Obasan

by Joy Kogawa

  And the horrors that some of the young girls are facing—outraged by men in uniform. You wouldn't believe it, Nesan. You have to be right here in the middle of it to really know. The men are afraid to go and leave their wives behind.

  How can the Hakujin not feel ashamed for their treachery? My butcher told me he knew he could trust me more than he could most whites. But kind people like him are betrayed by the outright racists and opportunists like Alderman Wilson, God damn his soul. And there are others who, although they wouldn't persecute us, are ignorant and indifferent and believe we're being very well treated for the "class" of people we are. One letter in the papers says that in order to preserve the "British way of life”, they should send us all away. We're a "lower order of people”. In one breath we are damned for being "unassimilable" and the next there's fear that we'll assimilate. One reporter points to those among us who are living in poverty and says, “No British subject would live in such conditions”. Then if we improve our lot, another says, “There is danger that they will enter our better neighbourhoods”. If we are educated, the complaint is that we will cease being the "ideal servant”. It makes me choke. The diseases, the crippling, the twisting of our souls is still to come.

  March 12.

  Honest, Nesan, I'm just in a daze this morning. The last ruling forbids any of us—even Nisei—to go anywhere in this wide dominion without a permit from the Minister of Justice, St. Laurent, through Austin C. Taylor of the Commission here. We go where they send us.

  Nothing affects me much just now except rather detachedly. Everything is like a bad dream. I keep telling myself to wake up. There's no sadness when friends of long standing disappear overnight—either to Camp or somewhere in the Interior. No farewells—no promise at all of future meetings or correspondence—or anything. We just disperse. It's as if we never existed. We're hit so many ways at one time that if I wasn't past feeling I think I would crumble.

  This curfew business is horrible. At sundown we scuttle into our holes like furtive creatures. We look in the papers for the time of next morning's sunrise when we may venture forth.

  The government has requisitioned the Livestock Building at Hastings Park, and the Women's Building, to house 2,000 “Japs pending removal”. White men are pictured in the newspaper filling ticks with bales of straw for mattresses, putting up makeshift partitions for toilets—etc. Here the lowly Jap will be bedded down like livestock in stalls—perhaps closed around under police guard—I don't know. The Nisei will be "compelled" (news report) to volunteer in Labour Gangs. The worse the news from the Eastern Front, the more ghoulish the public becomes. We are the billy goats and nanny goats and kids—all the scapegoats to appease this blindness. Is this a Christian country? Do you know that Alderman Wilson, the man who says such damning things about us, has a father who is an Anglican clergyman?

  I can't imagine how the government is going to clothe and educate our young when they can't even get started on feeding or housing 22,000 removees. Yet the deadline for clearing us out seems to be July 1st or 31st—I'm not sure which. Seems to me that either there are no fifth columnists or else the Secret Service men can't find them. If the FBI in the States have rounded up a lot of them you'd think the RCMP could too and let the innocent ones alone. I wish to goodness they'd catch them all. I don't feel safe if there are any on the loose. But I like to think there aren't any.

  March 20.

  Dearest Nesan,

  Stephen has been developing a slight limp. Dad's not sure what's wrong with the leg. He suspects that the fall he had last year never healed properly and there's some new aggravation at the hip. Stephen spends a lot of time making up tunes on the new violin Dad got him. The old one, I told you, was broken. It's lucky our houses are so close, as I can get to see the children fairly often, even with the miserable curfew.

  Your friend Mina Sugimoto takes her boys to play with Stephen a fair amount but she's acting like a chicken flapping about with her head cut off since her husband left.

  Last night over a hundred boys entrained for a road camp at Schreiber, Ontario. A hundred and fifty are going to another camp at Jasper. The Council (United Nisei) has been working like mad talking to the boys. The first batch of a hundred refused to go. They got arrested and imprisoned in that Immigration building. The next batch refused too and were arrested. Then on Saturday they were released on the promise that they would report back to the Pool. There was every indication they wouldn't but the Council persuaded them to keep their word. They went finally. That was a tough hurdle and the Commission cabled Ralston to come and do something.

