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Description
A letter from Makoto Okine to his father, Seiichi Okine, in the Rohwer incarceration camp. Makoto writes from "Leghorn" [=Livorno] Italy where he is deployed as a US Army soldier. The letter is mailed via Army/Air Post Office, New York, by U.S. Army Postal Service. In the letter, he describes his duty, guarding prisoners while they work at salvage yards. The salvage materials are loaded and shipped back to the U.S after U.S. ships unload the food rations in Livorno, Italy. He sees U.S. troops heading back to the U.S. and hopes he is going to be able to go back home soon. The handwritten note on the back of the envelope reads: Arrived on August 9, 1945, Chicago [in Japanese]. The Okine Collection contains materials collected by Seiichi and Tomeyo Okine who were Issei flower growers in Whittier, California. It includes correspondence, photographs, financial documents, and a photo album. A large portion of the collection consists of family correspondence with Seiichi and Tomeyo Okine, including letters from their Nisei children, Masao and Makoto Okine, both soldiers overseas during World War II, to their Issei parents incarcerated in the Rohwer incarceration camp in McGehee, Arkansas. The correspondence also includes letters from their relatives and friends who are former incarcerees in the camps during the war and have “resettled” in Chicago, Illinois as well as letters from the Okines’ family members in Hiroshima, Japan during the Allied occupation of Japan. In addition, the collection includes a family photo album compiled by Dorothy Ai Aoki, a Nisei daughter to the Okines.
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