Dear Miss Breed

Read the following excerpt from Dear Miss Breed and answer the questions that follow.

From Chapter Six: Greetings From Far-Off Poston
Upon my arrival to the Poston Relocation Center, I stood bewildered, glaring at the hot dusty desert, wondering how we could survive. When my family and I were given our barrack number we spread our blankets and tried to put things in order. The first day here was so hot I should not know how I should express how I felt then. Whoever I met carried wet towels on his heads. Even in the mess hall people ate with wet towels on their heads. Small children had not eaten because of the heat. Even grownups lost their appetite.

That night, as I tumbled into bed, I kept thinking how we could ever survive in such a place and how the dusty soil could be made into fertile fields.

--Chiyoko Morita, ninth grade


After twenty hours on a train and another hour on a hot, dusty bus, the Nikkei arrived at the Poston Relocation Center. It seemed as if they had reached the ends of the earth. To get an idea of how removed from their former lives they must have felt: The nearest town, Parker, Arizona, was sixteen miles away and it had just one telephone! If one were driving toward California, the first service station would be eighty miles away.

It was so hot on the bus that they had opened the windows, only to be covered by powdery white dust the consistency of flour. When they stepped off the buses, friends didn’t recognize one another. When they arrived in the torrid heat of summer, at barracks that were not complete, their hopes that Poston would be an improvement over Santa Anita were dashed. It was ten degrees hotter than the Libyan desert.

The buildings had no window screens but plenty of bugs, there was a record-breaking temperature of more than 120 degrees, and windstorms coated everything with fine sand. Almost overnight, Poston became the third-largest community in Arizona. Where there had been nothing, a city of tar-papered barracks was hastily built to house more than eighteen thousand Nikkei. The camp was named for Charles D. Poston, the first congressman from the Territory of Arizona and first superintendent of Indian affairs in Arizona. In 1865, he had helped to establish the Colorado River Reservation.

Built on Indian land, Poston was the largest of all ten relocation centers. It was divided into three parts, officially known as Poston I, II, and III. Five thousand workers on a double work shift constructed the camps in record time. In fact, one builder boasted that they had erected sixteen barracks in twenty-two minutes! Due to a shortage of wood, barracks were built with green pine that shrank and left cracks between the boards, allowing sand and insects to seep and creep inside. The heat was so extreme that standard army barracks were redesigned with double roofs for insulation. But even double roofs did not block the oppressive heat. No guard towers were built at Poston since the location was “in the middle of nowhere” and towers were considered unnecessary.

As buses pulled in, a monitor climbed on board to explain how they were to line up for housing and registration. They arrived at odd hours, some in the middle of the night. People had endured a long, hot trip with poor food. They were weak from heat and dust. The shock of the whole experience was overwhelming. Still, a line had to be formed at the mess hall as the head of each family registered. Everyone over seventeen was fingerprinted and had to sign an agreement that he or she would live by the regulations of the center and work. Another line was formed in the recreation hall for housing assignments.

Even nine-year-old Jack Watanabe felt cut off from the world:”We are now in a strange place—Poston, Arizona. I doubt whether this is even on the map.”

Afraid that there would not be enough housing to go around, the administration put four to eight people into a single room, twenty by twenty-five feet. In Poston III there were eighteen blocks. Each block had fourteen barracks with separate latrines and showers for men and women, a mess hall, a laundry and ironing room, and a recreation hall. Since there had to be a minimum of four people in an apartment, small families had to share a single room with another family. Almost all the San Diegans were sent to Poston III. Fusa and her mother had to live with another San Diego family until there were more barracks.

Don Elberson, a sociologist who worked for the War Relocation Authority at Poston, could never erase his memory of the misery families encountered when they arrived:
It was brutal. Some days we had to process five hundred or more people. ...But nothing mitigated the moment when I had to take them to their new homes. ...You’d have to take these people into this dingy excuse for a room, twenty by twenty-five feet at best. These were people who’d left everything behind, sometimes fine houses. I learned after the first day not to enter with the family, but to stand outside. It was too terrible to witness the pain in people’s faces, too shameful for them to be seen in this degrading situation.


