EXHIBITS

Convicting the Innocent: Japanese American Youth at Topaz: Evacuation

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Evacuation

“But [Father] always mentioned, ‘This is America. They won’t treat you badly,’ all the way through the time that the FBI came and took him, arrested him separately . . . Our date of evacuation was—and ‘evacuation’ is the wrong word—I wasn’t hurt . . . and we’re being sent to somewhere ‘safer.’ Anyway, that’s what, I guess, kept us going, my dad’s last words of, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, this is America.’ ” —Grace F. Oshita[1]

This is a notice posted by the Western Defense Command on May 5, 1942. This poster directs all Japanese Americans to report to the Civilian Control Station and gives them a week to settle their affairs and leave their homes.

[click the image to enlarge]

(Utah State University, Merrill-Cazier Library, Special Collections & Archives, Broadside D0010)

Relocation sign from Mr. and Mrs. K. Iseri in California in 1942. It reads: “Many thanks for your patronage. Hope to serve you in near future. God be with you till we meet again.”

(Photograph courtesy of the Utah State Historical Society)

After Executive Order 9066, the Western Defense Command announced that all persons of Japanese descent would need to evacuate the West Coast. Some were only given a week to do so. While many were able to store their belongings in government-provided facilities, many had to sell their businesses, give up their rental properties, and give away their pets.

Although not at Topaz, these essays are a collection of students’ perspectives of evacuation and life at Tule Lake, a relocation center in Northern California.

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(Courtesy of University of Utah Special Collections & Archives)

In a paper for her English class at the Tule Lake Relocation Center, a girl named Mineko wrote:

“May 21, 1942 is a day which will live in my memory forever, for this was my last day home. My last day in my hometown, Auburn, Washington . . . On this day my head was filled with many problems. Problems, I’ve never experienced before. Problems like would I ever come back again to the town I knew so well; would I ever see my friends that I had grown up with again? This with the last minute shopping and every other thing on my mind made this a day which was everything but a happy day.”[2]

After they left their homes, Japanese Americans from all over the West Coast were transported to assembly centers which would house them until the relocation centers were built.

[1] Grace F. Oshita, interview by Megan Asaka, “Grace F. Oshita Interview,” June 4, 2008, Densho Digital Archive, Topaz Museum Collection, accessed January 28,2020, https://ddr.densho.org/media/ddr-densho-1013/ddr-densho-1013-4-transcript-3fadde549d.htm.

[2] Mineko, “My Last Day Home,” in the Japanese American relocation collection, University of Utah Special Collections & Archives, MS 144, Box 4, Fd. 4, pg. 2.