Aiko Tamada: Interned at Manzanar and Tule Lake

 

Name: Aiko Tamado

Birth date: 8/24/1936

Birth place: Los Angeles, California

Parents: Nami Takata

Siblings: Tooru Takata, Jim Takata, Fusako Ohara. All born in Los Angeles, California.

 

Early Life

Aiko Tamado was born in Los Angeles, California and was just 4 years old her family and she were sent to internment camps. The first camp her family was sent to was Manzanar. Her family had to discard all their Japanese belongings before going to the camp. Because Aiko was so young when this all happened, she doesn’t remember the exact dates of when each event occurred.

 

Life at Camp

At Manzanar, Aiko attended school and said that her teacher was very nice. She said that each family had their own barrack and from what she experienced, they were treated relatively well. Aiko said that she didn’t know what to feel but she just followed her parent’s orders and she believed that living in internment camps was how life was supposed to be. She was too young to understand most of the feelings that other older people were experiencing. After being at Manzanar for 2 years, her family and she were transported to Tule Lake. Aiko said that at this camp, she was forced to stop learning and speaking English. She said that the people at Tule Camp had the mind set and belief that Japan would win and that was enforced there.

 

Life After Camp

After the war and when Aiko and her family were released, they moved straight back to Tokyo, Japan. Aiko said that when they arrived, all they saw was ruble all across Japan. Their family suffered miserably in Japan. Her family hardly had any money and only ate potatoes. They lived on the farm that her parents had lived on before they left for America. They couldn’t find jobs and began selling their belongings just to have enough money for food to survive.