Innocent Prisoners!
Innocent Prisoners! Innocent Prisoners! "When will we be able to go back to our farm in the San Fernando Valley, big brother?" Yukiko asked. She was Japanese, as were all the families in the camp. "I don't know," said Aki. He spoke in Japanese, which was the language of their parents and the language they usually spoke at home. "Mama and Papa don't know." Yukiko knew there was a war going on. She knew Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, a naval base in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941. Since then,
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Innocent Prisoners!
Innocent Prisoners!
"When will we be able to go back to our farm in the San Fernando Valley, big brother?" Yukiko asked.She was Japanese, as were all the families in the camp.
"I don't know," said Aki.He spoke in Japanese, which was the language of their parents and the language they usually spoke at home."Mama and Papa don't know."
Yukiko knew there was a war going on.She knew Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, a naval base in Hawaii, on December 7, 1941.Since then, people in the United States treated their Japanese neighbors differently.
The U.S. government moved all Japanese and Japanese Americans to internment camps or relocation centers in early 1942because of fears that they might become a threat to national security.The small rooms in the camps were called barracks.Every house was covered in tar paper, and there was no private kitchen or shower.
Yukiko went to find her father.She found him sitting outdoors on a chair he had made from scraps of wood.There wasn't enough furniture here, and people made their own from whatever they could find.
How was it possible the family had been living here for six whole months? "Come," said Papa to Yukiko."Let's go get breakfast at the mess hall. We'll join the whole family there."
Everyone ate in the mess hall.Some families ate together, but many people now ate with the friends they had made at the camp.Yukiko liked sitting with her friends, but she missed the way her family used to eat in their own farmhouse.She even missed doing chores and helping out on the farm.
Yukiko knew Papa and Mama were not American citizens.But she and Aki were because they had been born in the United States."Someday you will vote in elections!" Papa told them.
As the whole family sat at a big table together, Aki began telling a funny story he'd heard."Speak softly," Mama said. She was proud of her children's independent American ways,but she could not get used to the boisterous voices Americans used,and it was hard for her to understand their American speech.
Mama got up. "Aki, make sure your sister gets to school on time," she said.
"Where are you going, Mama?" Yukiko asked in Japanese, taking her mother's hand.
"Ah," Mama said with a private smile."That is a secret I am keeping. Now do not be late for school."
After breakfast, Aki walked his sister to school, which was held in a small building across the dusty yard of the camp.
"Do you know what kind of secret Mama is keeping?" Yukiko asked. Aki shook his head.
"Are you going to be an American soldier after you graduate?" Yukiko asked Aki.Some of Aki's friends went away to fight in the war.Yukiko felt proud of them, but she was scared too.She loved America, but she didn't want Aki fighting any Japanese in the war.
"Here you go. Study hard," Aki said as he left Yukiko at school.The building was covered in dull black tar paper to keep out the dust.Yukiko missed the old two-story brick school building at home, and she missed her old classmates.
"Well, students, I have an exciting announcement to make!" the teacher said."Some wonderful people have given our school another blackboard!It will be mounted on our classroom wall very soon."
Yukiko was quiet. Until now, her teacher had to write math problems on a piece of paper tacked to the wall.She thought how nice it would be to have a blackboard.
Yukiko wondered how people could be so nice sometimes, and other times be so mean.She had asked her father about this, but he merely shook his head."It's wrong and unfair, but that is the way it is, and we cannot change it," he had said.Yukiko wanted a better answer.
