When the Saito family was imprisoned in Tanforan, then Topaz, in 1942, 10-year-old May, the eldest daughter, was old enough to remember their life in San Francisco before camp. But for her younger siblings, Topaz was the only home they knew. They arrived to barely completed, unfurnished tarpaper barracks, lined up in stark rows in the shadeless desert; but by the time they left, they had created small gardens, a pond or two, and indelible childhood memories.
Their transition back into society was brutal. With no home to return to, the family was put in government housing, first in Hunters Point in San Francisco, then in Richmond. May worked as a schoolgirl to help her family get by.
May’s story impressed me for many reasons. Her account of what it was like to live in government housing after leaving camp was the most detailed I’d heard. Another very personal reason was that May actually remembered my grandmother, mother and uncle, who lived in the same barrack as the Saito family. Through her memories, I got the first specific glimpse of my grandmother in Topaz: calling out my uncle’s name “Noboru!”, ice cream cone from the co-op in hand. Although that recollection did not make it into the story, it was a gift I will treasure always. Read May’s story, “Topaz Was My Home.”
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)
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)