Oral History Gallery

This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center's holdings.  Many of the interviews cover topics related to the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and the resettlement of Japanese Americans in the Chicago area afterward. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.  

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Ideno, Kazuo Gene (8/24/2017)

Kazuo Ideno was born in San Francisco, California. His father was born on the island of Shikoku and his mother in California although she was raised and…
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Kawamoto, Amy (3/2/2018)

Amy Kawamoto discusses her experiences as a young child in Minidoka concentration camp, and her family’s experience after resettling in Chicago. Mrs. Kawamoto…
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Omachi, Chiyoko (3/20/2018)

Chiyoko describes her experiences growing up on Terminal Island. She talks about moving to L.A. right before the Evacuation and her experiences at the school…
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Nakamura, Tom (3/16/2021)

Tom Kazumi Nakamura was born in Marysville, California in 1928. Growing up on a peach farm, Tom attended a small school in rural northern California along with…
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Watanabe, Anne (8/19/2017)

Anne Watanabe is a Japanese Canadian Yonsei and Shin-Issei born in the Midwest and raised on the East Coast and in Canada. She shares her experiences with…
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Ashikawa, Lori (3/31/2021)

Lori Ashikawa is a sansei born in Oakland, California and raised in Southern California. Being raised by a well-educated mother who experienced incarceration in…
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Aragaki, June (9/6/2018)

June Aragaki is a Nisei born in 1921 in Stockton California. She speaks about growing up in rural California, where her parents started as migrant farmers and…
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Arakawa, Paul and Kimura, Susie…

Paul Arakawa was born in San Diego, California and grew up in town. Susie Kimura was born in Newcastle, California but grew up on a fruit farm in Auburn, a more…
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Chikahisa, Frances (9/16/2017)

Frances Chikahisa was born and raised in Los Angeles before being incarcerated at Santa Anita and then Rohwer. In adulthood she pursued a career as a social…
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Chikaraishi, Ben (10/31/2017)

Community leader Ben Chikaraishi describes his family’s experiences in Rohwer, the WRA, and resettlement in Chicago. He shares his career trajectory as an…
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Machida, Ethan Michihiko…

Ethan Machida is a first-generation Japanese American born in Sapporo, Japan. His mother is American, of Scottish descent, and his father is Japanese. When he…
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Kawaguchi, Kayoko (6/2/2021)

Kay Kawaguchi, a shin-issei/sansei, describes the pre-war immigration journeys of her family and her husband's family, her husband's experiences while…
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Lin, Cori Nakamura (5/19/2021)

Cori Nakamura Lin is a fourth generation (yonsei) Japanese American born in the Chicago suburbs. In this interview, Cori shares her concept of the river of…
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Doi, Lisa (9/6/2019)

Lisa Doi is a multiracial fourth generation (Yonsei) Japanese American, born in Chicago and raised in Evanston, Illinois. Lisa discusses her maternal family's…
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Fujishima, Kazuko May (8/10/2017)

Kazuko May Fujishima recounts her early life in rural central California, incarceration experiences during World War II, and postwar resettlement in Chicago. A…
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Fujiyoshi, Jane (11/12/2017)

Jane Fujiyoshi is a third generation (Sansei) Japanese American who was born in California and incarcerated at Rohwer as an infant. She discusses her family's…
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Goi , Mitsuo and Kikuno (7/2/2017)

Mitsuo and Kikuno Goi are a Kibei, Nisei couple who met in Chicago after WWII. Both were born in the U.S. but spent time in Japan as children. In this…
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Hamade, Bill (8/19/2017)

Bill Hamade is a third and fourth generation (Sansei/Yonsei) Japanese Canadian. A retired librarian with 31 years of service in the Toronto Public Library stem,…
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Hasegawa, Aylen (10/6/2017)

Aylen Hasegawa was born on February 19th, 1942; the same day that President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 allowing for the incarceration of Japanese…
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Hasegawa, Gary (7/12/2017)

Gary Hasegawa is a third generation (Sansei) Japanese American, born on a farm in Puyallup, Washington. He was one year old when his family was incarcerated…
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Hogan, Hannah (11/16/2017)

Hannah Hogan is a second generation (Nisei) Japanese American. In this interview, she shares memories of her early life in Denver and Los Angeles and describes…
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Ideno, Helen (8/24/2017)

Helen Ideno is a third generation (Sansei) Japanese American born in Torrance, CA shortly before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. During WWII, she and her family…
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Kagawa, Stephen (11/1/2017)

Stephen Kagawa is a fourth generation (Yonsei) Japanese American born and raised in Hawaii. In this interview, he shares what he has learned about his family's…
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Kaihatsu, Jane (10/27/2017)

Jane Kaihatsu is a third generation Japanese American (Sansei), born and raised in the Chicago area. In this interview she shares what she knows of the…
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Doi, Tonko (9/3/2019)

Toshiko (Tonko) Doi is a second-generation (Nisei) Japanese American born in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of East Los Angeles, California the day before Pearl…
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Koizumi, Edward (5/12/2021)

Edward Shinichi Koizumi is a shin-issei born in 1950 in Nambu, Yamanashi, Japan. Edward’s maternal grandmother and grandfather were separated during World War…
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Hikawa, Barbara and Chelsea…

Barbara (Sunnie) Hikawa is a sansei born in Chicago in 1949, whose family has a rich history and strong roots in the local Japanese American community. In this…
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Nicholls, Lourdes (4/26/2021)

Lourdes Nicholls is a fourth-generation Japanese American born and raised in California. Her maternal grandfather, Kiyotsugu Tsuchiya was one of the few…
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Doi, Yoko (10/21/2017)

Yoko Doi was born in Tokyo, Japan in 1935. The oldest of four children, she recalls an early childhood spent close to Tokyo Bay, rising patriotism in Japan, and…
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Fujii, Sono and Midori (6/9/2021)

Sisters Sono and Midori "Dori" Fujii were born and raised in Chicago in the 1950s and 60s. Their father was born in Gifu, Japan and their mother, a nisei, was…
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Harano, Ross (3/22/2018)

Ross Harano, a sansei, was born in 1942 at the Fresno Assembly Center in California before being moved with his mother's family to the Jerome incarceration site…
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Kano, Sachiko (7/24/2018)

Sachiko Kano, a nisei born in Sacramento, CA in 1935, shares childhood memories of FBI raids and pervasive fear in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor. She describes…
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Oba, Ken (6/2/2021)

Ken Oba, a Chicago-born sansei, shares memories of growing up on the South Side in the Hyde Park and Avalon Park neighborhoods. His parents, born in Los…
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Maeda, Edith (8/17/2018)

Edith Maeda, a nisei, was born in El Centro, CA in 1927. In this interview, she shares memories of her life before WWII and her family's experiences as early…
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Matsumoto, Jason (9/10/2019)

Jason Matsumoto is a yonsei born in Chicago to sansei parents who were also born in Chicago. His maternal grandparents were incarcerated at Rohwer, paternal…