The Topaz High School Yearbook of 1943 has many photos of boys and young men on basketball and track teams, with shots of individual athletes, summaries of season highlights, etc. There was not a single photo of women’s basketball–just a few photos of young women playing volleyball, with a mention of other sports women enjoyed, such as badminton. I was not aware there even was a women’s basketball team in Topaz until I heard from Mitsi Nakamizo Fuchigami that she had played on it.
And sure enough, in the 1945 Yearbook, there they were. No team shots, but a few photos of women in basketball poses. That’s progress, albeit somewhat skimpy for a team with an unbeaten season record.
Follow Mitsi’s story from Buchanan Street in pre-war San Francisco to Topaz, followed by a difficult resettlement in New York City, where pervasive unkindness was alleviated by a group of Puerto Rican girls who invited her to eat lunch with them. I hope you will enjoy Mitsi’s memoir, “Hoop Dreams.”
The Topaz Stories Team
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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)