Mother and Father are on the other end of the mess hall. They’re at the same table, but not by each other. Mother converses with the women and Father with the men.
My heart aches for the table in our farmhouse. It had been left behind by the family who lived there before us, and Mother had worked to buff out scratches and stain it so that it looked new. And while there was the occasional night that one of us was out, most nights we sat around that table and ate together.
A rush of hatred for this place comes over me. Hatred for this place where I’ve been not only ripped away from my home, Diego, and Evalina, but also where the foundation of our family is crumbling away. What will we look like when we come out on the other side of this?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Evalina
Sunday, May 3, 1942
Mrs. Bishop fusses with the road map on her lap. “We’re going to be late.”
“Just relax, Karen,” Mr. Bishop says in his deep, soothing voice.
Beside me, their daughter, Grace, flashes me a smile. Piled around us and in the trunk are shoeboxes full of fruit, candy, toiletries, stationery, and stamps for the evacuees at Tanforan Assembly Center.
Mrs. Bishop glances at her wristwatch. “We should have left fifteen minutes earlier.”
She’s a serious-looking woman with a high forehead, stiff hairstyle, and sharply angled nose. But she also has a dimpled smile that flashes frequently, and a heart that bleeds for others.
“What do you think will happen if we miss our time slot?” she asks.
“This is our turn,” Mr. Bishop points at the traffic light ahead. “We won’t.”
Mr. Bishop turns at the next street, and in the distance I see the high grandstands of a racetrack. We must be very close, though there’s something else in the area that requires high-security. Along the road is a tall fence with three strands of barbed wire running along the top.
And then I see the reason for the barbed wire.
A group of Japanese American schoolgirls jump rope on the other side of the fence. The car engine is too loud for the others to hear me gasp.
“Despicable.” Mrs. Bishop spits the word, and wipes at her eyes with a handkerchief. “How can they stand themselves, keeping innocent people fenced in like that?”
Within the fence, Japanese Americans mill about, stand in lines, or carry bags of some sort. There are rows of rectangular buildings, black and ugly, that have been built right on the racetrack parking lot. What are those? Is this what I would see if we were to pull up to Manzanar?
As Mr. Bishop turns into the parking lot, I catch sight of the tall guard tower, of the silhouettes of guards holding guns just like I saw during the evacuation. I can’t seem to take in a full breath. The barbed wire isn’t enough? They have guards here too?
“They’ll probably want to search the boxes.” Mrs. Bishop’s voice has snapped out of its watery sorrow and into the brisk tone I’m accustomed to after a morning of working alongside her. “I’ll go speak to the guard, show him our pass, and see what the most efficient way is to get all the boxes inside.”
Mr. Bishop has hardly put on the parking brake when Mrs. Bishop opens her door and strides across the lot. She looks formidable in her tailored jacket with squared shoulders, and her hat at a sharp angle.
I want to be just like her.
“What pass is she talking about?” I ask Grace and Mr. Bishop as we restack boxes that toppled during the drive.
Grace’s gaze is latched to the guard towers. She looks as unsettled as I feel.
Mr. Bishop says, “You have to have a visitor’s pass to get in. They only allow you to visit for thirty minutes.”
“I didn’t even know there’d be a gate.” I swallow. “I thought it would be like an emergency shelter. That we would just pull up and walk in with the boxes.”
Mr. Bishop’s face is grim. “That would be nice. Unfortunately, they’re seen as prisoners. Not evacuees. Per the memos I see at work, anyway.”
Mr. Bishop, I’ve learned, is with the Navy. I’m not clear on what he does for them, only that he’s at no risk of being sent overseas.
“Is it like this at all the camps?” The words tremble as they emerge from me. “The barbed wire? The guards?”
“I don’t know. Since this is still the military zone, I’m guessing security is tighter here than places out of the zone.”
“What are those black buildings?” Grace asks. “Houses?”