  On Thursday night, the confinees in the Hastings Park Pool came down with terrible stomach pains. Ptomaine, I gather. A wholesale company or something is contracted to feed them and there's profiteering. There are no partitions of any kind whatsoever and the people are treated worse than livestock, which at least had their own pens and special food when they were there. No plumbing of any kind. They can't take a bath. They don't even take their clothes off. Two weeks now. Lord! Can you imagine a better breeding ground for typhus? They're cold (Vancouver has a fuel shortage), they're undernourished, they're unwashed. One of the men who came out to buy food said it was pitiful the way the kids scramble for food and the slow ones go empty. God damn those politicians who brought this tragedy on us.

  Dan has to report tomorrow and will most likely be told when to go and where. A day's notice at most. When will we see him again? Until all this happened I didn't realize how close a member of the family he had become. He's just like a brother to me. Nesan, I don't know what to do.

  The Youth Congress protested at the ill treatment but since then the daily papers are not printing a word about us. One baby was born at the Park. Premature, I think.

  If all this sounds like a bird's-eye view to you, Nesan, it's the reportage of a caged bird. I can't really see what's happening. We're like a bunch of rabbits being chased by hounds.

  You remember Mr. Mori, the man who was teaching judo to the RCMP? He receives orders from the Mounties to get "a hundred to the station or else and here's a list of names”. Any who are rich enough, or who are desperate about not going immediately because of family concerns, pay Mori hundreds of dollars and get placed conveniently on a committee. There are nearly two hundred on that "committee" now. Some people say he's distributing the money to needy families, but who knows?

  There's a three-way split in the community—three general camps: the Mori gang, us—the Council group—and all the rest, who don't know what to do. The Council group is just a handful. It's grueling uphill work for us. Some people want to fight. Others say our only chance is to cooperate with the government. Whichever way we decide there's a terrible feeling of underlying treachery.

  March 22, 1942.

  Dear Diary,

  I don't know if Nesan will ever see any of this. I don't know anything anymore. Things are swiftly getting worse here. Vancouver—the water, the weather, the beauty, this paradise—is filled up and overflowing with hatred now. If we stick around too long we'll all be chucked into Hastings Park. Fumi and Eiko are helping the women there and they say the crowding, the noise, the confusion is chaos. Mothers are prostrate in nervous exhaustion—the babies crying endlessly—the fathers torn from them without farewell— everyone crammed into two buildings like so many pigs—children taken out of school with no provision for future education—more and more people pouring into the Park—forbidden to step outside the barbed-wire gates and fence—the men can't even leave the building—police guards around them—some of them fight their way out to come to town to see what they can do about their families. Babies and motherless children totally stranded—their fathers taken to camp. It isn't as if this place had been bombed and everyone was suffering. Then our morale would be high because we'd be together.

  Eiko says the women are going to be mental cases.

  Rev. Kabayama and family got thrown in too. It's going to be an ugly fight to survive among us. They're making
(they say) accommodation for 1,200 -1,300 women and children in that little Park! Bureaucrats find it so simple on paper and it's translated willy-nilly into action—and the pure hell that results is kept "hush-hush" from the public, who are already kicking about the "luxury" given to Japs.

  I'm consulting with Dad and Mark and Aya about going to Toronto. We could all stay together if we could find someone in Toronto to sponsor us. People are stranded here and there all over the B.C. interior. I want to leave this poisoned province. But Aya wants to stay in BC, to be closer to Sam. I'm going to write to a doctor in Toronto that Dad knows.

  March 27.

  Dan's been arrested. The boys refused to go to Ontario. Both trainloads. So they're all arrested. Dan had a road map friends drew for him, so they suspected him of being a "spy" and now he's in the Pool.

  Nisei are called "enemy aliens”. Minister of War, or Defense, or something flying here to take drastic steps.

  April 2, 1942.

  Dearest Nesan,

  If only you and Mother could come home! Dad's sick in bed. The long months of steady work. Since the evacuation started he's had no letup at all. Two nights ago, one of his patients was dying. He tried to arrange to have the daughter go to the old man's bedside but couldn't. Dad stayed up all night with the man, and now he's sick himself.

