Hope Gertrude (Omachi) Kawashima
Hope Kawashima, a Sansei who grew up in Loomis, California, was forced from her home to Marysville Assembly Center before being moved to Tule Lake WRA incarceration camp. Kawashima recalls first moving from Tule Lake to Idaho, where her father found work, to Topaz WRA incarceration camp where she was able to attend school but experienced harsh winter conditions. Throughout the interview, Kawashima reflects on the trauma that she and her family experienced and how it had a lasting effect on her life: watching her house go up in flames while being forcibly removed from Loomis; her mother’s depression following a failed pregnancy; Kawashima’s own struggles to speak up in front of a crowd. She ends the interview with a message of resilience in the face of adversity.
