachan, my grandmother; Kiyo; Tomi, my mother; and Edwin, the youngest, shared one room. Yonezo, Jichan’s younger brother, his son, Kaz; Eddie Oda, an orphan informally adopted by my grandparents; and Yokoyama-san, a family friend, shared the other. Kiyo’s other brother Shig was a UC Berkeley student who had managed to transfer to Ohio University to continue his education.
The “apartments” were basically bare rooms, 20’ by 20’ and 20’ by 24’, with a pot-bellied stove and cots. Needless to say, conditions were cramped and privacy was non-existent.
Kiyo found employment, for $19 a month, the highest pay rate available to internees, as a medical records librarian at the Topaz Hospital. Tomi, with a degree in Education from UC Berkeley, helped organize the camp preschool system and eventually became its director. Edwin was only thirteen, so he attended school. Much time each day was spent waiting in line: for meals, for showers.
Although the Takahashis had lived in Japantown before the war, the conditions in Topaz were extreme: over 8,000 Japanese Americans were crammed together in less than one square mile of living space.1 Some acquaintances might be housed in nearby barracks, but many neighbors were strangers. Everybody knew everyone else’s business; or if they didn’t, then they wanted to find out. And even if they didn’t want to know, they couldn’t help but overhear “private” conversations, arguments, and activities.
Kiyo, at 29 years of age, found herself the object of much marital speculation, with Issei (first generation) mothers with suddenly too much time on their hands trying to matchmake for their single sons. Tomi was also of marriage age at 23, but was somewhat shielded by birth order; Kiyo as the eldest was supposed to marry first. The need for escape was often overwhelming.
Those who “passed” the “loyalty test” could get a day pass to leave camp and go into Delta, the nearest town, or Salt Lake City, which was four hours from Delta by train. You had to climb in the back of a truck to get a ride to Delta, so usually it was the young people who went. When Kiyo and her friends went, everyone in their block asked them to pick up this or that, so that their entire leave time was spent shopping. They brought empty suitcases with just a few clothes so that they could bring back all the requested items. When the train was crowded, they had to sit on their suitcases in the bathroom all the way—a four-hour trip!
Kiyo remembered staying in a hotel with one of her Nisei (second generation) woman friends. Another friend who had relocated to Salt Lake arranged a “triple date” with her brother and two of his friends. They couldn’t go drinking or dancing because Salt Lake City was a Mormon town, so they had to drive outside of the city and go to a “chicken dinner place” along the highway. She remembered being dismayed to realize that African American soldiers in uniform were not allowed into those places, and they weren’t served at the counter of Walgreen’s.
“As the War Relocation Authority’s ‘resettlement’ program became more streamlined, many Nisei who were not constrained by family obligations sought to leave camp.”
But limited jaunts to Delta or Salt Lake City served as only a brief respite. As the War Relocation Authority’s “resettlement” program became more streamlined, many Nisei who were not constrained by family obligations sought to leave camp. My mother, tired of waiting for Kiyo to marry first, married in 1943. She honeymooned in Salt Lake City with my soldier dad. In March 1944 Tomi applied for, and was granted, indefinite leave clearance. She and my dad went to Chicago on one of his furloughs to check out the scene. They visited Tomi’s younger brother, Shig, who was by now doing graduate work at the University of Chicago, as well as many other Nisei friends who had resettled in the Chicago area.
Tomi returned to Topaz enthused about resettling and finding work outside camp. She started planting the seed among her immediate family. There were options besides Chicago: a Nisei friend from whom she had assumed the directorship of preschool programs in Topaz had moved to Massachusetts to attend teachers’ college, and Tomi was being encouraged to go east on a work-study arrangement.
Faced with the prospect of being left with the sole responsibility for her parents, tired of her mother’s friends trying to marry her off to their sons, and buoyed by Tomi’s scouting report of prospects in Chicago, Kiyo made her own plans to leave. Shig could help her find a job through his university contacts. She would share an apartment with Shig near campus. Her application for leave was granted, and in October of 1944, Kiyo left camp for Chicago—leaving Tomi to take care of Bachan and Jichan for the duration.
1 “Facts about Topaz,” Topaz Museum web site. <https:///topaz-history/facts-about-topaz/> Accessed 5/13/2018.
About the contributor: Ruth Sasaki was born and raised in San Francisco after the War. The Takahashis, her mother’s family, were incarcerated in Tanforan and Topaz. A graduate of UC Berkeley (BA) and SF State (MA), she has lived in England and Japan. Her short story “The Loom” won the American Japanese National Literary Award, and her collection, The Loom and Other Stories, was published in 1991 by Graywolf Press. She shares her more recent writing via her website: www.rasasaki.com.
Copyright 2018, R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.
Thank you for sharing these stories. They give a fine tuning to history most US citizens never told.