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Description
A letter from Usami Terada, an incarceree at the Rohwer incarceration camp, to Mr. and Mrs. A.W. Thomas in Lawndale, California. The letter discusses the Japanese American incarcerees returning to California and the West Coast. He describes the returning people as "half bred or wife of Caucasian" and a female attending Pasadena Junior College. He expresses his fear that it would be hard to return and restart their farm in Lawndale, California because of the lack of resources, such as tools, machinery, and money, and that his family needs to start over again. He also describes the situation when his family was forced to leave, leaving his trunk in the Thomas' garage and asking him to send it to him in Santa Anita. He is concerned about his farm, which was being operated by the Chinese, as well as his properties in Lawndale, and asks Thomas to take pictures of his house and yard to see how they look after two and half years. Transcript was provided by the donor and is available: csudh_nis_9019. The James H. Osborne Nisei Collection contains mainly correspondence between Emiko and Usami Terada, incarcerees in the Rohwer incarceration camp, McGehee Arkansas, and the Thomas family in Lawndale, California, and photographs of the Teradas and the Thomases. The letters describe the trip from the Santa Anita Temporary Assembly Center to the Rohwer incarceration camp, their lives and conditions in the camp, and their concerns about their properties in Lawndale, California. Also included are photographs taken in the camp, some issues of "The Rohwer outpost," and fliers published during wartime.
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