“I’m not sure. When your mother and I speak to Jeanine, we’ll ask.”
Mrs. Bishop marches back to us with a sour expression. “We have to bring all the boxes in for inspection. The guards said they can search them while you and I meet with Jeanine. I asked about the girls coming in, but the guards are adamant that they can’t since their names aren’t on the pass.”
Mr. Bishop frowns. “I’ll show them my military I.D. I’m sure that will—”
“It’s okay.” Grace interrupts, her tone short and businesslike, just like both her parents. “Evalina and I will take care of the boxes. Give Jeanine my love.”
Mr. and Mrs. Bishop have a brief, silent conversation with their eyes, and then tell us they’ll be back out in thirty minutes.
Grace releases a breath and begins stacking the boxes. “I’m afraid to go in there. I don’t like guns. Especially ones with big knives on the end of them.”
I nod in agreement as I lift a stack of shoeboxes. I square my shoulders, just like Mrs. Bishop, and approach the guard stand. I brace myself for the cool hatred in the eyes of the guard, like the one who called me a Jap lover. If we want these boxes delivered, I can’t spit on anyone.
I take a quick, fortifying breath, look up into the eyes of the guard on the other side of the window, and say a curt, “Hi.”
He grins and tips his hat at me. “Hello, doll. Did you bring me a present?”
“I . . .” I wasn’t expecting that. “No. Mrs. Bishop said—”
“I’m just pulling your leg, doll,” he says as he stands. He rubs his hands together. “Let’s see what we have in here.”
He flips open one of the lids as Grace approaches, and he pokes around the items. He holds up a bag of cookies. “You know we feed the inmates, right?”
His eyes sparkle with humor, but I find nothing about this situation funny.
I keep my voice dry and my mouth unsmiling. “That’s awfully generous of you all.”
He slides the box aside and flips open the next. “If I thought you ladies would come visit me, I sure wouldn’t mind being fenced in here.”
The guard whistles as he pokes around. He has bright red hair and a youthful face. If I saw him on the streets, I would have guessed he was no more than sixteen.
“What are the black buildings in there? Houses?”
“Yep.” He moves onto the next box. “They put up two of those an hour, if you can believe it. Hard workers, the Japs are.”
“Americans,” I correct in a hard voice. “They’re Americans.”
He raises his eyebrows at me and looks amused rather than shamed. It only stokes the fire of outrage that constantly smolders in my chest.
“Evalina, why don’t you get another load of boxes?” Grace says in a gentle voice.
I stalk back to her family’s car and pound a stack of boxes together. What kind of person works here and isn’t sickened by the sight of little girls jumping rope inside a barbed wire fence? Of people living inside buildings that are built on a parking lot at the rate of two each hour? How can he smile and joke?
I close my eyes as they burn with building tears. This is wrong. This is so wrong.
“I’ll take those up.”
I startle at Grace’s voice—I hadn’t heard her approach—and I hastily wipe at my wet cheeks. “No, I’m fine.”
Her steady, blue gaze is evaluating. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Without waiting for more discussion, I grab the stack of shoeboxes and turn. If Taichi can board that bus with a straight face and dry
eyes, then I can withstand the guard’s carelessness.
“You girls have sure been busy,” he says, the same broad smile on his face.
I decide this doesn’t merit a direct response and look away instead, to inside the fence. “Have you been in there?”
“Nah. Us MPs stick to the guard towers and the sentry.”
“MPs?”
“Military police.”
My teeth dig into my lip as my eyes prickle dangerously. “Are there MPs at the camps like Manzanar? Or just the temporary residences, like Tanforan?”
He now just flicks open the lid of each box before sliding it aside. “Dunno. I think at all of them. Otherwise, why would the inmates stay inside the fence?”
I swallow hard as my mind flits back to watching the buses load a month ago. Not a single Japanese American had looked to me as if disobeying government orders had been on their mind. Taichi had certainly never talked like they would do anything less than what was asked of them, and that was before the guards.
