Gabriele Phelps, Alexa Bringhurst

Hannah Kuhnhausen, Jessica Downing

English 2610
December 12, 2018

Topaz Truth Memorial Proposal

Weeks after Pearl Harbor, thousands of Japanese Americans and Japanese

immigrants were forced out of their homes in America with nothing but the clothes they

were wearing. These people were forced into internment camps for being Japanese and

questioned about their loyalty to the United States. Utah was one of the states that

offered their land to the federal government to use as an internment camp. This camp

was called Topaz.

The Utah Central Relocation Center, later renamed Topaz after the nearby

mountain, was constructed to house Japanese American detainees and those of

Japanese descent for fear of them supporting Japan in World War II (Topaz Museum).

Topaz was one of ten internment camps built to hold the detainees. At one point in time,

Topaz had an occupancy of over 8,000 and the total number of people to pass through

was 11,212 (Whitesides).

It all began with the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941.

From there the United States spiraled into World War II the following year. President

Franklin D. Roosevelt signed an executive order stating the military would establish

most of the west coast in which any or all persons may be excluded (Whitesides). This

allowed for the removal of Japanese Americans and those with Japanese descent from

the west coast area. Shortly after this, President Roosevelt signed a second Executive

Order to establish the War Relocation Authority who would be responsible for the

evacuation, relocation, and internment of Japanese people. They would also be held

accountable for the construction and administration of relocation centers throughout the
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United States. The military showed support for the executive order by assembling and

transporting the evacuees (Whitesides).

(utahhumanities)

Topaz officially opened its doors September 11, 1942, just shortly after

construction began in July of 1942. The camp consisted of 42 blocks containing 12

barracks each that housed 250-300 detainees (Japanese American Veteran

Association). The Topaz Museum reports that each block had a recreation room,

combination washroom-toilet-laundry building, a central dining hall, and an office for the

block manager. The barracks were made of pine planks covered with tar paper using

sheetrock as an inside wall covering to act as insulation. Each barrack unit came with

few amenities such as pot-bellied stoves, army cots, blankets, and mattress covers. The

barracks were barely ready when the evacuees moved into the center and many of

them helped to finish the construction and built their own furniture out of leftover
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supplies from the barracks. Many of the apartments did not have windows installed

before snowfall began. In addition, the museum claims detainees helped plant

thousands of trees and shrubs throughout the developed areas of camp and also

engaged in extensive landscaping of the barracks areas (Japanese American Veterans

Association). At the finish of construction in January of 1943, the relocation center

eventually consisted of 623 buildings including two elementary schools, one

junior/senior high school, a hospital, a church, seven watch towers, a perimeter fence,

and a sentry post (Topaz Museum).

(http://www.topazmuseum.org/camp-map)

All was quiet until April of 1943. Topaz became a place of organized protests

after the death of 63-year-old James Hatsuki Wakasa was shot by a military guard after

walking near the perimeter fence. Prior to Wakasa’s death, guards had regularly been
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firing warning shots at the prisoners (Japanese American Veterans Association). The

victims of the camps had sensed the danger and feared this scenario. Dr. Satsuki Ina, a

victim of the camp, said that one day her mother told her that she wondered if it was the

day that the prisoners would be lined up and shot by the guards (Holsapple). Tensions

rose again a month later when a couple was shot and killed for strolling too close to the

perimeter fence. These events led to the reevaluation of security regulations limiting the

use of weapons and relaxing on security. This allowed for detainees to leave Topaz for

recreational activities and jobs in Delta (Japanese American Veterans Association).

After receiving a small taste of freedom, two detainees, Fred Korematsu and

Mitsuye Endo, pursued the courts regarding the constitutionality of the exclusion,

relocation, and incarceration of Japanese Americans. At the beginning of the war, Fred

Korematsu refused to leave California and still continued to work. On that premise, he

was arrested and tried and convicted of violating public law. Korematsu filed to appeal

this ruling saying it was unconstitutional and violated the fifth amendment, but he lost

the battle. The court’s ruling stood with the notion that “the government's need to protect

against espionage during time of war outweighed Korematsu's individual rights, and the

rights of Americans of Japanese descent” (“Central Utah”). In Mitsuye Endo’s case, civil

liberties lawyer James Purcell, approached Endo for a test case to challenge

incarceration in relocation centers. Purcell wrote a writ of habeas corpus stating that she

has been a law-abiding citizen with no charges made against her, she is being

unlawfully detained, and she is confined to a relocation center under an armed guard

being held against her will. Purcell asked that either Endo be charged with a crime or

released from detainment. The courts released Endo with the condition of not returning
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to the west coast but she refused and took her case to the Supreme Court. In Ex Parte

Mitsuye Endo the Supreme Court held that "admittedly loyal" citizens could not be

deprived of their liberty and held in relocation centers. The decision effectively ended

the incarceration of Japanese Americans.

After the Ex Parte Mitsuye Endo decision, many detainees were eligible to leave

Topaz freely and when the war ended in August 1945, many detainees began returning

to their homes in California. However, many of their homes and jobs had been lost

because of the time they were forced to stay in Topaz (Japanese American Veteran

Association). The Central Utah Relocation Center was closed on October 31, 1945.

