The Librarian
This past week in class, we were assigned to read a letter from the Clara Breed Collection. Known for her support of Japanese American children during World War II, Breed worked as a librarian who communicated with these children while they lived in internment camps. As she noticed the departure of Japanese American children to internment camps, she gave the children self-addressed stamped postcards to give them an outlet for correspondence. Many of the correspondences between Miss Clara Breed and the children were compiled into the Clara Breed Collection, which can be accessed via internet.
The Recipient
One such receiver of these letters was a girl named Katherine Tasaki, who was interned in Arcadia, California. In one such letter dated May 4, 1942, I enjoyed reading about Katherine’s love for reading. She writes how the internment camp just got a library and her favorite thing to read is the geography magazine. I found this topic of choice very interesting . You could imagine that because she is stuck in one place, she probably yearns to travel and is therefore attracted to this magazine. As I was reading about Katherine’s affinity to geography, I wondered where she wanted to go. Did she only want to go back home? Did she want to travel around America?
Another piece of the letter I found striking was Katherine’s love of the piano. She mentions to Miss Bree that one day to went to practice the piano but when she arrived, she remembered that she had left all of her music books at home in San Diego. I paused my reading and thought about how powerful the gift of music is and that Katherine has the ability to harness her musical gift but is ultimately unable to do so. This made me really sad because music comforts us and Katherine was probably looking for comfort to shield her from the hardships she was experiencing.
