Week 3 of our First Year Seminar was about WW2 Japanese Internment. We focused on the letters that were written during the war. The first letters we read were about a librarian named Miss. Breed who had an impact on young Japanese American children. We all choose a letter that a kid who was in a Internment camp wrote to Miss Breed. The letter I choose was from Margaret Ishino, and her younger sister Florence Ishino who included a drawing in the letter. Shown above to the right. She wrote about how Christmas came in October, and how she was so excited to receive clothes and shoes from the government. She also talked about how she was really happy about the fair, as it was a change after life being the same for awhile. I thought this was really interesting to learn about. Overall my favorite activity this week was on Thursday, we did an activity in class where we did a popcorn like share out loud. We took certain parts of the letters we looked at and said a sentence or two from the letters. Then we talked about how the letters were connected to each other in different ways. Whether it was temperature, what they were learning in class, and how the kids were sorry they hadn’t written earlier to Miss. Breed. I though this week was really fascinating. It was like taking a look at what their life was like during that time.
I love how you included one of Florence’s drawings in this post. I had Florence Ishino so our letters probably had a lot of connections. I wonder if a lot of other families were put in camps with each other or if they were separated.