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TITLE Duffel bag DESCRIPTION Duffel bag "IMADA 40204" [family number] Gila River Camp. Canvas bag. Black letters, red numbers. CONTEXT Upon registration for removal to the relocation centers, Japanese Americans were issued a "family number," used from then on the identify themselves and their belongings during removal and internment. "When we entered Poston, we were only allowed a seventy-five pound or something dufflebag. I still have it upstairs. It has a number on it. You don't go by the name at that time, just a number. My wife carried seventy-five pounds. My father, my mother, my brother -- each carried seventy-five pounds." Gene Sokioga, in Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps CREDIT Courtesy of Kinji Imada |
