Midori Kunitomi Iwata: Graduating at Manzanar and Working in Its Relocation Office

Manzanar National Historic Site publishes short "ID booklets" on Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. This is Midori Kunitomi Iwata's first-person account, retold in hubnx's own words.

Family No. 2614 · Manzanar, California · Address 20-3-1

Hollywood

Midori's parents came from Okayama, Japan; her father left for America during the war between Japan and China, and the family sent his second cousin over to marry him. They settled in Hollywood, where her father ran a transfer and express business and her mother raised Midori, her five brothers and her two sisters.

She was a senior at Lincoln High School when the war began. School itself didn't change, but riding the bus was uncomfortable, with people staring and making remarks. When the evacuation order came the family sold the grocery store, the car and the refrigerator in a rush and took only what they could carry; the train trip was uneventful, but the unknown destination frightened her. Before they left, her junior-high homeroom teacher came to say goodbye — they are still in touch.

Manzanar

Seven of them shared one room at 20-3-1, filling mattress covers with straw. At 17, Midori's main worry was finishing high school. She was in Manzanar's first graduating class, taught — she says — very little, sitting on the floor with no chairs or desks.

After graduating she worked as secretary to Walter Heath, director of the camp's Relocation Office, helping residents find jobs and resettle outside California. Her block had many young people, so there were block dances; she enjoyed the occasional films and the musical plays staged by music teacher Louis Frizzell, and watched her boyfriend play basketball and baseball. What stands out most, though, are the terrible windstorms and the lack of privacy.

After

When the war ended and people began returning to California, Midori left to find housing and work to support her mother and younger brother, the last of the family still there. A brother had urged her to learn shorthand and typing, believing that was her only chance of a living given her ancestry, but many jobs opened after the war, and she worked as a secretary in various offices without meeting prejudice or unpleasantness.

As a teenager she adapted easily to camp, though it was hard for many. Her mother was bitter about the removal and wanted to go back to Japan — yet she was very proud when three of her sons joined the U.S. Army.

Sources

• National Park Service, Manzanar National Historic Site, "Midori Kunitomi Iwata," an ID booklet. https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/midori-kunitomi-iwata.htm
• Related: Tetsuo Kunitomi, whose booklet gives the same family number and address.
• Words on this page from people and organisations outside the federal government are paraphrased; rewritten in hubnx's own words.