The House on Lemon Street by Mark Rawitsch

Author:Mark Rawitsch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Colorado
Published: 2012-06-19T04:00:00+00:00

14.1. Assignment of living quarters and bedding, Tule Lake, Newell, California, July 1, 1942. (War Relocation Authority Photographs of Japanese-American Evacuation and Resettlement, Series 11, Volume 31, Section D, WRA no. D-65; courtesy of the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley)

In the hospital shortly after her arrival, Ken Harada’s breathing became difficult, her lungs congested. Her declining health and lack of mobility were slowly taking their toll. Taken in for X rays, she was examined again by medical assistant Edwin Nishimura, her aide from Marysville who had also just been sent to Tule Lake. Nishimura offered a preliminary diagnosis of hypostatic pneumonia, often observed in the weak, elderly, and bedridden. Like all arrivals at Tule Lake, particularly in official settings like the camp hospital, Jukichi and Ken were known by their War Relocation Authority incarceree numbers, 6507-D and 6507-E, respectively.9

On Wednesday, July 15, Saburo and Mine’s first son, Laurence Mineo Kido, turned six years old. Many years later his mother keenly remembered the muted observance of Larry’s sixth birthday because it was also the day that the Kidos left the little ranch house in the strawberries near Lindsay to travel some 400 miles south to relinquish their freedom at the gates of the Poston Relocation Center. Saburo had finally received permission from the War Relocation Authority to move from inland Zone 2 to the camp at Poston, and he and Mine had already stored some of their possessions in a Fresno warehouse. The Kidos left Tulare County with several other families from Lindsay also on their way to Poston. They soon shipped additional household goods in railroad freight cars to the Arizona camp. Armed with their family travel permit from Major Goebel, addressed “To All Peace Officers and All Other Persons Concerned,” and accompanied by an escort assigned by the WRA, the five members of the Kido family were authorized “to travel from Visalia, California, to the Parker Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona, where [they] will be admitted.” The Kidos arrived at Poston II on July 17. Assigned incarceree numbers 39660 A–G, the family group comprised parents Saburo and Mine; their three children, Rosalind, Laurence, and Wally; and family friends Violet Ishii, the young friend from Hawaii stranded in California, and Peter Aoki, Saburo’s friend and associate from the JACL. The Kido family was assigned to camp barracks in Poston II, Block 215, Building 2, Apartment D, just a few steps from the women’s and men’s latrines and their new block’s laundry room.10

After three weeks of her strange new life at dusty Poston I, where midsummer temperatures routinely rose to 115 degrees, Sumi Harada wrote a brief letter to the camp’s administrative director, Wade Head. Sumi was seeking permission to join her parents at the Tule Lake Relocation Center. A month later, learning more about the application process required for a transfer from Poston, Harold submitted a more formal request on behalf of himself, Sumi, and the three Hashimuras, asking for a family transfer to Tule Lake, where the Poston Haradas hoped they would soon be reunited with their ailing parents.

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