1. Desert Exile Study Guide
Vocabulary section (fill-in-the-blank, synonyms, and antonyms)
What happened to her father?
Describe Tanforan and the apartment.
What does the word “assigned” tell you about where the author is going to live?
What is the author’s purpose in writing this piece?
Describe the living conditions at Tanforan.
Why did the family feel the need to eat prunes when they wouldn’t eat them before Tanforan?
Why does the author include a vivid description of what her mother wore?
Describe the occupants of Tanforan.
What difficulties did people face at Tanforan?
How did Uchida and her family rely on her friends while at the camp?
How did the Uchida family transform their apartment from a stable to a home?
How did the camp change people?
Why did the author end the story with “we didn’t dare quite believe….?”

2. 1. What happened to her father?
Uchida’s father was suspected of being a spy because he worked for a Japanese-owned company in San Francisco. Due to this affiliation, he was arrested and sent to Montana.

3. 2. Describe Tanforan and the apartment.
Tanforan is one of the assembly centers where the Japanese-Americans were first sent. It was a racetrack, and the stables for the horses were converted into apartments. Approximately 8,000 Japanese-Americans were housed there. Each apartment was approximately 10’x20’. This space became their home. They were given Army cots to sleep on. There was a constant breeze which entered into their apartment. Also, the manure floor was covered in linoleum. The Uchidas resided in Barrack 16, Apartment 40.

4. 3. What does the word “assigned” tell you about where the author is going to live?
The Japanese Americans at the camp did not choose to come here but rather were sent here and “assigned” to the camp in the same way they were being assigned to their “apartment.” The author did not get to choose her living quarters but instead was assigned to the stable like an animal.

5. 4. What is the author’s purpose in writing this piece?
Uchida wrote this piece to inform readers about the hardships many Japanese-Americans endured.

6. 5. Describe the living conditions.
The living conditions were horrendous. The bathrooms did not have doors or curtains for privacy nor did the shower area. The shower area was split into two sections. The front section had a trough where the internees would wash their face and brush their teeth. The back section consisted of shower areas, but yet again, they did not have any privacy. There was a constant lack of hot water and other basic supplies like toilet paper. The food was barely edible and was even served by a person’s bare hand. They did not have any lights available throughout the camp for people so internees had to navigate their way around camp in the dark.

7. 6. Why did the family feel the need to eat prunes when they wouldn’t eat them before Tanforan?
The Uchida family normally wouldn’t eat prunes as they were not appetizing, but unfortunately, they were starving and available from a neighbor.

8. 7. Why does the author include a vivid description of what her mother wore?
The author is contrasting the way her mother is immaculately dressed with the sloppy and dirty surroundings at the camp (muddy track and haphazardly constructed barracks). Also, the description of the mother’s outfit tells us that the mother has a great sense of pride and was a formal and careful person. This is also in contrast to the surroundings where the Japanese Americans are being stripped of their pride by being sent to the camp, assigned an apartment, and forced to live in horse stables.

9. 8. Describe the occupants of Tanforan.
The occupants were Japanese-Americans from a variety of backgrounds. In Uchida’s stable, there were many small family units which included an artist, her father’s barber and his wife, an elderly retired couple, a group of Kibei bachelors, an insurance salesman and his wife, and a widow with two daughters.

10. 9. What difficulties did people face at Tanforan?
It was essentially every man and woman for him/herself. The occupants faced unsanitary conditions, constant hunger, a lack of basic survival materials, a lack of hot and clean water, the cold, and the mud.

11. 10. How did Uchida and her family rely on her friends while at the camp?
Uchida wrote to her friends in Berkeley asking them to send her food. Due to the absence of her father at the camp, the Uchida family also relied on their friends to help them setup their home and gather necessities. Their friends put up shelves and built a table and benches for her family.

12. 11. How did the Uchida family transform their apartment from a stable to a home?
They ordered print fabric by mail and sewed curtains by hand to hang at their windows and to cover their shelves. They sectioned their living area off into a living room consisting of the furniture their friends helped them with and a dungeon which is where they would sleep.

13. 12. How did the camp change people?
For Uchida and her family, they had to learn to adapt to challenging situations. For others, some people became very selfish whereas others became generous.

14. 13. Why did the author end the story with “we didn’t dare quite believe….?”
The author was removed from her home, separated from her father, sent with her mother and siblings to the camp all in the course of one day. When she arrived at the camp the conditions were more fitting for animals than for humans. Due to this mistreatment, the author has no reason to believe that her captors (the Americans) will actually allow her father to return.