Letters

As we read the letters in class today that were exchanged between Amy and Violet, it was really quite interesting to be able to read about the lifestyle Amy was forced to lead during her time in an internment camp. For one thing, it was appalling to read about the conditions in the barracks in which Japanese Americans were forced to live. While the conditions may not have been as bad as the concentration camps in Europe, they were still unacceptable. Amy noted in one of her letters that the few bags of luggage that they were allowed to bring to the camps with them got beat up in the harsh conditions. She also came down with valley fever, which is, unfortunately, not surprising, given how frequently dust storms ravaged the area where the barracks were located. As noted in Takaki, Monica Sone, a Japanese American who was in an internment camp, recalled the environmental conditions surrounding the barracks: “We felt as if we were standing in a gigantic sand-mixing machine… sand filled our mouths and nostrils and stung our faces and hands like a thousand darting needles.” (Takaki 395) One of the symptoms of valley fever is strange dreams, which Amy described in one of her letters to Violet. Each time she attempted to get help from the doctors in the area, she would be afraid to trust them, because they would consistently brush off her illness as though it were just the common cold… even though it clearly wasn’t.

Because they weren’t allowed to bring hardly anything with them to the internment camps, Japanese Americans would have to go to great lengths to acquire material goods, which is another struggle Amy faced. In her communications with Violet, Amy would sometimes discuss the transportation of objects and clothes, such as sewing machines and coats, to the camp. Another struggle Japanese Americans faced was the prospect of finding a new job as soon as they were released from the internment camps. Amy talked a lot about her search for employment while she was still in the internment camp, frequently seeking and filling out job applications whenever she could find them.

Perhaps the most unfortunate thing that happened during Amy’s time in the internment camps (at least, from what was written in the letters we read) was the fact that Amy’s mother suffered a stroke in September of 1943, and never fully recovered. This supplements the notion that living conditions were terrible in the barracks, and medical help was not readily available, or very high quality.