Following the closing of the camp, many of the structures were sold or taken away to

nearby educational facilities and most of what remained was torn down (“Central

Utah…”).

(https://www.familytree.com/blog/japanese-internment-newspapers/)

In honor of the 11,212 internees at the Topaz internment camp located in Delta,

Utah, we are proposing a monument to be constructed to memorialize and

commemorate the former internees while being used as a platform to raise awareness

of the segregation of Japanese and Japanese Americans during the 1940s. The

memorial will consist of a wall, a bench, and several plaques throughout, allowing
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visitors the opportunity to reflect, honor, contemplate, and commemorate the former

internees.

Due to limited exposure in Delta, Utah, and getting buried in the large population

of downtown Salt Lake City, the location of the monument will be at 558 Swede Alley in

Park City, Utah. The location will allow for exposure to all walks of life without competing

with other memorials, statues, or monuments. The memorial will be located at the

highest level of the hill located on Swede Alley to allow for visibility from nearby high-

traffic roadways while still allowing accessibility by foot. Furthermore, The monument is

not limited by a spatial structure, such as the small annex room of the Anne Frank

museum or the Legacy Museum warehouse, and has the ability to remain free of cost,

further encouraging a variety of visitors while continuing to allow maximum exposure

(Tickets)( Legacy Museum).

Plaques are to be displayed at various locations throughout the monument to

remind society of the dangers behind diaspora, segregation, and forced assimilation

while acknowledging the positive aspects of freedom, understanding, and, also, offered

as an apology for past indiscretions committed against the Japanese and Japanese

American peoples during World War II. The largest plaque is to be located on the wall

and is embossed to read, Topaz Truth Memorial.

The wall is to be constructed of approximately 5,634 bricks and is roughly 86’

long and 10’ tall. The bricks are to be engraved with the names of the 11,212 internees

that resided at the Topaz internment camp located in Delta, Utah (Central Utah). The

engravings will be present on each exposed side of the bricks. The engravings will

forever memorialize and commemorate the internees while acknowledging their forced
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assimilation and the unfair treatment that occurred during the detainment period at the

camp (...Harry S Truman...). The bricks will be constructed of coursed rubble masonry

and will represent the strength displayed by the Japanese, and Japanese American,

detainees during the time that they were residing within the camp (Coursed Rubble...).

(https://hrecutah.org/facing-history/)

The wall itself represents the Japanese and Japanese American's segregation,

diaspora, and the forced assimilation of internees, but will remain as an open-plan

structure to signify their eventual freedom. The monument’s distinct purpose is to create

a symbol against exclusion, intolerance, and animosity towards marginalized groups

just as the monument located at the Tiergarten in Berlin, Germany, does for the

LGBTQIA+ community (Seemann). The wall and bench will both curve to create a

semicircle. The semicircle shape will represent the breaking of cycles, the changing of a

pattern, and the desire to create a more meaningful, all-inclusive memorial in honor of

those that were interned. The rock garden was inspired by traditional Japanese rock

gardens. It is put their to represent an idea found in Zen philosophy of having “harmony
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between man and nature.” (Liu) This represents the harmony that we hope to restore

through our memorial because of the trauma and diaspora caused by Topaz.

(Newsweek)

We are proposing a memorial for Topaz to be made because the current

information offered by the Topaz museum is not accurate. The museum website

describes the prisoners to have two elementary schools and one high school. This is not

the same story that the victims told in the PBS documentary Children of the Camps. Dr.

Satsuki Ina, who was a child in Topaz, claims that they did not have schools provided

for them. Rather, the prisoners who were educated or teachers took the opportunity to

teach the children. The museum website makes the camp sound like it was a bunch of
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small apartments for the families to live in, however, Ina claims they were forced to

reside in horse stalls. The prisoners were given small rations to eat and were

malnourished. One prisoner said he would do anything just for a cup of coffee that he

saw a guard drinking. These prisoners not only suffered a vitamin deficient diet that was

later discovered by doctors, but for many of them, they were missing out on essential

staples to their culture’s diet such as tea. That abrupt change caused digestive issues

amongst many prisoners. Even the guards were found to be vitamin deficient.

(Holsapple)

(deseret news)

One way that we can see hybridity in the victims of Topaz is that one prisoner

from Children of the Camps recalls hearing a young child say “I want to go back to

America.” Some children were so shocked by the abrupt changes in their lives that they

thought they had gone to Japan (Holsapple). These people, many of them being

American citizens, knew America as their home. Despite that these American citizens

were not accused of any crime; they were forced out of American civilian life and onto

Internment Camps because of their race. This also resembles diaspora because they
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were forced out of their homes and were obligated to assimilate within the camps losing

any of their own personal culture (Holsapple). Although America was the only home to

some of the victims of the camp, they were being told they weren’t American enough

and had to prove their loyalty. The victims of Topaz lost their homes as well as their

identities as being American citizens. This experience would play a big part in their

hybridity between Japanese and American culture.

