Transcript
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[NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain
errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.]Anna Takada: 00:00:01 This is an interview with Linda Kawano as part of
Alphawood Galleries, Chicago resettlement experience oral history project. The oral history project is being conducted in line with the current exhibition. Then they came from me, incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War Two and the demise of civil liberties. Today is November first 2017 and we're recording at the Alphawood Gallery oral industry studio. Linda Kawano is being interviewed by Anna Takada of Alphawood Gallery. And to start, can you just state your full name?Linda Kawano: 00:00:32 Sure. Linda Suzu Kawano.
AT: 00:00:35 And where and when were you born?
LK: 00:00:37 I was born in Chicago on October 16, 1953.
AT: 00:00:44 Um, and like I mentioned, we're interested in hearing a little bit
about your family's experiences during the war. So can you just tell me a little bit about your parents, where they were from, where they were born?LK: 00:00:57 Sure. Um, my mother was born in Del Ray, California, which is
outside of Fresno. Um, and uh, her father and mother came from Japan, I believe my grandmother was a, perhaps a picture bride because I don't believe they came together from Japan. And they were grape, raisin grower, grape growers, which, and then also produced raisins from the grapes. And my mother had a younger brother, Raymond Nakagawa. My mother's name was Grace Nakagawa. And Suwato and Natsui Nakagawa the names of my grandparents. My father's side, uh, entered the port of Seattle. So they, but they first, I think my grandparents came together from Japan, but I don't know that for sure. My, um, my grandmother's family's from the Hiroshima area and my father was from the Otowa area in Japan. They initially settled in Medford, Oregon where my father was born, Minoru Kawano and then they moved to Seattle and had another child. My aunt who's still living, she's almost 97 years old and she lives in Seattle area in Redmond, Washington. So they lived in Seattle and that's where they lived until the war broke out.AT: 00:02:32 And what did your father's family do?
LK: 00:02:35 Um, my grandfather was a chef. He worked at the, I believe it's
called the Hotel Seattle or the Seattle Hotel, which is now a Fairmont hotel in Seattle. And um, my grandmother didn't workAT: 00:02:54 And, um, so when the war broke out, what, where did your families
go? What happened?LK: 00:03:03 So in the case of my father and his family, they went to the
Puyallup assembly center in Puyallup, Washington, and then eventually were moved from there to the Minidoka Relocation Camp, in Hunt, Idaho, I believe. And my mother's family, they went to the Fresno Assembly Center and from there were transferred to the Gila River, Arizona, a relocation center camp for the war.AT: 00:03:38 How old were your parents?
LK: 00:03:42 I believe my mother had just graduated from high school. Now ah
four years prior to the, I guess Pearl Harbor, my grandmother died. So my mother was a without a mother for four years and then went into the camp. Uh, I think her brother was two years younger and they all, the, my grandfather and my brother and my mother went into that campaign, Gila River. Um, in the case of my father, um, he had gone to the University of Washington and, uh, uh, I guess as a graduation present, my grandmother took him to Japan. Um, and my aunt went to. Um, by that time she would have probably graduated from high school. She was a couple years older than my mother. She and my, she's the only living relative now, uh, everyone else has died. But, um, my, uh, grandmother had a, my grandfather stayed back in Seattle working and I think my grandmother wanted to have my wanted to go back and stay in Japan, but it was in the late thirties and my aunt had a friend in the State Department.LK: 00:05:00 Well, I guess it would have been the embassy in the US embassy and
was telling my, um, my father and my aunt that it wasn't very safe. And eventually they returned to a, uh, it would have been Seattle and my father came back on the last ship that they allowed back. Um, because the last ship that came out of Japan, uh, headed for the States, I believe, when midway in the Pacific and then was turned back. So, um, by that time my grandmother had returned to the States. Um, and um, so they got back, but that's what happened.AT: 00:05:44 In by a hair.
LK: 00:05:46 Yeah by a hair.
AT: 00:05:48 And do you know about how long the families were in camp?
