Clara E. Breed (1906-1994) grew up in a Christian home[1] and was a children’s librarian in San Diego at the time of the evacuation. Her library was the branch closest to the Nikkei community and she recalled how “December 7 was a blow to everyone, but to the young Japanese Americans ‘it was as if the world fell about our ears.’”[2] Breed’s friend, Zada Taylor, had written that the streets were no longer safe for them: “The day after Pearl Harbor most of the Japanese children who usually flood our downtown Central Children’s Room . . . turned in their books and walked out empty handed. . . . It is dangerous for them to cross the non-oriental sections of the city and our problem was what to do to give them books.”[3] The resourceful librarians loaded up the library station wagon and delivered books to the schools where Nikkei children attended. This makeshift “bookmobile” allowed them to continue serving their Japanese American patrons.
As Breed wondered what would happen to her young friends, she providentially received a stack of blue postcards imprinted with her mailing address which she had planned to use for personal correspondence.
Quickly she licked penny stamps to a fistful of cards and rushed off to work. Her plan was simple. As the children came to the library to turn in their library cards and books, Clara gave each of them a postcard. “Write to us,” she told them. “We’ll want to know where you are and how you are getting along, and we’ll send you some books to read.” “OK,” they answered as their sober faces brightened briefly.[4]
Then on April 8, 1942, Breed soberly watched as more than 300 families of Japanese descent stood waiting amidst huge piles of luggage and tearful friends. She wrote,
The scene was unforgettable. The station was packed, the platform overflowing, but there was no confusion, not a baby cried, not a voice was lifted in irritation or complaint. The boys were all dressed in boots and dungarees and plaid shirts, while the girls with their slender figures managed to look dainty and feminine in slacks. Babies were delectable in soft pink and blue, while one little toddler in trousers and coat of bright red looked like an animated doll. The soldiers, who seemed to have been chosen for their height, towered above the crowd, but their authority was courteous and considerate and one saw in their faces honest American interest in the human spectacle, and sympathy for the participants. Only at the very last, when the procession had filed slowly toward the train, did one old woman break down and sob uncontrollably.[5]
Breed went back to work that week, unable to communicate with the children until they could inform her of their new mailing addresses. As soon as their first postcards reached San Diego, however, she began sending books and other goodies just as she had promised. At Christmas, she also sent presents:
Knowing this would be a lonely time for her young friends, Clara took special care to send their gifts early. Although she was not a wealthy woman, Clara must have scrimped on many things in order to make the holiday brighter for her children. [One young friend wrote how she] was thrilled with a maroon suede jacket and matching belt, cologne, candy, nuts, and even a powder puff.”[6]
Breed’s constant correspondence throughout the internment years often contained timely words of encouragement and hope (Proverbs 15:23). None of Breed’s letters were ever found, but the content can be discerned by reading the children’s grateful responses.[7] Her young friends praised her for her kindness and almost every letter she received from the Santa Anita Assembly Center began with thanks.
[Clara] seemed to be sending something to Santa Anita almost daily. Fortunately, the post office was right across the street from the library. Although she earned very little as a librarian, Clara often stopped at the Woolworth five-and-ten-cent store on her way home to stock up on candy, socks, bubble gum, and other goodies to add as treats. She gladly spent her own money for these extras for “her children.” . . . At the library, she kept a notebook with the name of each child and the name of the books that she sent to him or her. In time, Clara filled several notebooks.[8]
Breed and other contributors eventually helped the Nikkei establish libraries within the relocation centers. The effort began as her young pen pals made their own library cards and loaned out the books Breed had personally sent them. Such distribution would expand as libraries and donors across the country contributed used books to the camps. Breed reported one internee’s description of the library in the Poston Relocation Center (typical of library services in all of the camps):
The library is in a barrack, 100 feet long and 20 feet wide which is not adequate for a city of our size. The shelves were made from scrap lumber. . . . The books in the library are donations from people in our camp, and . . . from considerate friends. . . . Many of the discarded books were received in bad condition, and a great deal of time was spent in making them suitable for circulation. At present we have approximately 5,000 volumes. Due to lack of material only one book and one magazine is issued per card for seven days with no renewal privileges. We have a large library membership. In our camp of 10,000 people a total of 3,239 membership cards have been issued to date. Of this group 1,719 are “J” cards issued to those students who have not graduated from High Schools; 1,520 cards have been issued to adults. Because of the lack of recreational facilities, the people of this community are constantly using the library. Last month our total circulation was 6,010. We have only two sources of borrowing books by special request. The Riverside Junior College will lend books to their former students. The Arizona State Library has consented to let us use a few special books for a limited time. The California State Library has refused to lend us books because we are out of their jurisdiction. The selections of books in the children and the junior section are satisfactory, but the choice in the adult non-fiction is not adequate, especially in the department of Useful Arts. There is also a definite need for books which deal with current world problems.[9]
During the internment, Breed attempted multiple times to visit her friends in Poston, but found it too difficult with her responsibilities at the library, gas and tire rations, and the bureaucracy of trying to obtain a visitor’s permit. So instead, she began writing about their plight from afar. In June 1942, she contributed to a Library Journal article, “War Children on the Pacific.” Then in February 1943, she wrote a solo piece entitled, “All But Blind,” which eventually led to a longer essay in Horn Book Magazine, “Americans with the Wrong Ancestors,” in which she stated,
There are those who say that Japanese descendants will never be allowed to return to the West Coast. If this is true, California and Oregon and Washington will be the losers, for there are among these Japanese Americans young people of ideals and courage and creative imagination, young people who may some day be great sculptors, great doctors, great scientists. Some of them could help to interpret East to West, and that interpretation will be needed when the war is over.[10]
Clara Breed was a librarian second and a follower of Christ first. She knew the value of a good book, but also the commands of the Great Book. She then gave generously of her time and resources to care for children in the camps through her letters and gifts. As Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 19:14).
[1] Clara’s father, Rev. Dr. Reuben L. Breed, was a Congregational minister who died when she was only fourteen. Her sister, Eleanor, actively worked with college Nisei from U.C. Berkeley, so Clara and Eleanor often served with the First Congregational Church in Berkeley. Eleanor also kept up an active correspondence with many of the student evacuees who had been part of the U.C. Berkeley International House. “Clara’s uncle, Rev. Dr. Noel Breed, leader of the First Congregational Church in Stockton, California, spoke out against the evacuation and opened the church storerooms for the Nikkei’s personal possessions for the duration. Up and down the Pacific coast other churches did the same” (Joanne Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration during World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference [New York: Scholastic, 2006], 49).
[2] Zada Taylor, “War Children on the Pacific, A Symposium Article, Library Journal 67, no. 12 (15 June 1942), 558.
[3] Zada Taylor, American Library Association (ALA) newsletter, Section for Library Work with Children 2, no. 10 (April 1942), 5. ALA Archives. Taylor was the children’s librarian in Los Angeles.
[4] Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed, 55.
[5] Clara E. Breed, “Americans with the Wrong Ancestors,” The Horn Book Magazine (July/August 1943), 257.
[6] Oppenheim, Dear Miss Breed, 144.
[7] Breed would collect 256 letters in total and much of this correspondence can be viewed at the Japanese American National Museum, “Clara Breed Collection,” accessed at http://www.janm.org/collections/clara-breed-collection.
[8] Ibid., 102.
[9] Letter from a Poston resident cited in Breed, “Americans with the Wrong Ancestors.”
[10] Ibid., 261.
