It wasn’t a gem in U.S. history, but Topaz will never be forgotten

Tuesday, Oct. 25, 2005 | 8:45 a.m.

The Topaz Museum: www.topazmuseum.org.

The Conservation Fund: www.conservationfund.org, or call (703) 525-6300.

Joseph Inatome remembers a camp called Topaz, where thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to live during World War II.

He was 17 when his family left their San Francisco home and, on Mother's Day 1942, took what they could carry and boarded a bus headed to an internment camp outside the sleepy desert town of Delta, Utah.

"We were in the middle of the desert," said Inatome, now 80 and a Las Vegas resident. "It was like being at Alcatraz. Instead of water, we had desert."

The federal government, fearing a security risk during the war, sent 120,000 Japanese Americans across the country -- all hundreds, if not thousands, of miles from their homes.

Inatome and his family went to Topaz. They were about 150 miles east of Ely, 160 miles southwest of Salt Lake City and 315 miles northeast of Las Vegas.

They moved into tar-paper covered barracks. The camp housed more than 8,100 people. They signed loyalty pledges.

"We had to prove ourselves," he said. "We had to prove that we were loyal Americans."

Now he and others are working to keep the memory of the camp alive.

The national Conservation Fund is working with the tiny Topaz Museum to preserve the 640-acre campsite, which for a time was the fifth most populous city in Utah. The site is now just open desert marked by a plaque.

The museum board wants to build on the site and "preserve the history of the camp, the oral and physical histories, and of course the artifacts," said Jane Beckwith, who runs the museum.

The memorial is not important just for the Japanese American community, she said.

"It speaks to the fragility of democracy," she said.

Beckwith, who was born two years after Topaz closed, grew up in Delta. Her father, who owned the local newspaper, employed several typographers from the camp.

"My parents had copies of the camp yearbooks in the house. I was puzzled over the Japanese names."

Inatome was the first high school graduate at Topaz. The school wasn't much.

"There were hardly any books," he said. "There was no library. We depended on donations."

Most of the residents of Delta, about 16 miles away, didn't want anything to do with their new neighbors, Inatome recalled. But a handful of people came to help, among them his teacher, Eleanor Gerard. Quakers lent their support for those in the camps, he said.

"A visiting minister gave us a speech," Inatome said. "He said, 'I know how you feel. But self-pity begets more self-pity. It's endless. You have to stop digging that hole. It doesn't do any good.' "

Inatome said that like his friends, family and neighbors, he considered himself an American. The only decoration in his San Francisco bedroom was a picture of Abraham Lincoln, the Great Emancipator. He liked Lincoln because of the president's Gettysburg Address.

Beckwith wonders why Topaz hasn't received more recognition, but says, "I think it's easier to forget unhappy history."

Dan Sakura, government relations director for the Conservation Fund, is leading the fundraising effort to preserve Topaz and nine other camps across the West.

He hopes that the Topaz land will be locked up within the next month -- Oct. 31 is the 60th anniversary of the closing of Topaz.

"We see this as a story that needs to be preserved for all Americans," said Sakura, whose father and uncles were interned in the camp in Minidoka, Idaho. "I think the story is how important it is to learn and reflect on our heritage, and how fragile our civil liberties are."

Inatome spent two years at the camp before going to college and joining the Army.

Following Inatome's tour in the Army, he went back to school and received an engineering degree. He raised a family. He met and worked with the founders of the computer revolution, and was known in the industry for his work.

While the memories of Topaz are still sharp in his mind, he doesn't want to emphasize the bad.

"I would rather emphasize the merits of the good people who came to our aid," he said.

Launce Rake can be reached at 259-4127 or lrake@lasvegassun.com.