Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds

by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto

Pay ranged from six dollars a month for unskilled labor to sixteen a month for professional and technical workers. By June 1, Harry was employed as a clerk in the accounting office, where he made eight dollars a month. He would parlay it into a small managerial job, hiring three or four cobblers to repair shoes, a service in high demand since residents could not leave the premises and, using their cramped “apartments” only to sleep, were often on their feet. His salary rose to twelve dollars a month as a “skilled” worker. With three meals a day at the mess hall, Harry now had access to more food than he had had since leaving the Mounts several months earlier. At the camp stores, he bought briefs and pajamas for himself and a slip and pink dress for Mary. Yet, even with an in-house swing band, jitterbug dances—which Harry could not resist—and an outdoor movie screen at the grandstand showing dated Hollywood “flickers,” Tulare beat the life out of its residents.