World War II changed life for Mae Higashiyama

Grant County history

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

These are memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Mae Higashiyama provides an interesting and unique view of Grant County history. Read on.

Today we backtrack a bit and then continue with the story of Mrs. Maeky (Mae) Higashiyama:

Everything went on a routine basis until the 7th of December, 1941. I remember moving into a makeshift of a house, made of sheets as the folks had to move from the B Zone further inland to the C Zone.

The next thing I remember is being on a train to a relocation center in Arizona. Years later I was told that a grocery store owner had asked how I was. He remembers me saying, “Where are we going? What’s going to happen to us?” I don’t remember this at all.

I know I had always wanted to travel and remember thinking, “well good, at least I’ll see another state.” Now putting this all down, what contradictions.

We must have harvested some of the crops until we had to leave in July. I believe we gave away many of our possessions. Dad must have sold our car and pickup. However we ended down in Poston II, Arizona and were immediately given salt tablets because it was very hot.

Poston I, II and III are about 40 miles south of what is now Lake Havasu City. It is located on the upper portion of the Colorado River Indian Reservation. The head administrator for the three camps was a government official, a Mr. Crawford.

Each camp was divided into blocks with barracks, a mess hall, latrines and showers much like the army training centers. Each block had a block manager, each camp an administration office and it was operated much like any small town with an employment office, transportation department, school, etc.

My first job was as an interviewer at the employment office, then as a secretary at the transportation department and finally as a secretary to the school principal, Mr. McClaren.

He was from, of all places, McKinley High in Hawaii. Several other Caucasian teachers were from there also. There were several Japanese-American teachers and I even substituted in a business class.

Camp life naturally was different for each one depending on the age and the phase of one’s life at the time. Of course it was a blow to the adults and professionals, but, at that time, I believe most of us took it as one of the turn of event of that time of their lives and nothing else but as such. I, on the other hand, being a very immature 20, and believing I was worked to death at a tender age, thought it was great. No meals to prepare, no dishes to wash. If there ever was an opening for a cook or a dishwasher, I stayed far away.

I had never been to a school dance. The Japanese boys in my small community didn’t know how to dance. How could I go to a dance? But in camp where there was a larger population of fellas, quite a few knew how to dance. So we had dances, talent shows, songfests, even had beauty contests.

More from Mae Higashiyama next week.

Of course there were sports. We went on hikes and many of the older men would lug home mesquite tree roots and polish them to a high luster and make beautiful ornaments.

Practically all the positions had to be filled by us, and class officers, student body officers, cheerleaders had to be us. As far as I am concerned, this was a blessing in disguise. In my opinion we left our inferiority complex there.

A few years before the war started, a young organization called the Japanese American Citizens League was formed. In Camp II a newspaper editor and president of JACL asked permission of the government to approach the young men to volunteer in the army.

There were a few with deep seated anger that citizens could be put into camp and then be asked to serve in the army. In their anger they attacked the JACL members. The editor had broken ribs and the others were beaten up. The government sent the JACL officers to Salt Lake City.

Many did, however, enlist and served very well. The papers stated that when the boys were marching to Leghorn, Italy on their return home, a General Clark, I believe, stood in salute from the beginning to the end of the battalion, which meant a salute to each and every one of the soldiers. It had never been done before in history and has not been done since. I was, indeed, very proud of them.