LK: 00:05:53 Uh, yeah. Uh, basically. So in the case of my father and my aunt, I
think when, um, it was decided that they could leave the camp, if there was a sponsor jobs East, um, according to my aunt, my father, they decided that they'd go as far as they could because they were given a free ticket, I guess by the government, I suppose War Relocation Authority. So they chose New York City. So my aunt went from Seattle, but she went first and she had a job with a Presbyterian minister. Um, I think he headed the Presbyterian, ah organization for the US and lived, I believe in Brooklyn, New York. So the job was for him or her to live with them and I believe take care of the kids or help at least at the church and perhaps in this organization. So she went out there first and connected and I don't know how they connected up, but she did connect up with other Nisei that had gone out there and then wrote to my father and said, you know, why don't you come out to.LK: 00:07:04 And so he found a job at the Taft Hotel. Um in New York City, which
is now, I believe the Michelangelo. It's in Midtown and uh, that's where he worked and I believe they had separate apartments, but eventually they moved in together and there was this little Japanese community in this community that we're two people by the name of the Shino's, they passed on too, but they were working for um, I believe they're working for Pearl Buck. And they said that Pearl Buck's husband needed and Pearl Buck needed a, um, someone to work in the office. So Pearl Buck's, husband, second husband, I think his name was Mr. Walsh. Um John Walsh. I think he, he had John Day Publishing Company and on Fifth Avenue and that's just publishing company published Pearl Buck's work. He had married Pearl Buck and he had children from his first marriage and they were still, I think young, so they had taken the, she had taken him in, but they had an apartment on Fifth Avenue I believe.LK: 00:08:16 And then they also had a country home Perkasie, if I'm saying it
correctly, Pennsylvania, which it still exists. And it was now the Pearl Buck home and estate and museum. Um, so anyway, my aunt uh, applied for work there and she was hired so she worked for Pearl Buck and for Mr. Walsh as their assistant or secretary really. And she talks about meeting several people, including um Eleanor Roosevelt. Nehru, because Mr. Walsh published all of Nehru's books, I believe he's the first president independent India. And others. So, uh, she has a lot of stories about that life there. And she lived there in Ja, in New York for 15 years. She met her husband there and another Nisei a fellow and they married in Riverside Church and lived there. But due to, I believe her in-laws', illnesses, their elderly Issei parents of her husband, they moved to the Bay Area in 15 years.LK: 00:09:29 My father lived in New York for seven and then moved onto Chicago
because a lot of the people that he went to school with, he had a lot of fellow classmates when the University of Washington, um, were, had moved to Chicago. They had, they had found jobs in Chicago and moved from Mindoka, I assume, to Chicago. So after seven years in New York he decided he'd move to Chicago and that's how we got here. with regard to my mother, um, she, I believe, had a job lined up in Chicago at Lutheran deaconess hospital, I believe, and left the Gila River Camp to come to Chicago. Um, and also then met people. She was active in JACL, l think she was a secretary and active in the Buddhist, um, League here in Chicago. Um, and after my father came to Chicago, I think it might've been in, well it would have been seven years from the math is difficult, but um 43, 50. I guess he, he met my mother and they married, I believe in 51 and then I was born in 53. So that's all in Chicago.AT: 00:10:59 And so, um, it sounds like, so your dad got an early leave to go to
New York following his sister. Um, did your mother leave early as well?LK: 00:11:12 She left early too. Um, I think it was about the earliest she
could. Um, my, my uncle he, he left later, but then he got drafted before the war was up. So you ended up going to, I believe it was Germany, but my mother's brother, yes, Ray Nakagawa, he, um, I don't know as much about it but eventually I can go into that later. But uh, we did learn a little bit more later because we ended up caring for him.AT: 00:11:54 And so I want to, um, I want to take it back to your, your parents
can't camp experiences a little bit. So it sounds like they, both of them, they weren't there for too long that they took the early leave as soon as possible.LK: 00:12:16 No, I guess not. Yeah.
