Japanese families were not torn apart

I’ve seen numerous comparisons between the policy of Trump’s administration tearing children from their parents and the way Japanese Americans were treated during World War II. There is no comparison. Japanese families were kept together, both during temporary housing and after the camps were established. Separation of families from their homes, jobs, friends and most possessions was cruel and unreasonable, but nothing like tearing children from their parents with no records for reconnecting them.

One of my older sister Esther’s classmates and best friends at Kenton School in Portland, Oregon, was a girl of Japanese ancestry named Mitzi. When Mitzi and her family were taken to the Portland International Livestock Exposition buildings for temporary holding, Esther asked our mother to take her and her other close friends to visit Mitzi there before she was moved farther inland. Mom agreed to do this, but I had to stay home to look after my 4-year-old sister. Mom’s carload of eighth-grade girls was allowed in the visiting area but not in the stables where the Japanese families were housed. The girls were able to say goodbye and exchange addresses so they could correspond. When the camp was ready at Minidoka, Idaho, Mitzi’s family was moved there.

Esther wrote to Mitzi occasionally and received notes in return, until Esther died two years later. In the disruption of our family at that time, we lost track of Mitzi.