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letter
H: 8 in, W: 5 in (sheet); H: 4.125 in, W: 5.125 in (envelope)
ink
paper

Exhibition(s):

Subject Tags
American letters
Assembly centers
Assembly Centers, Santa Anita
Bathing
Books
Breed, Clara E.
California
Canteens (Wartime, emergency, etc.)
Concentration camp life
Correspondence
Fathers
Food
Furniture
Kikuchi, David
Kikuchi, Elizabeth
Laundry
Mess halls
Mothers
Postal service
Queues
Rationing
Schools
Sugar
Sunday schools
World War, 1939-1945

[Letter to Clara Breed from Elizabeth Kikuchi, Arcadia, California, May 25, 1942]

Elizabeth Kikuchi [bio]

Arcadia, Calif., May 25, 1942

Gift of Elizabeth Y. Yamada

Clara Breed Collection

Description
1 letter and envelope from Elizabeth Kikuchi to Clara Breed. | Transcription: Assembly Center / Santa Anita, Calif. / May 25, 1942 / Dear Miss Breed, / I am sorry I did not write as soon as I received the books. Every night after I get in bed I think of writing the letter to you but next day I never get a chance to be alone because two girls live with us. We have all girls in our room so we call it the girls dormitory. / The Sheep Wagon Family book was very interesting. I like adventure books very much. The book, Story Parade is very nice. I read one story each day. Our library shelf is getting very crowded because of all the books you sent us. Pretty soon my father is going to make us a bigger shelf. My mother told me you like to lend books to lots of people so I am going to lend it to some of my school-friends. / I go to recreation school now. It starts 9 to 11 in the morning 1 to 3 in the afternoon. The grades go up to 12th. / We have to get in line everywhere in shower, mess hall, post-office, canteen and even washing and ironing. So my mother sometimes takes all morning to just wash a bucket of clothe. / When you wrote about the sugar ration we had plenty of sugar then about a week after we had sugar only in the morning but now we do not have any sugar. This morning our mush had raisins because there wasn't any sugar. / The Sunday School is quite big now. There are about 700 children. The Sunday School is divided into parts like Beginner, Primary, Junior, Intermediate, and Senior. My mother is a superintendent of the primary department. Last Sunday the young peoples church there was over 1700 people. There is a Santa Anita choir now. It is very beautiful. / My brother, David, he is too busy to write. He plays all the time with his friends. After school he goes chasing Jack Rabbits. He is so black now mother calls him Black Sambo. / Love / Elizabeth Kikuchi

All requests for permission to publish, reproduce, or quote from materials in this collection must be submitted to the Hirasaki National Resource Center at the Japanese American National Museum (hnrc@janm.org).