‘Blitz Boom’ Town : Dec....

SUE TALAMANTEZ

Sue Talamantez, 77, was born and raised in Logan Heights. Fifty years ago, she was working in the canneries on the San Diego waterfront. She and her then-husband had just purchased the house she lives in on National Avenue when World War II began. Before the war ended, 17 family members, including two brothers, had served in the military.

“We had company over that Sunday. My ex-husband was inside the garage, working on the car and listening to the radio. He ran out and told us the United States had been attacked by the Japanese. . . . I felt bad right away, because there were a lot of Japanese families living in Logan Heights then.”

Lost for the moment was the realization that her brother, Sammy Almanza, was training in Hawaii at the time. Almanza, who is now 73, was assigned to the San Diego-based 256th Coast Artillery.

“Sammy went to Hawaii for two weeks of training, and he came back five years later.”

Young men from the neighborhood began enlisting in the armed forces almost immediately.

“My two brothers and a cousin were wounded in the war. I even had one crazy cousin who was a paratrooper and jumped over Europe. Those paratroopers were suicidal. But all of my brothers and cousins returned from the war alive. Chicano soldiers never got the credit they deserved. Most of the credit went to the whites.”

For the first time, in the early days of the war, Talamantez witnessed prejudice.

“When I was a kid, I didn’t know what prejudice was. Japanese families lived in the barrio with us. I played with the kids, went to Logan Elementary, Memorial Junior High and San Diego High School and City College with them. Heck, we used to walk to school together. They were my friends.

“But after Pearl Harbor, people would cuss at the Japanese. It was terrible. The Japanese were very intelligent people. Their children respected the family.”

Of all the Japanese families forcibly relocated from Talamantez’s neighborhood after Pearl Harbor, “only Mabel didn’t lose her home.” Mabel had a German friend who rented her house while she was in camp.

“Mabel is still my neighbor,” she said.