Tessaku
Tessaku was the name of a short-lived magazine published at the Tule Lake concentration camp during World War II. It also means “barbed wire.” This series brings to light stories of the Japanese American internment, illuminating those that haven’t been told with intimate and honest conversation. Tessaku brings the consequences of racial hysteria to the foreground, as we enter into a cultural and political era where lessons of the past must be remembered.
Stories from this series
Lily Yuri Tsurumaki - Part 4
July 2, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 3 >> And did your mother work in camp? You know, she was doing embroidery here before they went to camp. Oh, this is when we’re leaving Heart Mountain. There was a Mr. Kinushita. Being it’s a desert area there’s a lot of Jasper rocks and dinosaur bones sometimes. And Mr. Kinushita started a rock group so they can go outside the campground and look around the desert area for rocks. Adina: Oh, is that how they got …
Lily Yuri Tsurumaki - Part 3
June 25, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 2 >> And how was the relationship between your parents? Did they have a good marriage? I think so but my father was much older than she, but they were introduced by a family friend in Japan but because he never came after her she said it was embarrassing. They were sort of like betrothed. That’s why she says she’s going to go to America herself. So she came on the boat by herself. Yes. Were they still …
Lily Yuri Tsurumaki - Part 2
June 18, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 1 >> Oh wow what a beautiful picture. So this is like the office? That was our Japan Airlines office and I was taking care of the PBX board at the time. And as a senior in high school, they called us a certain name for those who were in the top category and we had to do service, and I had to do the switchboards early in the morning before the regular operator came in so that’s …
Lily Yuri Tsurumaki - Part 1
June 11, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
“One day, a classmate saw my name is Lily Oki and she was surprised she says, ‘You know I asked my mother, you disappeared you didn’t come back to class to school.’ And someone remembered me all those years? I thought my gosh, it was touching but she said I guess no one talked about it.” — Lily Yuri Tsurumaki I would not have met Lily had it not been for the wonders of social media. Her granddaughter, Adina Mori-Holt, …
Teresa Maebori - Part 2
April 3, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
Read Part 1 >> And where did your family end up after the war? How did you come to Philadelphia? So this is interesting, too. My parents had just gotten married and they had all their wedding stuff and they were renting a house. And their landlord said, ‘Well, you can store it here and this place will be available when you come back.’ Oh wow, so they were lucky. They were lucky. And my dad had a job because his …
Teresa Maebori - Part 1
April 2, 2018 • Emiko Tsuchida
“I think that generation isn’t like our generation that grew up with the thought that we’re all equal. I think they understood it but they also knew that their parents were immigrants, and so they weren’t quite ‘up to par.’ Then of course what happened with Pearl Harbor just destroyed their lives. And they would forever be associated with the enemy.” — Teresa Maebori Educator, author, and Philadelphia JACL board member, Teresa Maebori, started to retrace her family’s WWII experience …
