by Vincent Yee
Minami playfully rolled her eyes and responded, “At any age, I would say ‘no.’”
Kenji placed the palms of his hands on his heart and feigned a painful rejection, “Oh Minami, you hurt me so!”
Mrs. Yasuda quickly whacked the back of her son’s head in an upward motion as he winced in pain and exclaimed “baka!” the Japanese term for “fool.” In a motherly silence that can only be understood by disobedient sons, she motioned curtly with her hands for Kenji to get the Itos’ suitcases.
Kenji managed to stack and tie down all nine suitcases onto the top of the station wagon. Mrs. Ito squeezed into the front seat with Mrs. Yasuda as the young Kenji got behind the wheel. He seemed excited, probably because he got to drive. Minami piled into the back seat with her sisters; Yoshi was small enough to sit on Minami’s lap.
Kenji placed his hand on the gearshift and put it into drive. “Okay everyone, take a last look at your house,” he said.
Minami looked somberly at the house that she had lived in for most of her life. She looked at the front door, with her eyes travelling to the second floor and then to the attic. Kenji then began the drive down to the school as the house faded away into the distance.
The school was overrun with Japanese families, all sitting around their suitcases as armed soldiers stood about like sentries. A fleet of buses lined the street. Men in suits walked in between the families with clipboards and eyed each family suspiciously.
Minami and her family found a spot to wait along the curb and thanked the Yasudas for their help. Mrs. Yasuda and her son got back into their car as they had helped five other families earlier that day and it was finally their turn. Minami waited with her siblings, each sitting on a suitcase. Their mother had appeared and brought back with her, tags that bore the same number and their name. It was their family number and she was also given the number of the bus to board.
Minami looked around her and saw the glum mood of the Japanese American families around her. The U.S. Army had plucked out each family with ease. If Japanese Americans looked white, it would not have been that easy to single them out.
The roar of the coughing mufflers broke the silence. One by one, men in suits called out the bus numbers. They were being carted away like cattle, thought Minami. They were told that the suitcases should be left behind as they would be picked up separately and driven to their destination. Minami was incensed by the request, but she could only grumble about it.
When their number was called up, the family neatly lined up their suitcases and gave a sigh of relief. Minami went along side with her mother with Yoshi in between her two sisters trailing behind. They waited in line and came to the front. The soldier with the clipboard stared down at Mrs. Ito. In a polite voice Mrs. Ito said, “Ito.” The soldier looked at her scornfully and replied, “I don’t want your name, just tell me your number.” Mrs. Ito collected her composure and simply said, “59.” The soldier looked down at Mrs. Ito, Minami and her three siblings and made five quick scribbles on his clipboard and motioned with the pencil to board the bus. The Itos climbed into the bus and found two rows of empty seats side by side. Yoshi sat between Miho and Yuka and Minami sat with her mother.
They sat there for a few minutes as other Japanese American families filled up the remaining seats. Soon, the curt soldier who greeted them at the door boarded the bus and in a low but sharp voice, informed them that they would be taken to their designated relocation center. He also informed them that the trip was long and that their belongings were on their way to the relocation center. He then said that lunch would be passed out. As he spoke, he scanned the bus. Silent expressionless men and women, all with black hair and almond eyes stared back at him. He then disembarked as two other soldiers stepped on board and handed each person a brown paper bag that contained their lunch. Finally the bus roared to life once more. The bus driver closed the doors and began to drive to an unknown destination.
S E V E N
The buses meandered out of the winding streets of the small fishing town until finally they were all in single file, moving along in silent unison. Though Minami was sad and angry about leaving the only home she knew, she was also glad. The chants from the townspeople shouting “Go home, Japs!” fueled her disgust with the townspeople and she wanted to just leave it all behind her. The eggshells that cracked and splattered on the windows of the bus let out its gooey bomb of yellow yolk and raw egg white, exposed a reality that she never wanted to admit: The undercurrent of hate toward the Japanese Americans. She had to wonder if all those smiles and pleasantries in the past had been simply an elaborate facade.
