This Mother’s Day weekend, we bring you a new story by Topaz survivor Kaz Iwahashi–a tribute to her mother, Shizue Oyamada.
Kaz Oyamada was 12 years old when her family was evicted from Berkeley for being Japanese American and imprisoned in Tanforan Assembly Center in San Bruno, CA.
As a teenager in Topaz, her life revolved around high school and her friends while her mother took care of her three younger siblings.
After the war, the family was temporarily separated as her dad looked for a house while trying to restart his business. Kaz left Topaz next and worked as a live-in “school girl” for a white family in Berkeley while attending Berkeley High. Her mother and three siblings remained in Topaz until the camp was closing in October and they, like many others who had no home to go back to, were placed in government housing in Hunters Point in San Francisco.
Decades later, Kaz reflects on “Questions I Never Asked Mom.”
The Topaz Stories Team
Contact us if you have a Topaz Story to share.
Follow us on Instagram @topazstories
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)