The Price of Prejudice

Once as a young girl I used a big word. Actually it was a fitting word to come out of the mouth of a girl that was too thin, too blond, too awkward to draw notice. My dad didn't see any of that. He saw Polka Dots and Moonbeams. Losing my father just about the time I was going to have him gave me rose colored glasses. (If you are new, my dad worked in Las Vegas and commuted on weekends. He died in a car accident 9 months before his retirement)I DO remember clearly the shock of randomly throwing out the word "gauche" and him telling me it wasn't a word. I argued with him for, seemingly, hours pouring through the dictionary because I could say it and define it but I couldn't spell it. By this time he was confident enough to wager money which I gladly took him up on. (My mama once said "Argue all you want to with Monica but never bet her. If she's accepts a bet, she definitely going to be right." She just never said it to my dad.) So I called my English teacher. Got the spelling and smugly showed him the word. He was a sore loser, getting angry, storming out and all the fun of being right being right drained away as I realized he'd never pay up and I'd never mention it. The lesson in that day (other than my mama's wise observation) was that I'd never be too arrogant to learn something from anyone ESPECIALLY my kids and to never be too proud to admit when I was wrong.

My daughter excels at history, especially American wars. I personally find our history dull and ironic, but my mama says I'm a traitor to my country if I expound on that. We were at her house and my daughter was answering some questions about WWII. She's invaluable to me on two fronts because WWII plays an important role in two of my interests: The murder of Elizabeth Short, and Japanese culture. We were talking about the Japanese-American internment camps and my brother who talks a lot but often says little told me that there was one here in Utah not so far away near a town called Delta. The camp was called Topaz. Having no reason to disbelieve, I put it on my list of things to look up and he was right. I'm always shocked at the horrors people endure and think that it can't be worse than I imagine, but it always is.

Here is the site on Topaz:

Topaz Internment Camp



One of the sources sited was: Leonard J. Arrington, The Price of Prejudice: The Japanese-American Relocation Center in Utah during World War II (1962)

I'll be looking for this book. It's title arrested me as being particularly fitting to the world around me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be calling my brother to thank him for the info. After all, my mama taught me that it would be gauche to do otherwise.