AT: 00:12:18 And what, what do you know about their experiences in camp? Did
they ever share anything with you?LK: 00:12:27 Yeah, well, so my father, they talked about, but really not any of
the, I suppose heartbreaking or things that really bothered them. They, they talked about the kind of laughingly talked about--My father, I remember going to the mess hall and eating shark because that was something that the, I guess they decided they would, it was cheap probably. And maybe being a fish they thought that the Japanese liked it. But the thing is, um, my, my, uh, so anyway, that I know you talked about that he, he carved a chest set at Puyallup and it's on exhibit here at the Alphawood, um, exhibit. Ah this chest set it curiously, he carved it out of scrap lumber that was hanging around because they were building out the horse stalls there. They were keeping the people in. And the scrap lumber, I assume was in a pile and he carved it, the board so that it had hinge.LK: 00:13:37 It was two pieces with a hinge in the middle. So I guess he knew he
was going to be traveling with this chest set and this chest set has traveled with the art of, Gaman. My father had died by this time, but it has traveled the world and across the US there's a story attached with that. But in any event he did that. He stained it with a shoe polish that he had. Um, he, he, he didn't really talk more about real specific things. But curiously, my aunt, who I take care of in Redmond, Washington, I go out there every few months to look in on her, but she lives in an adult family home in Redmond. So I've been going through her stuff, her how home is still somewhat intact and I've been cleaning it out. And so the last time I was there, I guess it was August, I looked through a lot of the photos and I found photos of her sitting in front of the infirmer, infirmary at the Minidoka Camp.LK: 00:14:38 And so I asked her about and she said, yeah, she, uh, served there
to assist the nurse. And there was a picture of her with the nurse, uh, in front of it and I was surprised that by that time they were taking photos, I don't know who took the photo or anything that might give you more, more of an idea because maybe when they lightened up a little and they allowed photos that she was still there. Um, but, um, I know that she never really talked much about camp, but I have to say I never really asked them specifically about what life was. When people would come over, have family friends while I was growing up, they would all talk about camp. And every time they're talking about camp, it didn't sound like a horrible place. So, um, as children I think they were shielding us from all of that.LK: 00:15:32 My mother didn't talk a lot about it. I feel she really, it was
hard for her. I just felt that because she lost her mother and she was the, um the only female in this, in their unit. Right. The younger brother who was kind of bratty I think, and my grandfather. So, um, I think it was harder on her, um, I found things in or belonging, I've had to clean up the house and uh, she kept from, she took with her from the, um, home in Del Rey, California, the farm really, to camp and then brought them to Chicago. So there were things that meant a lot to her.AT: 00:16:25 So. Okay, now go back to their experiences of, of leaving camp and
eventually ending up in Chicago. Um, so I guess let's start with your mother since she came to Chicago first. Do you know where she ended up settling, which part of the city?LK: 00:16:59 I think initially she lived in that little area that was down by
the Gold Coast. I don't know what it's called now or I just know it's closer. I think ironically she lived there and then she lived in Lincoln Park. I always say that my, the, the Japanese settled the places that then became too expensive for them to live. Um, that was not prime real estate at that time, but there was a little enclave I think, of Japanese businesses and stuff. And then she lived, I think, believed in an apartment there now, um, I remember when my mother talked about meeting a woman who had an apartment down the hall and I have a Caucasian woman and they became best friends and, and this woman came from Iowa to kind of seek out her fame and fortune. Um more or less in the big city and when she died we were close to this family.LK: 00:18:02 And when she died was years after my mother, her family was, um, we
went to the funeral here and it was in Chicago. The family still lived in Iowa and all farming in a farming community. And they talked about how they looked up to the, this mother, my friend their aunt, as this big city person in the family and she started her own business and so forth. But my mother talked about how they connected very well because they were both from farming communities. And uh, uh, and I have, I remember we went out there to that farm in Iowa and there's photos in our albums. So it was her first, maybe her really first friend that stayed her friend for a long time. Though, she had many friends in the Japanese community, but I don't believe anybody back from Gila River.AT: 00:18:54 And um, I'm wondering if this was around Clark and Division?