Fourteen-year-old Babe Karasawa never forgot that moment. Here’s how he described it to me sixty years later:
We opened the doors of our barrack and there were weeds growing between the spaces in the floorboards ...they were three feet tall inside the barrack! I remember that because my two brothers and I, we just ripped those weeds out. We took buckets of water and washed all over the walls—we washed the dust and the grit. All the water goes right between the spaces—through the floorboards—the place is dry in thirty minutes because it was just so hot. This was the end of August in ’42. The records show that in ’42, in the middle of July, they had a record temperature of 144 degrees! I used to walk like this ...my head tilted down and sideways so my face wouldn’t go straight into the heat. When I drank water, it would just come right out of my arms. ...Perspiration just poured right out. This was during the hottest time and I used to always have heat rash.


In her first letter from Poston, Louise tries hard to hold on to her rosy view of the world, but finding positive things to say about Poston was challenging. Now she not only missed San Diego; she missed Santa Anita! Still, sixteen-year-old Louise manages to see beauty in the bleakness.
August 27, 1942

Dear Miss Breed,

Greetings from far-off Poston, Arizona! We arrived yesterday about 3:30 P.M. It was a very long train ride. ...After leaving Barstow, we began to feel the heat. They say yesterday was a cool day but to us it was extremely hot.

We traveled through desert after desert. There were many houses which looked as if they were built many years ago. We seldom saw a human being except when passing through a small town. One of the most beautiful scenery was when crossing a bridge which was right above the Colorado River. It is, indeed, a beautiful river.

One common thing you see while coming here is—the beds and beddings are all placed outside the homes. It has been said that the heat is so hot that the people all sleep outside. It is very hot here. We traveled by bus through acres of cotton plants—so you can imagine the heat because cotton has to be grown in a hot climate.

After leaving the train, we had to travel by bus—about 20 miles. We are in Camp No. 3. It is not quite yet completed. It is so sandy here that everyone’s hair looks gray. Sometimes the wind blows but when it does the sand comes with it. This camp is so far away from civilization that it makes me feel as if I was a convict who is not allowed to see anyone. I’d much rather sleep in the Santa Anita horse stables—this has made me realize how fortunate I was to be able to live in Santa Anita. The nearest town which is a very tiny one is about 20 miles away. This trip has made me realize the wonderful work of nature. Her delicate work in shaping the stone mountains, the beautiful coloring of the surroundings—it seemed as if I was looking at the picture or a painting of a genius.

This place differs greatly from ...Santa Anita. In Santa Anita we were allowed to keep a bucket and a broom in our homes until the time came to leave but in Poston we are allowed to BORROW a bucket, broom or mop for 1/2 hrs. This makes it very inconvenient because often they run out of them and we have to wait until one is returned. Even in the dining rooms we have to take our own spoons and forks. They provide just the knife and cups + plates and, of course, food. Yesterday I ate rice, weenies, and cabbage with a knife. That was a new experience for me! You never realize how valuable a thing is until you experience it. The dining rooms are very small here because there is one to each block.

...We have to mop the house every day because of the dust but it does not do any good because before you know it it's dusty again.

My, this letter is getting too long and it’s probably getting boring so I’ll write again soon. If you have any questions, I’ll be glad to answer them if I am able.

Most sincerely,

Louise Ogawa

P.S. There is no water on Sundays. The electricity is also turned off. Sunday morning everyone eats before 6:00 A.M. Water and electricity turned off between 6:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M. on Sundays. Very very inconvenient. Never realized how valuable water is. The place looked deserted all the time because of the sandiness every[one] stays inside and no one is outside--not even the children so it looks as if no one lives in the barracks.


In spite of all the difficulties, Louise's positive and patriotic spirit rings true in these final words of her letter: "If American soldiers can endure hardships so can we!"

Why were more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry in the United States relocated to the Poston Relocation Center in Arizona? Include evidence from the Introduction and the text of this excerpt to explain your inferences.

Question: Describe the conditions at the Poston Relocation Center. What made living there so difficult? Use specific details from Dear Miss Breed in your answer.