Museum of Riverside

Lesson Three Haru Inaba Kuromiya Oral History

Before her family was forced to move to the Manzanar Relocation Center, Haru was a student at Riverside Polytechnic High School. She graduated from high school while incarcerated at Crystal City, Texas, and returned to Riverside with her family after the war.
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"I remember walking in town by myself, and I saw this friend. She was a Caucasian friend. She was walking towards me, and I thought, oh, there's – I think her name was Eva Jean – oh, there's Eva Jean. I was real excited. I walked towards her and I think she saw me, and she ducked into a store. I really felt the discrimination at that time, that she really didn't want to see me. I was really, really hurt. I know that she saw me and I was very, very hurt that she didn't want to even talk to me. But then as I thought if it later, I thought, well, maybe she had a reason. Maybe she knew someone that had gotten hurt in the war or something like that. I don't feel that badly about it anymore. These things did happen."