LK: 00:18:59 Yeah, I think so. And then eventually she moved, I believe, to the
Webster area. Um, the DePaul University area. And that is actually, that's where my parents first um, their first apartment was on Dickens Street, uh, 842 Dickens.AT: 00:19:18 And so your, when your mother came, she came alone and she was
working for a Lutheran hospital?LK: 00:19:29 Yeah, I think it was called Lutheran Deaconess and I don't remember
her talking about anybody that she came with from the camp. And I don't even remember her talking about anybody here that was from the Fresno area. There may have been, but not that she was really close with. So she was basically alone. My mother was a very personable, um gregarious person. She, she, she was very humble, but she made friends pretty easily. So it didn't surprise me that soon after she probably connected up with people and became friends.AT: 00:20:10 Did she ever tell you any stories about first coming to Chicago or
do you know anything about those years when she was kind of on her own?LK: 00:20:18 Yeah, well, she's one of the, they had those girls club and I think
she was of the mademoiselles or ma'amselles and there's a picture. We have a picture and they album. Um, and some of these people, you know, we've stayed in touch with. My mother has this book. They're her books, there's two books. And um, whenever I wonder about a person Issei Nisei, Sansei even I look them up in her book because she kept copious notes on people including like, oh, 1969 had a gallbladder attack. My mother was very fascinated with medicine. She would have probably been at a doctor if she was, if times were different, so, but it's not just medicine. She just was always keeping track of people, always in touch with people by phone or by letter, copious letter writer. So, um, yeah, I, I think um, she eventually she worked there and then eventually, I don't know how it came up, but she worked for the University of Illinois Medical School. And uh, for the head of the Department of Pathology, I'm trying to remember his name, and she talked about him a lot and she talked, she loved that job I think.LK: 00:21:36 And she, um, she's talked about how she quit the job when I was,
she was ready to give birth to me, so, but she eventually did more work and I can go into that later in Chicago. But um, yeah, so her early days we're doing that in that book by Alice Burrata. Do you know what the collection of photos of my mother? Yes. My mother had died and the book came out. I know Alice and I bought the book and I was looking through it and there was a picture of my mother and she was in, it was a very early picture. So she must've, it was, must have been shortly after she got to Chicago and there must've been some Buddhist, um, conference in Chicago and there were a couple of, I believe Buddhist ministers and the picture and some other young people. My mother was one of them. She wasn't identified, but I think the group was identifying or something. So I knew it was Buddhist group. Um, I was shocked she never talked about that. And um, I don't think she thought to talk about it really. I don't think it was anything she didn't want to talk about. Uh, there were a lot of things like that about my mother. I think that because she didn't really brag about anything and it's sort of matter of fact about things. So, um, I guess that's all I can recall right now about her early life. Yeah.AT: 00:23:00 And then your father, he came a bit later, was that late 40s?
LK: 00:23:11 Uh, yeah, I think he came again. It was seven years after he went
to New York, so I think it was like late 49, 50 or something. And um, so he came, he arrived. I don't know the circumstances of, except that I understood he missed his friends. It could have been that my aunt got married and then, you know, they were moving on and then he really didn't, he wanted to come and see his friends. So he came andAT: 00:23:35 His friends were in Chicago?