Once the bus got onto the highway and the sun arced behind them, the ride was steady and uneventful. The people on the bus were a varied load, mothers with children of various ages, young women in their twenties, and elderly couples. Women outnumbered the men on the bus by almost two to one.
The air became heavy and stale as it slowly baked in the metal cocoon of the bus. Each breath of air was dry and hot as weary eyes began to droop as the scene through the windows turned into a blur of sand. It was gritty sand that ricocheted against the windows and the metal sides of the bus. The passengers fell into a somber attitude, as chatter waned altogether. Some leaned up against a piece of neatly folded clothing propped up against the window to sleep off the journey while others merely stared on ahead into nothingness. Their eyes glazed over, reflecting a sense of ostracism and confusion. Their fate was no longer their own, but in the hands of the determined bus driver to deliver them to the unknown.
For the most part, Minami stayed awake during the entire journey. Her mother had leaned up against the window and fallen asleep. Yuka, Yoshi, and Miho had fallen asleep as they all leaned into each other toward the window. There were only a few people awake on the bus after several hours had passed. A few of the passengers were fanning themselves. The older men undid their shirt buttons to find some relief from the stuffiness. Her backpack caught her attention and it held the photos from the attic that she was able to rescue from the burning. She opened up her backpack and pulled them out.
She looked down at the three small bundles and undid the rubber band that held the first bundle together and began to flip through the pictures. The white border framed the grainy black and white pictures and in the waning light, she could barely make them out. They were of her parents while they were in Japan. A picture of her father showed him standing tall alongside a railing with the ocean in the background. He was strikingly handsome, with his boyish yet cocky smile. He had on a short-sleeved white dress shirt with two buttons unbuttoned and black slacks with shiny polished shoes. The next picture was of her mother, standing against the same rail and looking a bit stiffer than her father. Her parents were taking pictures of each other. But she had a smile on her face and her hands were clasped in front of her. She looked so young then. Minami then looked over at her mother. Her head was nestled into the makeshift pillow. Minami admired how her mother had aged gracefully over the decades. A sense of appreciation for her mother filled Minami and a smile gave way in the darkness.
She flipped through the remaining pictures of the first bundle, undid the rubber band from the second bundle and flipped through those as well. They were pictures of her when she was a baby. Pictures she hadn’t seen in years. She was a chubby baby with fat cheeks, who stared blankly into the camera. Another smile crept across her face as she came across a picture of her being held by both of her parents on either side. She was so helpless then and she felt helpless all over again.
The entire bus rattled abrubtly when the driver shifted gears causing Minami to look up. She leaned over to peer down the aisle. Through the bus’ windshield, her attention was fixated on the looming structure, which was partially obstructed by the other buses ahead of them. Miho had awoken and looked down the aisle as well. Both were silent as the end of their journey seemed near as the bus eased itself through the metal fencing that surrounded the relocation center.
“Miho, wa
ke up Yoshi and Yuka,” said Minami.
Miho turned to her brother and sister and shook them gently. Minami turned to her mother and shook her softly to stir her from her sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and she coughed slightly to ease her parched throat. She looked at Minami who only said, “We’re here, Mom.”
The bus finally came to a complete halt, and the door opened letting in a gust of sand. What hell on earth had the U.S. Army herded them into? Wondered Minami. A soldier came aboard the bus and all eyes looked up at him. He was a young man in his mid-twenties. He wore a light brown shirt with matching pants and a black tie. He looked curiously at the passengers and was silent for what seemed like an eternity until he finally spoke.
“My name is Sergeant McGinni. By Executive Order 9066, you all have been transported to a relocation center. You will stay here until the war is over and until then, your fate will be decided by the U.S. War Department.”
There was absolute silence from the passengers and everyone simply listened.
