'BLOCK 8' provides a glimpse of Japanese relocation camp in Utah

"Evacuees must carry with them, the following property:

Bedding and linens, no mattresses, for each member of the family.

Toilet articles.

Extra clothing (that will fit in one bag).

Sufficient knives, spoons, plates, and bowls.

No pets of any kind will be allowed.

No personal items will be shipped."

With that order, 120,000 Japanese-Americans were forced from their homes and sent to relocation camps — the aftermath of a country reeling from the Japanese attacks on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.

Even though two-thirds of evacuees were American citizens, Executive Order 9066 forced their relocation. Some were lucky enough to find neighbors to watch their pets. Many were forced to sell their land for pennies on the dollar.

Without trials or hearings, Japanese-Americans who lived along the West Coast were shipped to makeshift concentration camps — lined with barbed wire and look-out posts for armed guards.

One of those camps was in Delta, named after the nearby mountain, Topaz. Nearly 8,000 Japanese-Americans would live there, being Utah's fifth most populous city at the time.

Plan-B Theater Company opens "BLOCK 8" on Friday, giving many Utahns their first look at a unique piece of their history. The play is about Ken (Bryan Kido), a young Japanese-American internee at Topaz who befriends Ada (Anita Booher), a Caucasian librarian working at the camp whose son is fighting in the Pacific.

Written by local playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett, "BLOCK 8" takes a look at the young man's struggle with captivity and the choice that many had to make: Whether to enlist and fight for a country treating you so poorly.

"That was a heavy, heavy decision that people had to make — to fight for a country that had imprisoned you," said Jane Beckwith, a teacher and librarian at Delta High School and a Topaz historian, "I had a lot of kids in a journalism class, and I needed to find different stories for them."

She had the students look into the local history, "Once we started talking about it, the whole town started to talk about it. Everyone had a story, an opinion, a connection," Beckwith said. "It was like it was a relief to finally talk about this."

"The play is very accurate," she continued. "It looks at the deeper emotional attitudes and things that are harder to talk about."