LK: 00:23:38 Uh, in Chicago and, and my father was one of these kind of pretty
laid back. Uh, so when he was in Japan, he and my aunt told him, you better leave because their friend had told her, him her that, you know, getting kind of hot on the, on the Pacific front and probably might want to leave. So my aunt had left, but children, you better leave soon and he's an I, I'm having a lot of fun here.LK: 00:24:05 I'm not going to any of your friends out there. And he was working
for a Chinese merchant and it's kind of interesting and he was also doing a lot of um, you'd like to play poker and he would win and all this. And um, but he needed some money to come back and he sold his shoes and his typewriter. My, it was not really his typewriter with my aunt's typewriter. They dragged from Seattle on the ship to Japan, so he sold the typewriter and my aunt's typewriter to get a ticket back on that ship to come back to Chicago. Well, I mean to uh, the States, it would have been in Seattle, so he was sort of happy go lucky kind of guy. So I guess just maybe on a lark he could have said I'm coming to Chicago. So he did. I don't know where he lived.LK: 00:24:54 He worked. He had a degree in business administration and the
University of Washington. Yeah. Now I know when, I don't know when he got this job, but he had this job when I was born with, with this company, North American litho, and it was a pulp printer and he was kind of an estimator of job, job estimator for ah jobs for the lithographer. And I think that was, I have vague recollections of where it was. I assume it's down towards downtown somewhere and I used to go there sometimes as a child with him, but I believe my, they may, my parents may have met at some dance, Nisei dance or something, but I don't really know. And it's funny when you, you don't really ask these things to someone and if they don't tell you and even if they did as a kid, it doesn't usually mean a lot. Um, so they met and they married at. Um.LK: 00:26:00 Oh, I do remember though. I found this. My father loved dancing as
did my mother. And, and I think before he met my mother, he took lessons in Chicago at the Arthur Murray dance studio and he has a dance card I found it and he had a passed a number of dances and, and then he, um, I found some letter he wrote to the dance instructor that he had to take some time off. So that's basically what I know about his early life. So when they married, they married at a Graham Taylor Chapel, which is at the University of Chicago, which I think a lot of Japanese married there. And curiously, my fath, my husband's brother and his wife married there many years later. Um, but so they married there and then, um, honeymoon didn't at Mackinac Island. And then when they came back, I remember my mother's name, my father said to her, well, I guess I have to look for a job. So I guess he didn't have that job with North American Litho, now that I think about it when they were married and my mother thought he had the job. So whatever job she thought he had, he didn't have it by the time they went on their honeymoon and then maybe he got that job with the lithographer after that.AT: 00:27:28 And you said you weren't sure where he settled when he first came
to Chicago?LK: 00:27:31 No, I'm not. No, but I think the answer lies somewhere in the house
that I'm cleaning out in Albany Park, which they purchased in 1963, um in Chicago here, however, um, it, it's full of stuff. My sister, my late sister lived in that house and uh, so I've inherited this house, which I'm cleaning out, but I grew up in, part of my childhood was living in that house. So I've been finding things and I, I believe I, I, there might be some information there.AT: 00:28:09 And so you were born in 53 when your parents were in the Lincoln
Park area. Um, do you do you, how long were you all there for?LK: 00:28:20 Yes. Um, so I lived there until I was about five years old or so.
They moved from there to 1414 West School Street, which is a, well Lakeview but Wrigleyville now. And again, it's one of those funny things that we lived there before it became popular and unaffordable. So we lived in a two flat that was owned by a Japanese, a couple, the Tomiyamas and uh, they were, I suppose they were Issei, but they were, they had children, but the children were older than us. They were ah, I think the youngest was.LK: 00:29:03 Well, I started kindergarten there, so the youngest of those
children may have been almost out of grade school. Um, so we lived in this place and um, my sister, by that time, my sister, my sister was born in Lincoln Park on Dickinson, so she would, she was three years younger, so she must've been two years old, when I was five. We moved in and um, my parents this, this little school in our district was Hamilton, great school, but my mother felt it was, it was about a mile walk and my mother was concerned about this and somehow they decided that they'd like us to go to Hawthorne Elementary. So we went to Hawthorne. Um, and the funny thing is you had to be in the district and, and so I don't know how my mother met these people, but they lived in the district. They were a, a Caucasian couple and they had children and they said, well, why don't you use our address as your address?LK: 00:30:11 So we used this address. I had to memorize this address. He gave me
a lot of anxiety. Probably I've stricken it from my memory because it, I can't remember, but I could probably walk you to this address. I think it was down on school street. So we, I started going to school in Hawthorne at Hawthorne Elementary, um, about, uh, think about three years, maybe it was an eight. I was eight years old in third grade or something. We found out that we were, um, didn't have this address because it was another address we are using. I don't know why my parents did this and uh, I do recall a spraining my ankle, maybe I was six years old and they had to call my parents and my father and my mother had called my father to come home and get me because I think my sister was an infant or I don't recall what it was and she couldn't leave the house.LK: 00:31:09 So my father was trying to get over to the school in time to pick
me up. But I heard this very well. The gym teacher had me holding me at the street thinking maybe we'll, he'll take me home. And I was really, really, really scared because I was going to go home to this family that didn't look like my family at all. And um, my father came. It was sort of like a superhero kind of thing. He, he drove up, got me and we went home. So we got through that. But by third grade, um, my sister's in kindergarten I guess, and they said, um, they called me to the office, the principal's office had to leave in the middle of the class in midday and my sister was sitting in there too, so she was called out and we were told go home and I mean, years later I thought about this.LK: 00:32:09 I thought this is pretty cool, but it's also, I don't know if
there's any kind of racial thing attached and what not, but it was really, really strange. I could go home with someone if I had a broken ankle, but when I found out that there was some weird stuff and I agree, it was weird. Uh, they told us to go home in midday. So I took my sister by the hand and we walked home alone. Then you'll know crossing guards, right?AT: 00:32:38 You were still about about eight?