There are boys nearby. I can’t see them, but I hear one say to another, “Here’s a good rock.”
“This rock is better,” the other responds. “You use that rock, and I’ll use this rock.”
As they pass by my field of vision, I see they’re young. Maybe six or seven. The taller of the boys grabs the other’s sleeve and tugs him away from the fence. “Don’t get too close.”
They both look up at the guard tower as they back away, their eyes round and their feet clumsy with haste.
I turn and look at the guard. I find him already watching me, his expression markedly different than before. “When I’m up there, I try to smile at the kids.” His voice is quiet as he says this. Earnest. “They can’t help it.”
I want to push him on this. What does he mean by “it,” because if it’s their race, none of them can help it. Same as he had no say in his red hair or his blue eyes.
Grace arrives at that moment with a cheerful, “This is the last of them,” and it’s probably good that we were interrupted.
After the guard gives all the boxes his stamp of approval, there’s nothing to do but lean against the car and wait for Mr. and Mrs. Bishop to return. This morning at church, Grace and I found a lot to talk about, because Grace is a freshman at U.C. Berkeley this year, so we’ll be seeing each other on campus next fall. But now I don’t feel like chatting about the campus or extracurriculars. I can’t get the frightened faces of those boys out of my head.
“You know,” Grace says in a slow and careful voice, “I saw you at that first evacuation.”
I turn to her. My face feels hot from the memory of Taichi’s kiss. I’m not sure what to say.
She has many of the same sharp features as her mother, but fortunately she also has Mrs. Bishop’s kindness, and it shines in her eyes now. “Have you heard from him?”
I nod. “He’s in Manzanar.”
“What’s it like there?”
My thoughts are a tangle of Taichi’s upbeat but vague letters, the strands of barbed wire around Tanforan, and the boys’ scared faces just now. “I don’t know,” I finally say. “I don’t think he likes to talk about it.”
“What’s his name?”
I haven’t spoken it in so long, and it tastes sweet on my tongue. “Taichi.”
“You’re in love.” Grace is not asking a question.
I answer anyway. “Yes.”
She sighs. “I’m so sorry.”
Dear Taichi,
I’ve had the most awful day.
I think I mentioned a few letters ago that I was going to help that church with care packages for Tanforan Assembly Center? We delivered them today, and I was shocked by the conditions there. Barbed wire around the whole place, and as if that wasn’t enough, they had armed guards.
You had to have a pass to get into the visiting room, which I didn’t, so I waited outside with Grace Bishop, the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Bishop. We could see all these rectangular buildings in the parking lot of the racetrack, and it turned out they were houses. When I asked about them, the guard said they can build two an hour. The Bishops’ friend said they call them barracks, and that there are four families sharing each one. They couldn’t have been any bigger than a hundred feet or so.
She said they have no privacy other than if they hang blankets between the “apartments,” but that it’s better than the people who have to live in the old horse stalls, which still smell like horses. She said they wait in lines for everything, even the toilets. And that the food is mostly bread and hot dogs and canned fruit.
We were all so mad on the way home that we couldn’t speak. Mrs. Bishop and I both kept crying. I was so distraught, I even told them about you and your family being sent away. Nobody seems to know how long the temporary centers will be needed. Hopefully soon they’ll be sent somewhere like Manzanar where life is more bearable. I’m grateful you’re not suffering like they are, but it still makes me miserable to think of the families I saw within the fence.
Sorry I don’t have anything cheery to say. I love you.
Evalina
I spritz the letter with perfume like I always do, and then I dissolve into tears, allowing my forehead to fall hard onto my desk. How can thousands of Japanese Americans, most of whom are American citizens same as me, be living in a place so degrading and carelessly thrown together? This is 1942, for heaven’s sake!
