On February 24 we lost a national treasure. Yae Wada passed away at the age of 103.
I was privileged to meet Yae in 2018 when Ann Dion suggested I meet a 98-year-old Topaz survivor who might have a good story. I wasn’t sure what to expect. It certainly wasn’t the spry, gracious and impeccably put together woman whose hearing was better than mine. Although Ann had told her to expect me, and we’d set up the meeting by email, I was a total stranger to her. Nevertheless, she welcomed me into her home, served me tea, and I spent the next hour listening to her “talk story.” From that brief visit, not only a Topaz story, but a friendship was born.
Together we investigated the story of the San Mateo High School band members who visited Tanforan in June 1942 to play “Pomp and Circumstance” at the graduation of seniors who had missed their own graduations because they were imprisoned behind barbed wire. To me, it was a new story–but to Yae, it was a treasured memory. She relates it in “The Band’s Visit.” But we both wanted to know more, so I dug around online and found Yon Kawakita, who was a member of SMHS’s graduating class that year. He also responded generously to a letter from a complete stranger (me), and I was able to get some answers for Yae about how that act of kindness came about. Their stories were included in the Topaz Stories exhibit at J-Sei in Emeryville in 2019, and Yae, Jonathan Hirabayashi and I were interviewed in the East Bay Times about the exhibit.
Yae stayed in touch; I would sometimes get emails from her (typed on her iPad) late at night. She was always up for anything. She loved traveling with her granddaughter Joy. She was interviewed on KQED’s Forum around the Day of Remembrance in 2022. At the age of 102, she traveled to Utah with her family to attend the reception for the Topaz Stories Exhibit in the state capitol.
She was that rare individual who had been an adult in camp and still, decades later, retained a very clear-eyed view of what had happened back then and didn’t hesitate to talk about it. She didn’t sugarcoat anything. At the same time, she maintained a strong sense of gratitude to all those who were kind, and who helped. She personified the reason behind our Topaz Stories project in her desire to preserve the stories, and to share them, as a reminder that we must always be vigilant to protect our fragile democracy–because if it could happen to us, it could happen to anyone. She is irreplaceable, and we will miss her.
The Topaz Stories Team
Contact us if you have a Topaz Story to share.
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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)