LK: 00:32:41 Yeah. Yeah. And by this time my brother is seven years younger. So
my brother wants to have been an infant and he was at home with my mother and there's no phone with you being, I mean I wouldn't even know that they didn't even call my parents, they didn't call my mother. And because when we came home and rang the bell, I don't even think I had a key and my mother opened the door and she was shocked.LK: 00:33:09 And then I told her eight years old, I told her what happened. I,
you know, I can't remember what they told me. I just knew enough, mother knew enough that you know, what had happened and then she tried to get us to finish out. I think it was towards the end of the school year, so I think she went to school and try to get us to let please could they just finish off the school year, but they wouldn't. So we had to go to this Hawth, ah Hamilton. And so we had to walk about a mile to school to this Hamilton. I don't know how my mother managed it with my brother. Was it pretty hard? I think. I think she found, I don't really know what happened and we went to Hamilton and we actually, I have to say I liked it better because if the principal was nice. Now how did I know the principal was nice, it's probably because the principal chewed us out at the other school. And I do remember my sister and we used to call the principal at Hawthorne, a hotdog and the principal at Hamilton kind of like a hamburger could he was round and smaller and that guy over there wish tall and thin. And um, we matriculated into the school and um, you know, I think it was a little more laid back there.LK: 00:34:28 I don't know, there's something how you, it's funny how you feel
things differently. So that's how, you know, went to school there. And then eventually my parents purchased this house in Albany Park in 63 and we moved there, um, and 63. And um, how much closer was Hawthorne to your home?LK: 00:34:52 Um, I think it must've been a bit closer. We had to cross, the
problem was crossing a busy street, Southport. But you know, it's funny because I always talk about, I have a friend who I talked about maybe doing the walk because she hasn't lived in Chicago all the time now, but she and I were Brownies together and we used to walk and she went to Hawthorne, so we were going to do the walk, meaning from my house to the, to the school and then over to where we think Brownies was and then over to her house. And um, uh, so I'm thinking it, it. Well, it, it's, it's not as far as Clark, um, what is that street Sedgwick perhaps? Is that a north west street? North, south. North, south, yeah. So I think it's Sedgwick to basically Southport. That's the distance. And then the other school would have been from School Street, which is about two blocks east of Ashland to Cornelia, Cornelia and Ashland or so I think it's further how much far over there. I don't know, it probably isn't that much, but for some reason my parents or my mother, I feel I have a feeling that was my mother's idea. Why is that?LK: 00:36:28 Um, my mother would talk to lot of people and get ideas and she was
always very open and kind of imagined to inventive. Remember was very inventive. Um, my father was more quiet sort and working and all that. He probably wasn't communicating as much. As far as your recollection of Lakeview. Can you describe just that community? A little bit. Sure. I liked it. I had a um, uh, well, yeah. So it's, um, uh, was it just an ah Chicago neighborhood. I used to, we had people on the street, kids on the street that there were no Asians, no Japanese, certainly, um, and uh, mostly German. And the funny thing is I didn't realize how significant that was until I went to Germany as an adult old. I've been to Germany five times business and pleasure and a company with my husband. And uh, when I went to Germany first I like languages and I thought, well, I think I'll study a little German.LK: 00:37:41 And I was surprised how I could pick it up and I had a German
friend in Chicago at the time and we were speaking. I would practice with him. And he said, wow, you're picking it up. Well, I think if you lived in Germany, pick it up quickly. And I said, well, why? I studied French, a little bit of Japanese, the Japanese, because my parents sent me to Japanese language school and uh, some Russian and I read German was not a language that I felt comfortable with, but somehow this him and then I, it occurred to me all my friends at that formative age or German as their parents were German and so they were going to school. Um, they were going, they were speaking German when they would go home, when the kids to go home to each other's home. And I'd hear German all the time.LK: 00:38:34 And the other funny thing is I do a lot of um, why do a lot of