I pull myself together and fold Taichi’s letter. My gaze catches on the stack of brochures for my trip to Yosemite with Mama and Daddy. How can I even consider indulging in something as frivolous as a vacation when there are problems like this going on around me? When little kids are playing within barbed wire fences and families are sleeping in horse stalls that smell like urine?
In a swell of fury, I swipe at the colorful brochures with the back of my hand and send them fluttering to the floor of my room.
That wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I thought it would be.
I sigh and gather them back up, arranging them into a tidy stack. As I do, one of the topography labels on the map to Mono Lake catches my eye: Inyo Mountains.
I scramble down the stairs for the atlas I used several months ago when the newspaper started talking about Owens Valley being picked for a relocation camp. Yes, there it is! Mono Lake is close enough to Manzanar that they’re shown on the same page of the atlas.
Heart pounding, I grab a ruler from the kitchen junk drawer and measure out the distance. There’s around 110 miles between our hotel and where Taichi is if we take the road through the valley. We could be there in two-and-a-half hours, maybe faster if Daddy didn’t insist on driving 45 miles per hour the whole way, we didn’t have any flat tires, and I could get a visitor’s pass. And if my parents said yes . . .
My heart deflates. They’re never going to say yes to visiting Taichi. That would cost almost an entire day of our vacation, plus gas. And if visiting restrictions are similar to those at Tanforan, we would drive all that way just so I could have thirty minutes with Taichi. Who’s supposedly nothing more to me than the son of our produce supplier at the restaurant.
I put one finger on Mono Lake and the other on Owens Valley. They look so close together, and yet the distance feels insurmountable.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Taichi
Monday, May 11, 1942
I tuck the bat under my arm so I can clap for James as he crosses home plate with a flourish of dust. “Atta boy, James!”
We slap high fives before he joins the rest of our teammates, and I return to practicing swings on deck. With my fingers curled around the smooth wood of the bat, I feel as though my heart has come home after far too many days away.
I stand within the circle I drew in the dust and throw my strength into a practice swing.
Baseball in Manzanar is everything pure and fun that I love about the game, probably because it’s in such sharp contrast to everything else I do here. And there are no bitter Caucasian fathers like Danny Nielsen’s watching in the
stands, hoping I give Coach a reason to bench me so his son can take my spot.
My gaze sweeps over the crowd as I take another swing. I try not to count how many are here to watch our pickup game. The audience is mostly younger boys and teenage girls, including Margaret and Rose. Margaret grins, something she does far more than the other girls, and waves.
Our player grounds out, and I offer him a few claps of encouragement as he jogs past me. “You’ll get it next time.”
I step up to the plate and dig my shoes in. I should ask Diego if he can mail my cleats.
I swing mightily at the first pitch, and feel a flush come over my face when I nearly fall down. Yes, I should definitely ask Diego for my cleats.
“Thanks, Taichi. The breeze is nice,” calls the third baseman.
I straighten my hat and squint down the line to find Raymond Yamishi, the rude fellow from Los Angeles, sneering at me. Hot words are on the tip of my tongue, but I swallow them before they escape. This is just for fun. I don’t need to prove anything.
But when the next pitch barrels in, I swing with even more gusto, and, thankfully, more accuracy. The ball sails over the heads of the infielders, and my foot is secure on second base before it’s thrown back in.
I glance at Raymond, but he’s watching the next batter, seeming content to ignore my hit.
Our next batter, Yosuke, looks surprised when the bat connects with the ball. From the bench, James yells at him, “Run! Run!” and Yosuke scuttles to first while I make it easily to third.
I sense Raymond taking up his position behind me. “I have been meaning to talk to you.”
I shuffle a few steps away from the flour sack that marks third base. “What about?”
“My cousin works in the mail room.” Raymond speaks English well, but doesn’t seem very comfortable speaking it. “He says you receive many letters from a Caucasian female.”
This is so far from what I expected—not that I had any clue about what he would say—that at first I can’t seem to do anything but turn and look at him.
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