“September 14, 1942
Dear Miss Breed,
We are all getting used to the weather and dust and beginning to think that it isn’t such a bad place after all. Partitions have been put up in the lavatory and the wash room here is much nicer and much closer [than in Santa Anita].
We have each been given a cot bed and a blanket. Now that we have caught up on our sleep, the cots feel rather uncomfortable. We will be issued either hay or steel army cots and matresses, but as yet no one seems to know when! Something should be done, though, because we need something as a mattress because it is colder at night.
It seems as though my life is going through a thorough transformation! Here I go to Sewing School, Sunday School, Church, Singsperation, and Girls’ Club Meetings. No more of those swell Saturday night dances! Gee, how I miss them!… The young girls from Reedley, Visalia, and Fresno and thereabouts no longer go to dances cause they are afraid of the “Santa Anita yogores” (a colloquialism meaning “not the best of boys”). Due to this, the young fellows act twice as rowdy and really make us disgusted!
We, [Santa Anita] girls no longer go out to dances either! Most of us stay at home and are truly good girls. Sometimes we go to each others house and look up into the dark blue star-filled sky. I regret that I did not take astronomy in school — the sky is truly beautiful at night!
I know I’m asking a great deal of you — but I wonder if you would be so kind as to send me a dictionary. If you have one that you don’t need, would you please send it to us. If you don’t have an extra one I will send you the money for one in my next letter.
Gee, Christmas must fall on Friday! It certainly would be elegant if you could come to Arizona. Visitors here are allowed to enter the barracks and visit people. It doesn’t feel like a prison here. Gee, but this is such a desolate place I wonder if your tires will hold out -also your gas will be rationed won’t it?
Please give your mother our best regards. My mother sends you her love.
Sincerely,
Fusa”
http://www.smithsonianeducation.org/educators/lesson_plans/japanese_internment/letter_b.html
http://www.janm.org/exhibits/breed/title.htm