Topaz was my home—I have wonderful memories of my time there. Now I realize how hard it must have been for the elders. I have returned twice. Until I revisited Topaz, I felt something was missing; but after going back, I felt complete—even though nothing remained of the camp but the desert. I would like to go back one more time, with my great-granddaughter, Lily Belle, who is now ten, the same age that I was when I was incarcerated in Tanforan.
“If you could take only what you could carry, what would you take?” I once asked Lily Belle in the course of talking about my experiences during the War. “My doll,” Lily Belle replied.
About the contributor: May was born in 1932 in San Francisco’s Japantown to a Kibei mother (Kikue) and Issei father (Takeo Saito), who was a pharmacist in Tokyo before emigrating to the U.S. The Saito family was incarcerated in Tanforan and Topaz in 1942. After the War, they resettled in government housing in San Francisco’s Hunters Point, then Richmond. May graduated from Oakland Technical High School, where she was the President of the Japanese Club. She worked as an accountant for the Naval Supply Center in Oakland for 39 years. She married Masashi Takashima, Sr. in 1951 and had one son, Masashi. May resides in Oakland and enjoys going to church and attending various recitals of her great grandchildren, Lily Belle Aiko and Takeo Gabriel.
© 2025, May Saito Takashima. All rights reserved.