For many, the real trauma of internment was built around the scores of small indignities endured each day. Taken together, their impact on family structure and on an individual's sense of pride, dignity, and self-respect was enormous.

"We had to live under the constant pressure that the food might all stop one day, and it gave me very uneasy and uncomfortable feelings to see the guards watching us from the tower. We were fenced in. I couldn't take my eyes off my children for even a moment so that they would not go outside the fence. The guards were to shoot anyone that did." — Internee

Nancy Araki: A Child's Perspective (oral history transcript)

"The diet of rice, macaroni, and potato was hardly a suitable diet for... anyone." —Akiyo Deloyd, The Japanese American Family Album

"We were fed things we weren't accustomed to. Beef brains, tongue, kidneys and liver were the mainstay of the kitchens. We had very few Japanese staples." —George Sakamoto, The Japanese American Family Album

Frank Y.: Sand and Food (oral history transcript)