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

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

Arriving at Poston

When we got to Poston, it was hot; it was dusty. Each person, we were in a room about this size. We got off the bus and they handed you this sack and said, “Go to the back with it.” So you grabbed this big, huge sack and go out and this straw and you fill it and that’s your mattress. And all they had were a cot for each person and the mattress and they had blankets for you. But the thing was, there was no place to hang clothes, nothing. Nothing to even sit on, you know? And then the bathrooms were just one bathroom for each block. So there were just like 35 toilets and a shower thing, it was just a room that had all these showerheads on it. And then you washed your clothes in a tub that they had there.

Arizona United States World War II World War II camps

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.