Interviews

1. Marriage during anti-miscegenation laws

2. Tomboy

3. Growing Up in Japan

4. Memories of Poston

5. Postwar school-life

6. Father's Service in WWII

7. Moving to Upland Post-Camp

8. Arriving at Poston

Terry Janzen

(b. 1930) Half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States.

Moving to Upland Post-Camp

One of the first things when we came out of the internment camp. The reason why we didn’t have too much trouble even though the city was trying to get rid of us. The chief of police had a farm next to us. He took us under his arm and made sure everything was okay. Mother did have a friend—his wife. And they were friends till Mother died or she got mad at her or something. I remember he took me and my brother to an air show in Upland. We got to sit in the front with the police chief and I met a movie star—Leo Carrillo. He used to play the Cisco Kid. [laughter] The police chief said, “You want him to take you guys home?” Yeah that’d be fine! So we got in his fancy car and he had this horn that made music. But things like that helped.

California communities discrimination interpersonal relations San Bernardino United States Upland World War II

Date: August 27, 2012

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Cindy Nakashima, Emily Anderson

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project. Courtesy of the USC Hapa Japan Database Project.

Interviewee Bio

Terry Janzen was born in Tokyo, Japan on July 15, 1930. She is half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States. She was incarcerated at Poston for 6 months during World War II. She has been a teacher and a Chair for the Adams County Democratic Party in Washington. (April 2013)

* Terry Janzen interviewed by Cindy Nakashima and Emily Anderson for the exhibition, Visible & Invisible: A Hapa Japanese American History. A Collaboration with the USC Hapa Japan Database Project, videographer, Evan Kodani with support of NITTO Tires Life History Project.