  I'm afraid that those kept in Hastings Park will be held as hostages or something. Perhaps to ensure the good behavior of the men in the work camps. Dan was cleared of that idiotic spying charge and is helping at the Pool. The cop who arrested him was drunk and took a few jabs at him but Dan didn't retaliate, thank heavens. I'm applying for a pass so I can get to see him.

  Dan has a lawyer working for him and his parents about their desire to stay together, especially since Dan's father is blind and his mother speaks no English at all. The lawyer went to the Security Commission's lawyers and reported back that he was told to let the matter drift because they were going to make sure the Japs suffered as much as possible. The Commission is responsible to the Federal Government through the Minister of Justice, St. Laurent, It works in conjunction with the RCMP. The Commission has three members—Austin C. Taylor, to represent the Minister of Justice, Commissioner Mead of the RCMP, John Shirras of the Provincial Police.

  Only Tommy and Kunio, as active members of the Council, know what's going on and they're too busy to talk to me. The New Canadian comes out so seldom we have no way of knowing much and I've been so busy helping Dad I can't get to Council meetings very often. There's so much veiling and soft-pedaling because everything is censored by the RCMP. We can only get information verbally. The bulletins posted on Powell Street aren't available to most people. Besides, nobody can keep up with all the things that are happening. There's a terrible distrust of federal authorities and fear of the RCMP, but mostly there's a helpless panic. Not the hysterical kind, but the kind that churns round and round going nowhere.

  My twenty-sixth birthday is coming up soon and I feel fifty. I've got lines under my eyes and my back is getting stooped, I noticed in a shop window today.

  Mina Sugimoto heard from her husband. Why haven't we heard from Sam? Stephen asked me the other day "Where's Uncle?" What could I say?

  April 8, 1942.

  Ye gods! The newspapers are saying that there are actually Japanese naval officers living on the coast. It must be a mistake. Maybe they're old retired men. I heard someone say it was just that they took courses when they were kids in school and that's the way schools are in Japan. I'd hate to think we couldn't tell a fisherman from a sailor. Maybe the articles are true. I wonder if there's a cover-up. Surely we'd know if there were any spies. But gosh—who can we trust? At times like this, all we have is our trust in one another. What happens when that breaks down?

  A few days ago the newspaper reported Ian Mackenzie as saying, "The intention of the government is that every single Japanese—man, woman, and child— shall be removed from Vancouver as speedily as possible." He said we were all going to be out in three or four weeks and added it was his “personal intention”, as long as he was in public life, “that these Japanese shall not come back here.”

  It's all so frightening. Rumors are that we're going to be kept as prisoners and war hostages—but that's so ridiculous since we're Canadians. There was a headline in the paper yesterday that said half of our boats "of many different kinds and sizes” have been released to the army, navy, air force, and to "bona fide white fishermen”. I wonder who has Sam's beautiful little boat. It was such an ingenious design. They said they were hopeful about all the boats because one plywood boat passed all the tests. The reporter found someone he called a "real fisherman”, a man from Norway who had fished all his life and used to have a 110-foot steam fishing boat when he fished off Norway and Iceland "close to home”. That's one man who's profiting by our misery. He's quoted as saying, “We can do without the Japanese”, but he's not loath to take our boats. Obviously white Canadians feel more loyalty toward white foreigners than they do toward us Canadians.

  All this worrying is very had for Dad. He's feeling numbness on the left side. I'm trying to keep him still but he's a terrible patient. He's very worried about Stephen—the limp is not improving. Dad is so intense about that boy. He's also worried about Mark, says his coughing is a bad sign and he's losing weight too fast. A lot of his patients, especially the old ones, are in a state of collapse.

  I haven't been to meetings of the Council lately. Too occupied with the sick ones around me. But I'm trying to keep an eye on what's happening. The Nisei who were scheduled to leave last night balked. I don't know the details. We haven't heard whether they're in the jug or the Pool or on the train. It's horrible not being able to know.

  April 9.

  It seems that all the people who are conscientious enough to report when they have to, law-abiding enough not to kick about their treatment—these are the ones who go first. The ones on the loose, bucking the authorities, are single men, so the married ones have to go to fill the quota. A lot of the fellows are claiming they need more time to clear up family affairs for their parents who don't understand English well enough to cope with all the problems and regulations.

