Letters

Reading Amy’s letters allowed for a personal look into Japanese internment. Takaki shares how the Japanese were only allowed to take what they could carry: “evacuees had to sell most of their possessions—their refrigerators, cars, furniture, radios, pianos, and houses” (Takaki 393). Amy experienced this, and as a result of losing personal items, she wrote Violet and sent her money asking for a sewing machine and material; the process of getting the things she needed was complicated and timely. Although, Takaki describes the “linear” camp, with its “barracks lined in orderly rows…[and] military-like routine,” Amy describes how unorganized her camp actually was. She tells Violet how the staff was simply terrible… inexperienced and inconsiderate; it seemed as though they only got their jobs through politics. They camp was half-ready and wrought with social problems. She shares how a man in the camp was hypnotized by his religious faith to insanity, and how a mother threatened to kill her baby. However, despite the horrendous treatment around her, from her letters, Amy chooses to primarily identify with her faith—not her skin color. She recognizes that the children are becoming wild and need Christian believers, and she is faithful in teaching 6-7 year olds in Sunday School. Amy illuminated how even though their treatment was unjust, many of the interned Japanese sought opportunities to seek the Lord and beauty; many of the Japanese created “rock gardens with bonsai outside their drab barracks” (Takaki 394). Although, many things were taken from the Japanese, many of them did not allow their creativity or faith to be taken; their identity was more complex than the color of their skin.

While Amy demonstrates strength in the letters I read, Takaki shares how many of the Japanese understandably “felt diminished, their dignity destroyed. Some were overwhelmed by their despair” (Takaki 396). Yamada captures this despair in “Thirty Years Under.” Like the limited belongings that the Japanese had to pack up and take with them, the narrator packs up her “wounds in a cast iron box” (Bold Words 80). Their internment affected how the Japanese saw themselves and the people around them, and many people wanted to never open their box and remember the horrors and humiliation. In her letters, Amy often refers to whites as Americans. Because of her experience, she may not have identified as an American for a length of time. Yamada illustrates how our wounds affect our perspective, as she “traveled blind for thirty years” carrying her hurts (Bold Words 80). Yamada’s and Amy’s experiences of being “spat on like a dog” cultivated reactions of both hopeless despair and overcoming creativity (Bold Words 80). The responses to Japanese internment revealed how identity is made up of so much more than just skin color.