“You will all get off the bus now and report to the registration area where you will be assigned living quarters for your stay here. Exit the bus now,” he stammered as he himself disembarked from the bus.
Minami didn’t take kindly to the curt announcement. She didn’t even know where she was let alone if she was still in California. But nonetheless, along with the other passengers, they started to gather their belongings. Minami carefully put the pictures back into her backpack and with her family, they slowly filed out of the bus.
The groupings of families formed a clumsy line in front of the bus. As Minami stepped off the bus, she shielded her eyes as the sand whipped past her face. Wooden structures stood eerily silent, all neatly laid out before her as far as the eye could see. They were dark forbidding structures where the windows along each side were dimly lit. The flapping of untacked tarpaper could be heard from the roofs as the wind blew beneath them. Beyond the structures was a chain-linked fence topped off with barbed wire that surrounded them. At regular intervals were guard towers whose guns pointed inward. It was not a relocation center. It was a prison.
Minami saw several soldiers, all with guns, standing silent. There were men positioned behind makeshift wooden desks, their stares uninviting and distant. Between them and the new arrivals were small mountains of suitcases stacked in disarray. Somewhere in those stacks were their suitcases, thought Minami. Other buses were beginning to pull in and emptying their weary passengers. Like her family, everyone stood silently and huddled together to ward off the blistering sand. The mood of everyone was bleak, as everyone took in his or her fate.
The sergeant then broke the silence by announcing that each family had to send someone to the registration desk before they could search for their suitcases. When Minami’s mother came back, she was assigned a unit, a barrack number and a block number. It was their new address. Almost half an hour had passed before Minami and her mother were able to locate all their suitcases, but only after several Japanese men tackled the seemingly impossible task of sorting them out.
Minami’s mother made a few nods to acquaintances and neighbors as they compared their living assignments. Finally, Minami’s mother turned to her family and said, “Let’s find our building, I heard that dinner will be served soon.” With a sense of renewed determination, Mrs. Ito took charge. She rallied her family to grab their suitcases and together they went looking for their barrack. Minami followed her lead with her siblings in tow. Even Yoshi was a trooper, doing his part as he lugged his little suitcase.
Once in the maze of dark barracks, Mrs. Ito asserted herself and asked any soldier she encountered for the location of the barrack to which her family was assigned. Though the soldiers were curt and downright rude, Mrs. Ito’s composure remained unfazed. Her motherly instinct told her that her priority was to get her family shelter and food. Soon every street, every turn looked exactly the same until they came to the front of a barrack. Mrs. Ito looked up at the light bulb that was shielded by a circular metal shade that was attached to the barrack with a white metallic tube that arced back into the building. Underneath the light, the number 15, freshly painted in black, was illuminated. It also happened to be the last barrack in the farthest corner of the entire prison camp. The Ito family saw other weary families moving quietly back and forth among the barracks, searching for their new homes.
The Ito family was the first ones to arrive. The door had been left open, letting in the irritating sand as it piled up on the inner doorstep. It was dark except for a dim single light bulb in the middle. Mrs. Ito gently exhaled and marched into the barrack as everyone else followed. They were looking for unit number six. The barrack was long and it was far from being finished. The lower parts of the barrack weren’t even boarded up yet in some places, letting in even more sand. There were gaps in between the side planks. It was a dark wood, not like the new pine used in a new home. The roof angled above them with exposed rafters and cross beams. Spaced evenly along the center beam were the light bulbs with a string dangling from each one. The floorboards themselves creaked under each step, which caused an unsettling feeling. Along each side of the walls were beds with a folded gray blanket on top of it, about two for each respective barrack unit. Unit number one was the first one upon entering the doorway. Minami felt sorry for the family assigned the first unit, as they would have to endure the billowing sand as well as the traffic of everyone else in the barrack going in and out. As Minami passed each unlit light bulb, she pulled down on the dangling string to turn them on until they reached their unit. It was the end unit, which luckily offered them privacy. Three walls surrounded them as they looked from one empty corner to another. They had a window on each wall that looked crooked in the window frame.
