Letters to Tanforan: Left Behind

Contributed by Ruth Sasaki

I do not have any of the letters that my mother wrote from camp. They were dispersed to Japanese American friends scattered all over the country by the “relocation,” to relatives in Hawaii, to non-Japanese friends still in California, to friends serving in Europe. Some may still exist in a dusty basement somewhere. 

What I do have is a handful of letters that my mother received from friends and kept from those years. They create a reflection, like hearing only one side of a conversation from which a complete dialogue might be imagined. 

Evacuation notice in San Francisco. National Archives. Photo #536017.

Because the removal of Japanese Americans from the West Coast happened in stages, those transferred earliest were the pioneers, conveying information and impressions from local “assembly centers” to those awaiting “evacuation”; and then, later, from “permanent relocation centers” in the interior to those still awaiting transfer to destinations unknown. 

In the spring of 1942, Nisei (second-generation) friends in San Francisco awaiting relocation wrote to my mother, whose family had already been removed from their home in San Francisco to a temporary assembly center at Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno. Letters show the desperate loneliness of being left behind as neighborhoods empty, friends and relatives disappear, every day eerily quiet like Sunday morning in Japantown, except that even the churches gradually empty: 

May 4, 1942 

To my mother, Bldg. 80 - Apt. 3, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, Calif. From a Nisei friend, Post St., San Francisco 

Thanks a lot for your card and hints of what to bring. I sure wish we were there right now. It's surprisingly lonely here now… 

None of our friends on the other side of Sutter are there any more… 

We're expecting orders tomorrow (Tues) & will I be disappointed if it doesn't come... 

My clothes have been packed for a whole week now... I'm just wondering if I'll be able to get all the creases out... 

The urgent questions, reflecting practicality and hope: 

What do people wear in the daytime?” … 

Is your place far from the washrooms?... 

Any chance of finding a job?... 

May 5, 1942 

To my mother, Bldg. 80 - Apt. 3, Tanforan Assembly Center, San Bruno, Calif. From the same friend on Post St. 

Finally got our orders this morning, to leave by Monday 11:00 a.m. The army jeeps are just tacking the signs up now… 

It doesn't say where to -- but guess it's Tanforan, I hope…