Jack and I went to Delta, and Jane Beckwith took us out to the location of Block 20 at the Topaz site, where my family had lived.
There we found the remnants of the concrete shell of the fish pond my father had built. I stood in the middle of the impression, which was about three feet deep. My father had stood here once. His hands had shaped the edges of the pond.
I remembered a patch of sunflowers that someone planted next to the pond. We kids used to pick out the seeds and eat them.
I don’t know what happened to the fish, captive in their desert pond. The pond probably dried out and the fish died when we all left camp. No one left to feed them.
I don’t think I got closure on that visit. I went to Topaz again in 2017–but again, that visit did not really give me the closure I was looking for–and I’m not sure what will.
About the contributor: Jun Nakahara Dairiki was born in San Francisco in 1934. She was seven years old when the Nakahara family was incarcerated in Tanforan. While her two elder sisters resettled in Chicago, Jun and her parents were in Topaz for the duration of the War and farmed in Idaho when the camp closed. After graduating from high school, Jun worked in Chicago, then spent two years in Japan with the civil service. She met her husband Jack after returning from Japan and settling in San Francisco.
Copyright Jun Nakahara Dairiki, 2022. All rights reserved.
Tears well up as I read your story, Jun-san. I’ve just returned from Topaz, where I went with the Wakasa Memorial Committee to mark the one year since the local museum board dug up and dragged away the Memorial Stone our Issei ancestors had to hide. I, too, seek closure. I think our history being treated with dignity will help.
Thank you, Masako, for your kind words. I did not know there was a Topaz Stories group, but Yae Yedlosky and her family, the Kami’s and we were neighbors in Topaz; Yae told Ann Dion/Ruth Sasaki about my dad’s fish pond. And that’s this story got told.
I really would like to visit Salt Lake and the Topaz exhibit being shown in their State Capitol — but with Covid…….