Personal Experience
There are many facts, figures, explanations, laws, and maps that tell about the Japanese interment camps. While these are important, none of them can really capture the camp experience like personal testimonies. There are many personal accounts that have been made in the form of biographies, poems, movies, and other forms of art; the few on this page are only just a taste of these.
Densho:
The Japanese American Legacy Project
In Japanese, Densho means "to pass on to the next generation. This project, then, is to pass on the legacy of Japanese Americans who were incarcerated in the internment camps. It does this through digitally preserving oral histories and other primary source materials.
The two videos presented here are only a small sample of the 600+ hours of recorded video the Densho project has done.
The first is of Kara Kondo, the second, Mas Wantanabe.
The Speech
Zambia stood before the Council of Churches
a prepared text held upright
under one corner of the dashiki
covering his black naked body.
The delegates in silent hundreds
stood openly
ready and willing for the roar
to tear their flesh.
"We..."
Then for five full minutes,
Zambia, 50, wept.
Looking Out
It must be odd
to be a minority
he was saying.
I looked around
and didn't see any.
So I said
Yeah
it must be.
Camp Notes and Other Poems
by Mitsuye Yamada
Yamada wrote many of these in camp but they published in 1976, about 30 years after she was released from camp because publishers were afraid of the power in her poems--with good reason. Her story can be found here.
The Trick Was
The trick was
keep the body busy
be a teacher
be a nurse
be a typist
read some write some
poems
write Papa in prison
write to schools
(one hundred thirty-three colleges
inthe whole United States in the back
of my Webster's dictionary
answered: no admittance
THEY were afraid of ME)
But the mind was not fooled.
