Broadside Contest Entrant #10: DEAN OKAMURA

Summer of '42

I imagine sounds of the incarceration during the Summer of '42. In searing 115-degree heat of the Sonoran Desert. At the War Relocation Authority Japanese Internment Camp at Poston, Arizona. Built by Del Webb. He later built Sun City retirement community. But forced evacuation did not become golden years in the Valley of the Sun. Groans of suffering arose. "Gaman" (Japanese perseverance) arose. They built elementary and high schools. They dug miles of irrigation canals to the Colorado River. They built roads. They grew crops. They survived. 

I imagine sounds of the Colorado River Indian Tribes (CRIT) when the U.S. government proposed the creation of Poston on their lands. CRIT disagreed. Saying that it would be a prison inside of a prison. 

I imagine sounds of those who said grabbing land and moving Japanese was part of winning the War. World War II and many wars before. 

I imagine a man I knew. His wife died in '38. He sent his teenage children to Japan in '39. Pearl Harbor in '41. He lost his job after this incident. He lived with bachelors at Poston in '42. I imagine his desert dry tears and silent sobs. 

This Summer of '42 was not a vacation to remember with nostalgia. No beach outings on the island. Not a time of granted wishes, but generations with untold wants. It was not a movie with a beautiful musical score. Most did not speak about those years. Even though nothing since has ever been as frightening and as confusing. If it strengthened them, made them more insecure, more important, or less significant, we will never know. They never said. 

I imagine those sounds eroded in Sonoran Desert winds.