Minami looked at her mother who had her back to her. She just stood there silently, as if she was staring out through the window until finally, she bent down slightly and placed the two suitcases on the floor. She turned around to face her family and simply said, “Let’s do our best.”
Minami helped her mother move the two beds on either side of the wall together. Minami’s mother noted that the thin blankets weren’t going to provide enough warmth, so they would need to share their own body warmth to endure the cold. Miho went about to try find something to plug up the gaps in the wooden planks along the wall. Yuka and Yoshi organized the suitcases and helped by cleaning the unit of bent nails, torn pieces of tarpaper, and other remnants left behind during the hasty construction.
Minami unfolded the four blankets and was dismayed by their size, as she wanted to partition off her family’s unit for some semblance of privacy. She hoped that she would be able to request more. She looked up momentarily and saw another family entering the barrack. Mrs. Ito looked up and greeted them politely. Miho was able to find a nearly finished roll of tarpaper that had rolled unnoticed underneath one of the beds. Mrs. Ito told Miho to rip the paper carefully and to save as much of it for later. Miho understood and ripped off neat strips, which she used to cover the biggest gaps in the planks. Afterwards, along with Miho, Minami was able to hang two of the blankets from one end of the room to the other using some of the nails that they had found.
That night’s dinner was cafeteria style as people lined up outside their assigned mess halls. Minami stood in line, taking up the rear. Yoshi kicked about the sand, but for the most part, he behaved. There were hundreds of Japanese Americans standing in line. Light conversation permeated through the crowds but not much more. A low growling could be heard as people’s stomachs yearned.
White soldiers served the food with indifference. They plopped down onto the metal trays rice, overcooked string beans and America’s favorite preserved canned ham, SPAM. Minami and her family had chosen a table at the corner of the mess hall. Though the mess hall was getting crowded and the noise level was starting to rise, Minami’s mother wanted some quiet, even it was just for a moment. Minami’s mother had Yoshi sit next to her and despite his grumbling, helped him cut up h
is SPAM. The sisters sat across from them, eating quietly as Minami struggled with her food. The rice was undercooked, the string beans were limp and the SPAM, well SPAM was SPAM. She ate her dinner in small tepid bites. A bright fleeting white light caught her attention and she looked up through the window behind her mother. It was a spotlight from the guard tower and for a moment, with a look of disgust on her face, she knew how a prisoner felt.
She threw down her fork onto the metal tray causing it to bounce onto the table. It caused her family to look up at her with surprise and Minami simply ignored them. She knew that they were thinking exactly what she was thinking. It was totally unfair, it wasn’t right. There was no justice in the matter. Here she was, with her family in a place they didn’t want to be in and deprived of their father. She bent her head down and brushed her hair back with her hand and looked down at the half-eaten SPAM. Was this to be her life for the unforeseeable future? Was she going to be a prisoner forced to eat SPAM? How could it get worse, she wondered as random thoughts coursed through her mind.
“Minami,” whispered her mother. Minami didn’t answer. “Minami,” whispered her mother again.
“Yes?” replied Minami from under her breath.
“Look up at me,” asked her mother.
Minami hesitated but looked up at her mother. She met her mother’s eyes that were unusually serene. Her mother then tilted her eyes down, toward Yoshi who was poking at the uneaten SPAM and nudged him.
“SPAM sucks!” said Yoshi in a disgruntled voice.
It was the distraction that Minami needed and her frustration melted into laughter as her sisters and mother joined in. Together, the family shared in a laugh despite their ordeal. Yoshi’s childish remark brought back one fact: That they were all still together. No matter what happened, their spirit would not be broken. Minami looked at her mother with a smile and with a look, said thank you. Her mother winked in acknowledgment. How her mother did it, she did not know. Minami admired her mother for her perseverance and strength.