Book Review Of Desert Exile By Yoshiko Uchida

In the excerpt from the autobiography “Desert Exile” Yoshiko Uchida describes her perilous and fraught journey into a Japanese internment camp. In relation to chronological order, Yoshiko Uchida first describes the day Pearl Harbor was attacked, then the struggle that is yet to come. Shifting to her life, she begins with her arrival in Tanforan. First, the Japanese were directed to fill out forms and have their luggage to be inspected. The camp’s atmosphere was gloomy and the trails to all the barracks were very slippery, from the mud, made by previous rain. Her first hand account teaches that their camp alone can hold 8,000 Japanese Americans. The barracks the Uchida family was assigned had multiple stalls, used to house horses, not people. Their stall had nothing inside except three

Once they procured their luggage, they immediately invited friends over for tea and some prunes. The stalls were semi private and allowed for quick frendships under some circumstances. The washrooms, bathrooms and showers were very close to their stall. On page 541, Yoshiko Uchida declared, "The lack of privacy in the latrines and showers was an embarrassing hardship..." She often thought to herself about how the Army didn't have the inclination to manufacture suitable living conditions. One of the worst things in the internment camp was the short supply of everything. Hot water came in short spurts, and toilet paper was scarce, but there was a surplus of long lines throughout the circumscribed camp. To abscond from the long lines, multiple smaller mess halls were constructed and in time there was an increase in food and it became more piquant. Gradually the food changed to dull beans and bread to fried chicken and occasionally ice cream. Unlike most of the Japanese Americans, the Uchidas never rushed and were in the back of every