"Dear Miss Breed" Stage Production

I read up on the Japanese American internments during WWII when I was in college (we didn't have time for it in my high school history course) and couldn't help but to imagine what would have happened if my family (including my Japanese mom) had been living in San Diego during that time. No doubt about it -- we'd have been incarcerated without charges or a trial, despite being born US citizens. Would our friends and neighbors have tried to help, or posted "Jap go home" signs?

Clara Breed was SDPL's children's librarian during the war, and she stood by these children who were taken from their homes and shunted away to the camps. She wrote letters, sent discarded books for the kids to wile away the hours with, and reminded them that someone in San Diego wanted them to come back home. Joanne Oppenheim found an archive of Miss Breed's letters from the children and published her book, "Dear Miss Breed" in 2006. She has recently adapted the story into a play which is running at the Lyceum Space Theater at Horton Plaza, through September 30. The play was produced by SDPL and the Asian Story Theater.

Although I thought that the dialogue felt a bit formal at times (much of it comes directly from the letters that Miss Breed saved for over 50 years), the inherent drama of the story is very moving and the spare production works well. It is worth seeing both for itself and as a cautionary tale. After all, until recent years I thought that our government had learned that it is wrong to imprison people who might look or sound "unamerican," neglecting to even charge them with crimes. Sadly, though, this story is still very relevant.