tule lake — Blog

Setsuko Moriya

“You know, before we left, we were like little kids. When you go into camp, you got to grow up. You're aware of other things besides yourself. And you're nobody.”

tule lake, los angeles, amacheDiana TsuchidaDecember 13, 2022Tule Lake, amache, Los Angeles, SacramentoComment

Mary Iwami

“I remember my mother and I visited the bathroom building and she had fainted. Nothing like that ever happened before so I thought she had died. That was so traumatic, other ladies went to her aide and others tried to console me.”

poston, tule lakeDiana TsuchidaDecember 25, 2020salinas, central coast, tule lake, postonComment

Richard Yamashiro

A lot of people, like I said, didn’t even know we were in a camp. They see my picture and say, “What’s that?” Well, it’s my card from when I was in a concentration camp. “What concentration camp?”

japan, tule lake, manzanarDiana TsuchidaFebruary 26, 2020Manzanar, Tule Lake, Japan, military intelligence serviceComment

Earl & Helen Santo

“After getting used to things, we were able to make friends. See, as people coming from the farm, we weren't able to play with other kids and it brought a lot of new friends.”

Mitsuki Mikki Tsuchida

“Army trucks would pull up and someone would shout down, ‘How many in your family?’ And they would throw the toilet paper, and you had to go pick it up. And that lack of human dignity, it just went on and on.”

tule lake, topaz, crystal cityDiana TsuchidaOctober 14, 2017santa anita, berkeley, san francisco, tule lakeComment

Robert Tanaka

“They didn’t break down or anything. Very, very strong people. Actually all the Issei are all like that because when they came over from the old country, they came with nothing. They worked hard all their life for their family. But when you become a parent, you start to see, feel all these things they went through.”

veterans, tule lakeDiana TsuchidaMarch 8, 2017military intelligence service, san jose, bay area, tule lakeComment

Art & Betty Shibayama

“If it didn’t happen, if we weren’t evacuated, I wouldn’t have never met Art. From Peru, to a little farm girl in Oregon, how would we meet, you know? So I have no regrets.”

crystal city, tule lakeDiana TsuchidaJanuary 10, 2017art shibayama, japanese peruvians, seabrook, texas, crystal cityComment

Nancy Yamamoto

“When I think about it, I’m mad at Japan for creating this problem. Because the yes-yes, no-no question came up because of the war. It would never have come up before if things were okay. And I’m angry at them because they knew that they had family and relatives living in the United States.”

tule lakeDiana TsuchidaDecember 13, 2016tule lake, oakland, bay areaComment

Fusae Yoshida

“I always wrote to my grandfather, once a week, a small letter in my broken Japanese. And after a year they released my grandfather, and to this day I’m sorry that I wasn’t older to question him about what happened in those camps.”

tule lakeDiana TsuchidaOctober 30, 2016tule lake, pinedale, tacoma, oaklandComment

Digger Sasaki

“When we had to relocate we had to go to Pinedale Assembly Center. One thing that kind of touched my heart is when we left Auburn, we boarded a train. And my teacher brought the class to send me off. So, that was really nice.”