figure skating for many years. And I was at the rink some years ago, six years ago and sitting, putting my skates on and there's friends that I made friends. We're both were the same age and we. But I didn't know that. And we started chatting and one thing led to another and it turned out we went to Hawthorne together. She but what we're baby boomers, so at that time there were lots of kids so there'd be two or three kindergarten classes or whatnot, so she was in the other kindergarten class, so I didn't really wasn't really in a class with her, but we put things two things together because her father is German and she would ice skate that school, like all schools would make an ice skating rink on the premises.LK: 00:39:24 And that's what you did at winter time. That's where I learned how
to ice cream to five years old and she was, I was probably ice skating with her and her father was the only adult there. Standing around in a big overcoat was German. He ice skated and I remembered him. That's weird that he or she is Heidi. So I said to Heidi, uh, you know, I had a lot of friends. It's a German girls and boys I guess too, but I remembered this particular, some German girls in my class, they were always very quiet and she said, well, that's because we didn't speak English. She said when we came, we went to school and were just plopped down in kindergarten and we didn't speak English, so that's funny because that reminded me of going to Hawthorne and there were Japanese kids in our class, Japanese American kids, and we were all sittingLK: 00:40:17 the kindergarten teacher put us in a round and round table, all the
other kids who were at long tables. And there were about four of us at this round table and I took this to mean that it was wonderful that we're so special. We got the round table and everyone else had to sit on the long tables. I don't know what it meant. I never felt anything bad. Anything strange about this teacher. I think she was quite lovely. I thought, um, but she, maybe she put us there because she thought we would relate to each other, but oddly it was a German people who couldn't speak and they should have been at the roundtable because they only spoke German and they probably would have felt more comfortable. We felt. But she could tell us who we were. So she put us at the round table.LK: 00:41:03 Were you friends with other Japanese American students? Um, yes.
Yeah, yeah. We became friends. The other weird thing is that, um, so a lot of the communities or through the churches, right. And My mother, so my father was raised a Christian, um, and I, I just went to the church that my grandparents went to in Seattle because I go back there. It's a long story about that. But anyway, I know where my father, he, he probably went to. Well, my aunt, I know went to the, I think it's the Episcopalian church there, but the other church, Japanese Christian church, my grandparents went to and maybe my aunt, my grandma, my un, father, excuse me. So they were raised Christian. My mother was raised Buddhist. So when we were born, when I was born, my mother, I think felt, that we should belong to a church, but she was very conflicted.LK: 00:41:55 So she ended up taking us to like Tri C or some of these Japanese
Christian churches. And then I got to be friends also with some of these kids because I think that most of the kids in this class were Christian. The Japanese Christian. Uh, subsequently we ended up going to the Buddhist temple, the Chicago Midwest, Buddhist Temple of Chicago when I was more, um, when we moved to Albany Park because I think my mother ran into someone who said you should be coming to the Buddhist temple. We're going to see what was going. And then even more curiously, my father lost, well it's not curious, but my father had a degenerative eye disease. He had to quit work in the sixties and my mother had to go to work and she was very concerned because my brother was quite young in Albany Park we were living there. It's very predominantly Jewish neighborhood.LK: 00:42:43 So the neighbor across the street said, you know, they're looking
