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I REMEMBER THE LITTLE GIRL

BMWs shine on the lot, row after row,
reflecting the blinding summer sun of Pinedale, California.
Their windows blink back stories of 4,792 Japanese Americans
interned on this same lot seventy-eight years ago.

I remember a black and white was taken
of a little girl with two suitcases
standing amid crowds in this former lumber town.
I can hear her chatter, excited to go to camp.
Would there be log cabins or tents? Swims in a big pool? 
Campfires with songs and marshmallow roasting?
Lots of other children to play with?
I can picture her crestfallen eyes, her fading smile
as she stares at tar paper shacks on dry, barren ground,
nothing left of any sugar pines.

Where was she from? Oregon? Washington?
What did she leave behind? 
Family farm? Friends? Pets? Dolls?
What did she manage to stuff into her tiny suitcases?
How did she survive the sweltering July heat of 110 degrees 
with only black tar paper to protect her?
Where was she taken after Pinedale with other dispossessed, 
bled of their livelihoods, packed like dried fish onto busses?
Tule Lake? Poston? Gila River?

Shacks gone, customers stroll through the BMWs.
Can they remember this was an assembly center for Japanese Americans?
Do they even know?

I remember the little girl. I remember for them.

-Jennifer Fenn


This poem was inspired a California State University, Fresno lecture on the history of Pinedale by David Rodriguez, followed by research on encyclopedia.densho.org.

Published in Song of the San Joaquin, Summer 2020.

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