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Description
Ike Hatchimonji interviewed George Tenpo on April 7, 2004 at his home in Torrance, California. Joh Sekiguchi monitored the recording equipment and Wilber Sato took notes during the interview. George Joji Tenpo was born in Compton, California and grew up in Harbor City, California. Tenpo was incarcerated at Santa Anita Race Track and at an incarceration camp at Jerome, Arkansas. Later he was sent to the incarceration camp at Tule Lake, California and an internment camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Tenpo repatriated to Japan where he lived in poverty until he returned to Torrance, California in 1951. Tenpo started a gardening business and retired in 1955. Tenpo was interviewed as part of the South Bay Historical Project created by the South Bay Chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League. Includes sixteen oral histories reflecting the various experiences of South Bay Issei and Nisei. Some grew up on farms and others in suburban area; some were incarcerated during WWII in incarceration camps and some spent all or part of the war working and living in other parts of the US or Japan. All of them returned to the South Bay after WWII and observed the changes that have occurred in area through the end of the twentieth century.
Identity and values--Nisei Geographic communities--California Community activities--Sports--Judo World War II--Mass removal ('Evacuation') World War II--Temporary Assembly Centers World War II--Incarceration camps World War II--Resistance and dissidence--Expatriation/repatriation/deportation Japan--Post-World War II Military service--Postwar occupation of Japan Community activities--Associations and organizations--Japanese American Citizens League
Place
Torrance, California Temporary Assembly Centers--Santa Anita Incarceration Camps--Jerome Incarceration Camps--Tule Lake Department of Justice Internment Camps--Santa Fe
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