“We didn’t have separate rooms. It was like a regular barrack, we all slept next to each other.”

March 20, 2026 - 14:02 UTC

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For our sixth installment of 30 Stories for 30 Years series, Aiko Herzig-Yoshinaga reflects on giving birth while incarcerated at Manzanar at just 18 years old. Despite limited hospital resources, she recalls, “I must have just thought, well, I’m lucky to have a hospital in which the baby was born.”
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She describes the conditions surrounding childbirth in camp: multiple women giving birth at the same time, shared recovery spaces, and a lack of privacy or adequate equipment. “There were at least half a dozen women . . . the youngest one there. I was about eighteen or nineteen.”
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