Toshi Abe: All the day’s mud on our feet, & Internment, Empty-handed, empty suitcases

We were kids always running around barefoot
I remember my mother,
she always had to pick up wood
for cooking and heating the house,
My father made charcoal with the logs
We’d help our father cut the wood
The menfolk would cut the trees
and we’d gather up all the wood.
My mother would wash the rice
we’d set the table with rice bowls, chopsticks
After dinner, the menfolk would heat up water
and we’d all have a bath in the furo
because we needed to be clean every night
from all the day’s mud on our feet

—Toshi Abe

When WW II broke out, we were sent 

to an internment camp near Vacaville,
empty-handed, empty suitcases
The kids were all barefoot,
we didn’t have anything but we didn’t cry
& we never asked for anything
because we said we can’t afford it.
It was wartime, we were at war
with my mother’s country
She was born in Japan
She was married to an American
She went to school here,
learned English from us when we were small
She tried so hard, We tried hard too
to speak Japanese. It was very hard years
in the internment camp near Vacaville
We didn’t have anything but we didn’t cry
& we never asked for anything.

—Toshi Abe