Copyright 2016, Roxanne Shirazi.
Letters reproduced by courtesy of the Willis M. Hawley and P.M. Suski estates. Information contained in this document is provided for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, or publication, without prior written permission of the copyright holder is strictly prohibited.
In this letter, Mr. Suski gives his first impression of the Santa Anita Assembly Center and answers questions about Japanese sword signatures.
This is a
Saved and collated with preceding and subsequent letters by
This letter was encoded as part of "Yellow Dust Abode: The Hawley-Suski Letters,
1942-1945," a master's thesis by
Only romanized forms of the Chinese or Japanese languages have been transcribed. Where character forms such as kanji are present in the original manuscript, they have been omitted from the transcription and their place marked by a GAP element.
The Hawley-Suski letters were encoded with the primary aim of facilitating linking within the letters and between outside sources. To this end, effort was made to manually identify named entities within the text and provide contextual information. Where non-standard spelling is used, both the author's spelling and the standard Oxford English Dictionary spelling has been encoded to enhance search results.
I don't know when you mailed your letter. But it was marked May, 13. and it came on 15th A.M. I thank you very much for trouble of renting the house and all the preliminary including the cutting lawn. It certainly is O.K. with me if you deduct a dollar monthly from the car payment.
They seem to be very much afraid of us here quite unnecessarily, as they confiscate all cutlery over 3 inch long, all chisels and ice picks. Ridiculous! aint it? After writing and asking you to bring some food in my last card, I found that they issued order to give up all food stuff in possession. That's why I wrote another card not to bring any food.
I am not complaining about food or shelter here. But it seems that most or many Japanese are oblivious of the situation, and the colossal problem the U.S. Governement and army are tackling. The food and shelter, limitations in many ways compared to what we are used to enjoy are something new to us. I hear complaint all over here. But I think the government is doing marvelously well to take care of an enormous number of us in such a short time.
That sword, Noshiu Seki Dju Kanetomo. Seki is the name of a town. Dju means lives
in. You will find Seki under gate radical 10 strokes.
The next problem,
I did not take with me the Chinese small dictionary or any ot other except the large Japanese
They say there are about 17000 Japanese here. You know they are great people, taking out permits to receive visitors. Those visitors have no serious business at all. But anyway they come and go. The sheer number staggers the authority, who intends to curve it by limiting the time and limiting the number per person to one a week. It may be necessary for you to write some authority explaining the nature of business and get out a special permit.
Anyway I may see you before this letter reaches you.