From our home on Parker St. in Berkeley, our family was sent to Tanforan Assembly Center in the spring of 1942. My sister Mary Ann (Sumi) was almost five years old and I wasn’t quite two; so I have to say, I don’t remember Tanforan at all.
Some of the things I remember were because they were about people we knew back home: In the 1940s, Mrs. Yamashiro, (Rach’s mom), was one of eight Japanese neighbors living on the 1600 block of Parker Street (two houses away from us). In Topaz I remember her ironing clothes just as a dust storm began. She was determined and continued to iron while the dust was blowing…there were a lot of clothes to iron as she had many children.
A regrettable memory is when I kicked my Topaz playmate, Minoru Akiyoshi, while wearing shoes with steel-capped toes. He doesn’t remember being kicked but I do.
I remember once, when hanging up my jacket in my kindergarten classroom, I caught the crook of my arm on a carpenter nail—a nail used as a clothes hanger. The cut bled; I still have the scar today.
Then there are memories of small thrills or disappointments: Movie nights, for example, which were fun—except they always served tutti frutti ice cream, which I did not like, even to this day. Another disappointment: the kids in camp were always looking for Indian flint arrowheads; but I never found one. The only thing I found were chips of scattered coal.
One time, there was an event happening somewhere on the camp grounds that required getting there by a truck. As the truck rumbled down a dusty road, a big stream of dust was kicked-up, causing dust to blow back into the open end of the truck bed that was filled with people.
I remember a black pot belly stove, the only source of heat in our barrack. I was inspired by the music to get up and “tap dance.” Was it the music coming from a radio of Glenn Miller’s playing big-band jazz?—music that I still enjoy to this day (without ever tap dancing, again).
I’m in this class photo, taken circa 1943. I’m in the second row, third from left, slightly behind the boy in white with the sailor hat. Also in the photo are Minoru Akiyoshi, Diane Hoshi, Barbara Matsui, Roy Akagi, Lester Yamane, Yo Murakawa, Yoichi (George). Two of our teachers were Mrs. Yamagami and Mrs. Esther Kawamoto-Sera.