The year of turmoil and change -- 1942
by Teru Kiyohara, 11/2007

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Karen now lives in Maryland with her husband and their two cats.  Retired,, she volunteers and enjoys painting, gardening and is trying to learn how to play golf.

My daughter Beth by Karen Mazzo

When my daughter, Beth, was born, I felt immense happiness.  I was already the mother of a two-year-old son and I felt that my life was now complete.  And for the first several years, it was so -- happy and complete.  Beth was a delightful baby -- easy-going, cheerful and observant of everything around her.  As she grew, she developed into a clever and curious child with an amazing sense of humor and a total lack of fear.  But when she reached middle school, storm clouds began to gather and thicken on the horizon.  Before I knew it, they had enveloped her completely.  Her first suicide attempt, in the eight grade, made it clear that this was not just ordinary teenage angst.  It was the beginning of years of struggle and despair -- for her, for her father and me, and for her brother.  Each one of us was affected by her depression, and each one of us felt helpless in the face of it. 

Over the years, Beth tried valiantly to battle her disease sometimes, and sometimes she gave in to it.  There were therapists and medications, suicide attempts and hospitalizations, a stay in rehab, more suicide attempts.  That was the bad side of the story, but not the complete story.  Because, no matter how terrible things were going, there was so much about Beth that was lovable and admirable.  She worked hard and responsibly at her job as a veterinary technician.  She had her own apartment about two hours away from us.  The apartment did not allow pets, so we were keeping her cat for her and she visited us often.  She was generous, kind and caring.  She could light up a room with her smile.  Even if she was in her own dark despair, she would always reach out to a friend who was down.  And she could make you laugh.  She could always make you laugh.

In January of 2004, she came to visit us for a couple of days.  I had a bad case of the flu and she had a few days off from work.  So she came up, cleaned the house, did the food shopping and made me a big pot of chicken soup.  When she left, she gave me a huge hug and said, “I love you, Mom.”  My husband, Steve, was not home from work yet and she was going to wait for him.  “You had better get on the road,” I said, “the traffic is really heavy on the 101 and you have a two-hour drive back to San Jose.  You can say good bye to dad on your cell phone.”  So, she left.  But instead of getting onto the freeway, she drove to Steve’s office, called him to come down in the parking lot and gave him a hug and said, “I love you, Dad.”

Things seemed to be going well.  I always spoke with her on the phone a few times a week.  On Sunday, February 9, we talked.  She was happy, it seemed.  Monday was her day off from the animal hospital.  She had an appointment to get her eye checked up and she was going to look at a couple of apartments that allowed pets.  On Monday evening she saw her therapist and gave him not one clue.  The next day she went to work.  A few of her co-workers thought she seemed a little down, but when asked, she told them not to worry.  Everything was going to be fine.

Perhaps in her mind, as she was planning all this, she really believed that everything was going to be fine.  She must have forgotten, in her deep despair and utter pain, all the times I had said to her after previous suicide attempts, “Please don’t ever do this again.  I will not be able to go on if you do.”  I know that she did not remember -- because her own pain must have been so deep, so overwhelming, so seemingly inescapable that she did the only thing she thought would free her from it.  She didn’t tell anyone.  She just did it, in the middle of the night when no one could stop her.

A kind police officer from Santa Rosa came to my door the next day to tell me that when she did not show up for work, a worried friend went to her apartment.  Like something in a horror movie or a bad cartoon, the room started to spin, the floor dropped away and something sucked all the air out of my lungs.  I am not sure if I screamed, I think I did.  I could not dial the phone to call my husband.  The officer did that for me, after she gently led me to a chair and gave me some water. 

It was February 11, 2004. It was the first day of the rest of my life without Beth.  I can’t remember much about the first few months.  I know I cried a lot.  Sometimes I would get in the shower and sob.  Or I would get in the car, drive out into the country and scream my grief with the windows rolled up tightly.  A few months later, I met and became a part of a group of mothers who had lost children to suicide.  They sustained me, supported me and allowed me to have my grief, feel it and express it in my own way.  They had healed, were healing.  So could I. 

I want to continue to heal and find joy -- mostly because I believe that there is more beyond this life. I believe that Beth is there in that afterlife -- call it heaven --  I do. She is finally at peace and I know that if she could speak to me, she would tell me to be at peace, too.   My son, Tom, her big brother, whom she idolized, has a son of his own now.  He tells me that sometimes, he gets the feeling that Beth is watching over little Cole when he sleeps. 

The year of turmoil and change -- 1942

I was at home having breakfast the morning of December 7, 1941, when the news bulletin came over the radio that Pearl Harbor had been bombed by the Japanese military.  My family and I were in utter shock and disbelief as we sat in the kitchen listening to the broadcast.  I was then a student at the University of Washington, having finished my freshman year.  I was also working part time as a secretary for the Seattle Public Schools as our family income had been considerably reduced as a result of my father's death early that summer.  Soon thereafter, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt declared war against Japan. 

I was concerned and worried.  While my sister, my two brothers and I were all United States citizens by birth, my mother, however, was an alien, as earlier laws did not allow her to establish citizenship. On February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which authorized military areas.  Curfew immediately went into effect and those of Japanese descent, both citizens and aliens, were not allowed to be out from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Travel was restricted to 15 miles.  Evacuation orders were soon after issued by the government, and approximately 110,000 people of Japanese descent living on the West Coast, two thirds of whom were American citizens, were sent to internment camps.  As an American citizen, my immediate thoughts were:  How could my country strip me of my freedom without due process of law?  How could my beloved country  treat me like this? 

