The only reliable books were by Roger Daniels and Michi Weglyn. The injustice of wartime incarceration was only beginning to be understood. They introduced me to a history in America we were all discovering at the same time. Photo: Cynthia WallisĪn acting job brought me to Seattle in 1976, then I sought out an entry-level job at KIRO Newsradio because I wanted to learn how to write, and radio relies upon the spoken word and the ability to convey a story in 30 seconds.īefore that, I started as a stage actor in San Francisco with Frank Chin’s Asian American Theater Workshop, around the time that he, Shawn Wong, and Lawson Inada were establishing the field of Asian American literature as the Combined Asian American Resources Project, or CARP. My father was still a teenager alone in America when he was put on another train in World War II, first to the Pomona Assembly Center and then on to the camp at Heart Mountain, Wyoming.įrank in the lead role of Honey Bucket, the first professional production of the Asian American Theater Workshop in 1976. Yasutake took him down to King Street Station and put him on the train to California. He must have met the Yasutake’s daughter, renowned poet Mitsuye Yamada. He was always grateful to an immigration translator named Jack Yasutake, who overlooked the sketchy details of my father’s passport, sprung him from detention, and brought him home to Seattle’s Beacon Hill for dinner and a nice Japanese bath with the Yasutake family. He was taken off the ship and held for three weeks of interrogation at the Immigration Station and Assay Office here in Seattle. My Kibei-Nisei father, George Abe, was just 13 when he was sent alone from Japan in 1937 to work on a walnut farm near San Jose, California. All photos are from Frank Abe unless noted otherwise. George Abe as a mess hall worker in Block 17 at Heart Mountain concentration camp, Wyoming.
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