Despite the Topaz Museum providing exaggerated and false information, this

memorial will pay tribute to the victims of Topaz and the hardships they endured. It will

provide a space for people to come and reflect on the trauma that the victims

experienced. It is important that this memorial presents the past with accurate

information so that people who weren’t affected by Topaz can come and reflect on the

truth of what happened to the victims of Topaz. In order to give viewers additional

information on ideas presented in Topaz Truth memorial, we will put reading

suggestions on a plaque next to the memorial so that viewers can learn more about the

ideas of memorials not telling the true story, society ignoring injustices, and diaspora. A

few reading suggestions we chose to incorporate with our memorial were “Can a Gas

Station Remember Murder?” by David Tell, “California Palms” by le thi deim thuy, and

“Time and Distance Will Overcome” by Eula Biss. These will reinforce the ideas that we

will teach through our memorial and give viewers the opportunity to learn about similar

stories so that they can be more familiar with how stories are forgotten when they’re told

by the wrong person.

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(Gabriele Phelps)

The timeline for our proposed memorial focuses on fundraising goals,

construction, and installation. We expect the total cost to be approximately $200,000.

Each brick for the wall and bench will cost about $20, including the engraving. With a

cost of approximately $20 per square foot in materials such as mortar joints and

cement, the total cost per square foot of the wall and bench is $40. There will be a cost

of approximately $600 for equipment, $1,500 for the footing and base of the structure,

and additional labor cost of $5,000 (HowMuch). With the memorial being 10’ tall, and

86’ long, the total cost per square foot is $34,400. The cost of purchasing the land,
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producing materials to distribute, advertising, legal fees, and other miscellaneous costs

will be approximately another $160,000.

The construction of the memorial will take approximately three months to

complete, including creation of engraved bricks and the actual building of the wall and

bench. We expect the process to take at least one year of fundraising and up to six

months of community planning to secure the location of the memorial and approve all

permits for construction.

Our fundraising plan includes selling the bricks to donors and offering larger

contributors sponsorship packages ranging from $300-$1,000. Donors will be able to

purchase a brick for the memorial at a price of $50 each. The sponsorships will be

broken into three different ranges with different benefits and gifts at each level. The first

will be a “Silver Sponsor” with a donation of $300 and the donor will receive a mention

in our newsletter. The second level will be a “Gold Sponsor” with a donation of $500, the

donor will receive a mention in our newsletter along with recognition in our memorial

information guides. The third and final sponsorship level will be “Platinum Sponsor,”

which includes the same as the previous level but also includes their name engraved on

our “Recognition of Sponsors” area of the memorial.

Our timeline for fundraising is based on goals. We expect to sell $3,000 bricks,

which will raise $150,000, and in order to do so we will be launching an online

fundraising tree. This is where a donor can purchase a brick or sponsorship, and then

choose three friends to request to do the same. We will also be teaming up with a

community partner, yet to be determined, for a donation match program, where this
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company will match the donations made within the first three months of fundraising.

(Gordy) Within those first three months, we expect to be ¼ of the way in fundraising and

hope to continue on that track for a full calendar year. The remaining $50,000 in

fundraising will be raised through the sponsorship levels and our donation match

program.

When determining the specifics for the memorial, we discussed many counter

arguments that could potentially be brought up by stakeholders in the community. The

first is that a museum for the Topaz Camp already exists. We acknowledge that this is

true, however the current museum does not highlight the truth of the situation. As

discussed earlier, the museum’s false claims of how life in the camp was does not

address the hardships those interned faced. This museum is also located hours away

from the central population of the state, and although it does use the land of the actual

camp, it does not draw enough attention to the atrocities of this history. We are

proposing that this memorial be in a more densely populated area, and that’s why we

chose Park City. This location has been a topic of discussion, since it is not the most

populated area of the state and located outside of the Salt Lake Valley. However, this is

a frequent place of travel for visitors from out of state, as well as those who reside in the

valley. Park City is a location that will draw visitors from all walks of life, and increase

the visibility of and honor those who were interned at Topaz.

Topaz Truth Memorial is essential to educating and informing the public of the

truths behind the internment camp in Topaz, Utah. The current museum, Topaz

Museum, provides exaggerated information that neglects to inform viewers the

inhumane living conditions that the victims endured and is placed in an area of little
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exposure. It focuses on the physical aspects of Topaz, such as the barracks and

schools, but lacks the perspective of the victims. Our memorial shows the truth of the

past; the United States government forced Japanese Americans and those of Japanese

descent, out of their homes and into internment camps. When they were allowed to

return home, their property and businesses had all been seized. This was a hate crime

based entirely on their race. We want to respectfully create a memorial for the 11,212

Americans who endured trauma because of Topaz. The rock garden honors the

Japanese culture that was affected by the diaspora caused by Topaz, the semi circle

represents the breaking of cycle and a desire for our country to do better than the

current memorializations of historic events, and each brick represents the victims of

Topaz. It is our civil responsibility as Utah citizens to make sure that the story of the

survivors are told through Topaz Truth memorial somewhere where it is not hidden, and

that honors the 11,212 lives that were affected there.

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