Our family was first sent to an assembly center on the Puyallup fairgrounds few miles south of Seattle and later to Minidoka, Idaho.  We were instructed to take only what we could carry.  I can still remember the chaos and the mass confusion.  Everyone was frantic as our lives were suddenly torn asunder, forced to prepare ourselves for the evacuation with a short notice.  It took us three days by train to get to our destination in Idaho.  As we neared camp, it was a chilling sight to see rows and rows of tar-papered barracks on a barren, desolate desert surrounded by barbed wire fences. (We had come from the lush, green Northwest).  The guard towers were manned by the army military police.  Each family was assigned a number and one room in the barracks.  Our family consisted of five members, so there was no privacy whatsoever.  Sheets were hung to make partitions, and tables and chairs were makeshift.  Washrooms, showers, and toilet facilities were without partitions and in a separate building.  Despite these adverse conditions, church services of various denominations, a hospital, a post office, and canteens were beginning to function.   A sense of community was developing by the time I left camp to attend Rockford College (Illinois) in October, 1942. 

The train ride to Rockford was a nightmare.  We boarded the train in Twin Falls, Idaho, and we were to transfer at Chicago and head for Rockford.  The smoke- filled train was heavily packed with unruly drunken soldiers that it was impossible to take a nap.  Suddenly at 4 a.m. in the morning, the train conductor approached us and informed us that we were to get off at the next stop, Dixon, Illinois, and that we were to take the bus to Rockford.   We had friends meeting us in Chicago, but we had no choice but to get off the train.  As the train came to a screeching halt, the conductor threw our suitcases out the door onto the train platform.  It was a chilly foggy morning and as we got off the train, the conductor pointed us to a dimly lit bus depot in the far distant.  We were two young women. It was scary and frightening to be wandering the streets at the wee hours of the morning, but we managed to drag our suitcases to the one-room bus station where we waited for the bus to arrive.  What a great relief it was to finally arrive at Rockford College later that morning!  And what a warm welcome we had!  Everyone welcomed and accepted us with warmth and care. 

With the U.S. at war and having been evacuated, it was not easy for Japanese Americans to enroll in a college of your choice.  Under the inspirational leadership of Clarence E. Pickett, a Quaker, the National Japanese American Student Relocation Council was formed.  It was through the help of this Council and Floyd Schmoe, a very prominent Quaker who lived in Seattle that I was fortunate to be released from the Minidoka Camp to attend Rockford College. 

War hysteria, racism, and anti-Japanese feelings were nationwide.  Army, Navy, and FBI clearance procedures were required of students.  Colleges had to be cleared due to classified war work being carried on as well as its proximity to defense plants.  Dr. Mary Ashby Cheek, at the time, President of Rockford College, played an important role in opening the college to nisei students (second generation Japanese Americans) whose education had been curtailed and in coordinating the transfers of nisei students to inland institutions.  As I recall, there were in total, six Japanese American students enrolled at Rockford College during the war years.  In 1945, I graduated with a BS degree in Home Economics and later, attended Western Michigan University to become a registered Occupational Therapist.  WMU was one of the few colleges in the United States in those days that offered courses and training in Occupational Therapy.  It was, comparatively, a new field especially with the influx of war casualties in Army hospitals.  My first job offer was at Madigan General Hospital in Fort Lewis, Washington.  Later on, as a full-time homemaker and raising my three children, I continued with my profession working in Special Education with the Seattle Public Schools with physically handicapped students until my retirement in 1985. 

Camp Grant was the closest army base to Rockford during World War ll.  In those days, there were few, if any, interracial dating.  I dated a few Japanese American soldiers who happened to be stationed at Camp Grant. There were also few soldiers whom I dated from my home town who happen to be on furlough from Camp Shelby, Mississippi.  These men had volunteered from the internment camp to join the segregated 100/442nd Infantry Combat Team, who ironically became the most decorated army unit that our country ever produced during World War ll.

While attending Rockford College, I was on a work study program.  I waited on tables during meal times which kept me very busy and left me with very little time for outside activities.  One summer I worked in a defense plant in Chicago making radio condenser tubes for the Army.  The following summer, I had the opportunity to work for a very prominent attorney in Rockford who was such an inspiration to me.  He rekindled much hope and confidence in me as the war years were very difficult and trying. 

I believe the war years had great influence in my education.  Originally starting out as an Asian studies major at the University of Washington, I was forced to change my major when I enrolled at Rockford College. There were no Asian Studies program offered.  Art, Textile designing, and sociology appealed to me at the time and I graduated with a BS degree in Home Economics with a minor in Sociology.  Jobs were extremely scarce for Japanese Americans even after the war.  I finally found a job at the YWCA in Seattle working as a secretary for the Executive Director.   And she was none other than Elizabeth Blaisdell, a Rockford College alumnae.  What a small world!  After working there for little over a year, I felt the need to move on with my life and to do something more constructive.  After hearing and reading all about the war casualties and their rehabilitation programs, I then decided to become a registered Occupational Therapist. 

As I reflect in 2007, it has been 66 years since we were forced to evacuate from the West Coast and interned in concentration camps.  I am so very deeply grateful to Dr. Mary Ashby Cheek and to Rockford College who had the foresight and courage to act upon their beliefs and for the role that they played at a most difficult period in history.  World War ll years were indeed momentous and had a great impact on my life.   How fortunate was I to be rescued by Rockford College!

This one milepost in my life, which began with horror and insecurity, also opened doors to a career that I cherished.  Amidst the chaos and unfairness that a war brings, it is reassuring to know that there are always good and courageous people who take risks to support the innocent.
                                                                                         Copyright © 2007 by T. Kiyohara