"Those who wished privacy went into the wide open spaces" (140). To go into open spaces for privacy seems to be a large contradiction, but can be normal under the circumstances of an internment camp. Not only did people have to be in the wide open spaces to be alone other tasks that are a norm to do in the privacy are everyday things like dressing and undressing, using restrooms, and bathing. Other tasks like sleeping also had to be done in the public eye (132). These things are all done in private but while in a camp, privacy is just not an option. Although many tried to put up partitions for the bathing rooms and latrines they could only manage to be partial partitions. Older men would openly change in front of one another not really caring who could see.
Privacy could never really be achieved because the Japanese prisoners were all in the same position experiencing the same experiences and sharing in them. No one is truly alone as they must shoulder these burdens together. Wide open spaces were the only places people were not crammed into together and forced to live upon one another hence some sense of privacy, but never alone still. These events make it so the people must remain as a community because their pains are not entirely there own because they all have the same pains, privacy in those feelings cannot be privatized.
I think that privacy is also something one fears, just like the emotions and reactions toward these types of situations. In order to truly expose themselves, for themselves, individuals had to go to wide opens spaces and process what was happening to them. Being cramped in a cubicle just forces you to feed off others emotions in a very public manner. But, going out into a field by yourself? That allows for greater possibilities, more moments of clarity, and acceptance of something that you really have to see to believe.
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