Tallgrass [antikvár]

the summer i was thirteen, the Japanese came to Ellis. Not Ellis. exactly, but to the old Tallgrass Ranch, which the government had turnéd into a relocation camp. Tallgrass was a mile and a half from Ellis, less than a mile past our farmhouse. It was one of the camps the government was building then to house the Japanese. In early 1942, the Japanese on the West Coast had been rounded up and incarcerated in places such as the Santa Anita racetrack. Those destined for Colorado waited there until streets had been bladed into the yucca and sagebrush at Tallgrass, guard towers and barracks thrown up, and the camp fenced off with bobwire. Then they were put on a train and sent a thousand miles to Ellis. I remember the crowd of townspeople at the depót the day the first Japanese arrived. The arrival date was supposed to be a seeret, but we knew the evacuees were coming, because the government had alerted the stationmaster and hired bus drivers, and