Japanese American Writers Publish Stories of WWII Internment with USF Prof’s Help
Daisy Uyeda Satoda remembers how the FBI swarmed her family’s home in 1942, interrogated her father, and led him off to jail as a “dangerous enemy alien.”
Fumi Manabe Hayashi describes the temporary home — a horse stall — that sheltered her family of six at the Tanforan Racetrack.
 Yoshito Wayne Osaki recalls the insulting loyalty oath he refused to take despite formidable governmental pressure.
These are some of the stories included in From Our Side of the Fence: Growing up in America’s Concentration Camps, a collection of autobiographical shorts by Japanese Americans forced into internment during World War II. They and other authors in the book will read their narratives at 5:45 p.m. Sept. 25 at the University of San Francisco in Lone Mountain room 100. The event is co-sponsored by the University’s new Asian American Studies program.
“It’s everyday people writing their stories,” said Brian Komei Dempster, the book’s editor and an adjunct professor in the USF expository writing program. “It’s like sitting around the dinner table and telling stories.”
Dempster decided to publish the book, which came out last April, after teaching a writing class at the Japanese Cultural and Community Center in San Francisco. Many of his students, all of them in their 60s and 70s, wanted to document their experiences for their families. What they produced were 11 personal histories that together form a historical document of what Japanese Americans experienced while imprisoned in the 10 camps created by the War Relocation Authority.
Dempster, a sansei, or third-generation Japanese American, said his grandfather was held at a camp in Topaz, Utah. Although racism and property theft were just a few of the cruelties Japanese Americans suffered upon returning home, Dempster believes the experience drew the community together. “A joke in the community was people would ask each other, ‘What camp were you in?’” Dempster said.
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