  I had a talk with Tommy on the phone. He said they can't do much more than they're doing without injuring a lot more people. “All we've got on our side," he said, “is time and the good faith of the Nisei.” At times I get fighting mad and think that the RCMP in using Mori are trusting the wrong man—the way he collects money for favors—but in the end, I can see how complaining would just work even more against us. What can we do? No witnesses will speak up against him anymore. I'm told our letters aren't censored yet, but may be at any time.

  April 11.

  Dear Nesan,

  Dad had a letter the other day from his friend Kawaguchi at Camp 406 in Princeton. It’s cheered him up a lot. You remember Kawaguchi? His wife died a few years back. He left his kids with friends and he's asking us to see what we can do to keep Jack's education from being disrupted. He says, "I think we should always keep hope. Hope is life. Hopeless is lifeless.”

  This morning Dad got out of bed and went to the Pool bunkhouse for men (the former Women's Building). He was nauseated by the smell, the clouds of dust, the pitiful attempts at privacy. The Livestock Building (where the women and kids are) is worse. Plus manure smells. The straw ticks are damp and mouldy. There are no fresh fruits or vegetables. He ate there to see what it was like. Supper was two slices of bologna, bread, and tea. That's all. Those who have extra money manage to get lettuce and tomatoes and fruit from outside. Nothing for babies. He's asking for improvement and so is the Council.

  Dad saw Dan. He earns about two dollars a day at the Pool helping out—minus board, of course. There are a handful of others working there as well, getting from ten to twenty-five cents an hour for running errands and handling passes, etc. Dad, being a doctor, has a pass to come and go freely. The fact that he retired a few years ago because of his heart means the Commission is n
ot pressing him into service in the ghost towns.

  We'll have to rent our houses furnished. Have to leave the chesterfield suite, stove, refrig, rugs, etc. We aren't allowed to sell our furniture. Hits the dealers somehow. I don't understand it, but so they say.

  It's an awfully unwieldy business, this evacuation. There's a wanted list of over a hundred Nisei who refuse to entrain. They're being chased all over town.

  April 20.

  I have gone numb today. Is all this real? Where do I begin? First I got my pass and saw Dan at last. He's going to Schreiber in two days. I didn't feel a thing when he told me. It didn't register at all. Maybe I'm crazy. When I left, I didn't say goodbye either. Now that I'm home I still can't feel. He was working in the Baggage—old Horse Show Building. Showed me his pay check as something he couldn't believe—$11.75. He's been there an awfully long time.

  After I saw Dan, and delivered some medicine for Dad, I saw Eiko and Fumi. Eiko is working as a steno in the Commission office there, typing all the routine forms. She sleeps in a partitioned stall—being on the staff, so to speak. The stall was the former home of a pair of stallions and boy oh boy did they leave their odor behind! The whole place is impregnated with the smell of ancient manure. Every other day it's swept with chloride of lime or something but you can't disguise horse smells, cow, sheep, pig, rabbit, and goat smells. And is it dusty! The toilets are just a sheet-metal trough and up till now they didn't have partitions or seats. The women complained, so they put in partitions and a terribly makeshift seat. Twelve-year-old boys stay with the women too. The auto show building, where the Indian exhibits were, houses the new dining room and kitchens. Seats 3,000. Looks awfully permanent. Brick stoves—eight of them—shiny new mugs—very very barracky. As for the bunks, they were the most tragic things I saw there. Steel and wooden frames at three-foot intervals with thin lumpy straw ticks, bolsters, and three army blankets of army quality—no sheets unless you brought your own. These are the "homes” of the women I saw. They wouldn't let me or any “Jap females” into the men's building. There are constables at the doors—“to prevent further propagation of the species”, it said in the newspaper. The bunks were hung with sheets and blankets and clothes of every colour—a regular gypsy caravan—all in a pathetic attempt at privacy—here and there I saw a child's doll or teddy bear—I saw two babies lying beside a mother who was too weary to get up—she had just thrown herself across the bed. I felt my throat thicken. I couldn't bear to look on their faces daring me to be curious or superior because I still lived outside. They're stripped of all privacy.