Jim Russell helped Ruth and Frank unload their luggage, and, sticking close to Taizo, Etsuko, and the rest of the family, they got in line for the nine o’clock departure. Jim’s was not the only white face there—Jerry and Vivian Kara, who were taking care of the Yamada, Tanaka, and Tamohara farms, had ferried each family in turn to the train station—but they and a few others represented only a fraction of the Caucasian population.
“Helen made sandwiches for you to eat on the train.” Jim handed Frank a big paper bag stuffed with food. “Ham and cheese for the adults, peanut butter and jelly for the kids. Write us as soon as you get an address.”
“Are you sure?” Frank asked. “The FBI might consider you … suspect.”
“Screw the FBI. You’re not the enemy. You’re our friends.”
Frank and Jim shook hands; both men looked as if they wanted to cry. The line inched toward the Southern Pacific locomotive sitting on the other side of the depot. There was no platform at the station—passengers had to walk through knee-high weeds and sage scrub before they could board the train. Ruth asked herself, How can this be happening? This is America. Covenants of trust had been broken, faith in law betrayed.
Frank lifted first Peggy, then Donnie, into the railroad car. Ruth followed, her parents, brothers, uncle, and their families right behind.
They walked to the back of the car and found seats. They would not be separated, at least. When the last passengers had boarded, the train whistle blew with the shrillness of a scream and the train slowly moved down the tracks, picking up speed as they left the station. The landscape rolling by attracted the children’s attention, curiosity getting the better of their tears.
And then suddenly two soldiers with rifles and bayonets were moving through the car, rolling down the blinds on the windows, shutting out the world. The car darkened, lights snapped on, but too late; Donnie and Peggy began wailing again, along with other children in the car.
“It’s okay, sweetie, it’s going to be all right,” Ruth lied as she rocked Peggy, then, as one of the soldiers passed, she snapped at him, “Why did you have to lower the shades? Can’t we even see where we’re going?”
The soldier—barely out of his teens—looked at her and said, not without some chagrin, “It’s not for you, ma’am. It’s for the people outside. So they … can’t see you.”
Then each soldier took up position at opposite ends of the car and shouldered their rifles.
Ruth was thunderstruck. My God, she thought. We’ve had everything taken away from us—we’re homeless; powerless—and yet we’re so fearsome and repugnant that the whites have to be protected from the very sight of us?
Too angry to cry, Ruth held tight onto her children as the train hurtled blindly into an unknown future.
PART TWO
Gaman
Chapter 8
1942
The grandstand at Tanforan Assembly Center towered over the former racetrack like a half-completed ziggurat—once a temple of fortune, now a prison for those with the misfortune to have been born with a Japanese face. Tanforan Racetrack in San Bruno, California—twelve miles south of San Francisco—was coiled in a perimeter of steel, a high barbed-wire fence fortified by armed guard towers. Two soldiers opened the entry gates to admit busloads of hapless men, women, and children; they spilled out of buses, staggering under the weight of what was left of their lives. They gazed up at the two-story clubhouse beside the grandstand—where high rollers once followed the races from swanky box seats—with a mix of bewilderment and disbelief. They saw rifles pointed at them from watchtowers as well as dozens of tar-papered, military-style barracks squatting incongruously in the infield—like some absurd, unholy amalgam of sport and war.
Ruth shouldered Peggy and kept a tight grip on Donnie’s hand. Her children’s wide eyes took in the strangeness of their surroundings. Life had long since stopped making sense for them; by the time the family transferred from railroad car to Greyhound bus, the kids had gone silent and numb.
Beside her, Frank carried two heavy suitcases and a duffel bag slung over his shoulder. Behind them were Taizo and Etsuko, Ralph, Horace and Rose and their two sons, Jack and Will, with Jiro and Nishi taking up the rear.
“Everyone stay together,” Ruth called out, seeing the way guards were herding evacuees into a long line snaking toward the side of the grandstand.
“Say, is it too late to put ten bucks on War Admiral in the fifth?” Ralph piped up, drawing at best rueful chuckles from his family.
A soldier approached the group. “Folks, if you’ll just get into the intake line over there, we’ll get you all registered and assigned quarters.”
“Thank you,” Frank said. Ruth rankled at his courtesy.
They got in line, but it took an hour before they even reached the entrance. Indeed, waiting in line would turn out to be the number one recreational activity at Tanforan: residents waited in line at the mess hall, at the post office, waited to use the latrine, the showers, the laundry. Now they inched their way toward one of the many cubbyholes under the grandstand and, once inside the cavernous interior, waited another half hour until reaching the front of the queue. Here men were separated from women and children from adults as everyone was searched from head to toe, frisked for contraband or concealed weapons. Straight-edge razors, pocket knives, and flasks of liquor were confiscated. Ruth’s family carried none of these, so they were directed individually into small curtained compartments and ordered to undress. Ruth unbuttoned her blouse and a Nisei woman whose nametag identified her as NURSE MORI shined a flashlight into Ruth’s mouth, listened to her heartbeat, made sure her vaccinations were up to date, then discreetly inquired whether Ruth had any “skin or venereal diseases.” Mortified, Ruth said she did not, even as she heard a burst of laughter from outside; when she left the compartment, she found Ralph still chuckling.
“When they asked, I told ’em I had hoof and mouth disease and so they had to send me back to Florin. Got a rise out of ’em.”
“I’m so glad you’re enjoying yourself, Ralph,” Ruth said sharply.
“Sis, this is all so nuts, you gotta laugh.”
The family reunited at the registration tables, where Nisei clerks handed them forms to fill out and gave them yet another family identification number, 14793. But when they attempted to assign Ruth and her family to a different barracks from her parents, Ruth protested, “We are one family, we will not be separated!”
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we are limited by the availability of required spaces. We’ll do the best we can to keep your family together.”
Ruth, Frank, their children, Taizo, Etsuko, Ralph, Jiro, and Nishi were assigned to Barrack 9, Apartments 1 and 2. But Horace and his family were assigned to a different barrack on the opposite side of the track.
“Ruth, it’s okay,” Horace said. “We’re in the same camp, it’s not like we’ll never see each other again. You take care of Mom and Pop, all right?” She nodded. “Unfortunately,” he added dryly, “you also get custody of Ralph.”
Ralph gave him a Bronx cheer, easing the tension.
One of the volunteer guides—a Nisei boy of fifteen named Ben—offered to show them to their quarters, escorting them out onto the racetrack. This was clearly Tanforan’s Main Street; even in late afternoon there were hundreds of evacuees taking a stroll around the track, chatting with friends or just getting some exercise. All seemed to be smiling. Ruth couldn’t tell if they were genuinely in good spirits or merely had on their “outside faces.” Certainly Ben was chipper enough as he pointed out the sights.