Forced to relocate to an internment camp after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, Martha Yamasaki and her family sold all of their belongings and boarded a dirty train.
The blinds on the windows were shut because Yamasaki’s captors didn’t want her and the other prisoners to see where they were going. Later, she and the others were transferred into the backs of trucks for the remainder of the journey.
After arriving at Camp 3, Yamasaki was fingerprinted and given a mattress cover that she filled with straw and used for a bed. The camp had a communal mess hall, shower and bathroom. The family of five had to share a 20-square-foot barrack for a year.
“To be a hostage in your country is truly a humiliating experience,” she said.
Yamasaki helped mark the Third Annual Day of Remembrance by speaking about her internment with three other camp internees Saturday in the Sheldon High School auditorium.
More than 100 people came to learn about the ramifications of Executive Order 9066, which authorized 120,000 Japanese Americans to be relocated for the duration of World War II.
The panel also included local author Ed Miyakawa, who was 7 years old when his family was relocated, and 442nd Infantry Division veteran Kenny Namba and his wife Ruth Namba. Namba volunteered to serve in the war with the division, a segregated unit of Japanese American soldiers, and his future wife spent time in three camps during the war before the two finally met afterward.
Yamasaki said it took her 40 years to feel comfortable talking about her internment experience.
“It’s only by telling that healing begins,” she said.
Miyakawa, the author of “Tule Lake” — the name of the camp where he was a prisoner for one year — said he wrote the book to come to terms with his experiences.
“I was ashamed to be Japanese,” he said, adding that when his parents talked about camp life, they made up humorous stories and tried to forget the hardships.
The camp was surrounded by barbed wire and machine-gun towers, and prisoners had to stand up for privileges, like being able to play sports, Miyakawa said.
Namba volunteered for the service while his parents were interned. He and his wife, Ruth, are outspoken activists in Portland.
“We fought for America, we fought for freedom, we fought for democracy,” he said. “We were treated just like animals.”
Storyteller Megumi preceded the panel discussion with a one-woman performance, “Floodgates of Memory.” Megumi interviewed former internees of Japanese American internment camps to tell a story about three generations of a Japanese American family: a grandfather and grandmother, their daughter and their granddaughter.
“It’s important to tell these stories,” Megumi said, in the voice of the grandfather.