Interviews

1. Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

(1924-2018) Artist and playwright.

Her experience as a Japanese-American schoolchild in Oceanside, California, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor

I was seventeen, I was a senior in high school. We were making ready; this was in... Pearl Harbor happened in December. And in January all the Japanese kids stopped going to school. I do remember that because I went to my civics class, and... this was the Monday after Pearl Harbor, and the teacher in our civics class was talking about 'the Japs' bombing Pearl Harbor. And you felt like you did the bombing because, as far as they were concerned, you were a Jap.

discrimination identity interpersonal relations Pearl Harbor attack, Hawaii, 1941 racism World War II

Date: May 22, 1998

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum.

Interviewee Bio

Wakako (Nakamura) Yamauchi was born in Westmoreland, California, in 1924, where her family farmed in nearby Brawley in the Imperial Valley. During World War II she was incarcerated in the concentration camp at Poston, Arizona. She worked as an artist for the camp newspaper, the Poston Chronicle. She began her career as a playwright in 1977 when she was encouraged by Mako, the artistic director of East/West Players Theater, to adapt her short story “And the Soul Shall Dance” for the stage. She passed away in August 2018 at age 93. (August 2018)

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