Wicker Suitcase

unknown · 1920's

Taki Watanabe along with her family were forcibly removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center and then to the Minidoka War Relocation Center. When they were forced to move, they only had a short amount of notice to pack up their belongings, oftentimes only 48 hours. This is the suitcase that Taki Watanabe used to collect all her belongings. It shows how little she and others were allowed to take as well as the rush and scramble of the relocation process. When each Japanese American family was relocated, they were given a five digit number, and Taki Watanabe kept her tag, number 17703, on her suitcase. These tags turned all the Japanese Americans into numbers. It was a way to keep track of the enormous amount of people who were removed from their homes. Taki Watanabe's suitcase is an object that represents many of the things that Japanese Americans had to deal with during the removal.