for a secretary for the, for the rabbi at Temple Beth Israel in Albany Park. So my mother worked, ended up getting a job there because it's very close. And she worked for the Jewish temple for 15 years. So we became, we didn't convert to Judaism or anything like that, but we had a lot of Jew, Jewish culture in our family in Albany Park. But um, as a result of that, in prior to that, my mother was, she worked as a tupperware lady and was a very successful one. She had like awards, so my mother wasn't, when you, the question about having Japanese friends kind of triggered my thoughts about who we were friends with and who might parents were friends with and my mother kind of crossed cultures quite a bit. Um, so back to Lakeview.LK: 00:43:40 Yeah, I do remember it was very German, but I never felt out of
place. My friends on the block, none of them were Japanese, but the family that owned the, a two flat it was actually sort of a three flat because they had converted the basement into an apartment and then those people down in the basement apartment were Japanese or Japanese too Japanese national, married to a Japanese American. And they had children that were younger than us while they were more my sister's age. So, um, those were the other people in our neighborhood. A immediate block. And you mentioned going to a Japanese school as well. When and where? Yeah, that was at that time too. So my mother, I think a somehow felt that we should go to Japanese school, learned some language that would be me, my sister, I don't believe had the pleasure of going and I'll say, so we didn't go to actually a school.LK: 00:44:42 We had a tutor so we were semi, there was another family, we're
going to this, uh, the Kato's, we were going to this woman's apartment in Lakeview area. Um, I think it was off of Addison and we'd walk over there and uh, have, be tutored. But the thing about this tutor, I remember she had senbei uh, that's, I always remember food and that I really liked that. And then we learned these words and write, but we didn't have any real communication. We didn't do a lot of conversation. So, um, and then afterwards they go to the store and my friend and we'd get pumpkin seeds across the street. So I just remember for that kind of stuff and I didn't last very long. How long were you enrolled there? I don't believe I was in there very long. I don't know if it was one or two years. I don't know what happened. I don't know if I was a lousy student, so my parents, mother said uh forget it, or my mother, they didn't have the money to, you know, because as I mentioned, my father started losing this sight and eventually had to quit work. So I didn't really know all this. My father had to quit driving about the time when we were in Lake, I think Lakeview Um,LK: 00:46:07 yeah, I think or even before that he couldn't drive and my parents
had this old Oldsmobile. Well it's like from the fifties. So my mother had to learn how to drive and she was fine with that. My mother's very athletic too, so I think she didn't mind learning how to drive, so she ended up doing a lot of the driving from that point on. Um, but yeah, so the school was, I don't remember much except I don't even remember the name of the lady.AT: 00:46:39 Were there other ways that you see now that you were connected to
Japanese heritage while growing up?LK: 00:46:50 Besides like my grandfather. So my grandparents died when I was
probably around five, both of them had died by the time I was about five or six. Um, these are the grandparents on my father's side. My grandfather, the one who was a chef, he contracted tuberculosis at one point in time. I don't know whether he had to leave the camp or when it was, but he had, he was in a sanatorium for tuberculosis and lost his hearing. I remember him vaguely in the house, in the apartment,LK: 00:47:30 in Lakeview because I would have to show him things. My grandmother
had died in Seattle, but my father went out for that funeral and uh, but I was pretty young so I didn't really learn a lot of Japanese uh from them or uh culture. Um, but my grandfather, my mother's father lived til the mid seventies and he, uh, I think he died when he was 80, 88 or 89 and he would write. He learned how to, when he came to the states, I believe he went to Selma High School and he got a degree, a high school degree. And uh, he had beautiful handwriting. So he was able to write to me and speak somewhat in English. And he would take trips to Chicago on the Santa Fe railroad cars. He loved the Santa Fe.AT: 00:48:34 Where was he living?
LK: 00:48:35 He was, he, after the war he went to, he left the camp and went
back to, it was Selma, California, which is a little larger, small town outside of Del, next to Del Rey, where they were from and outside of Fresno.LK: 00:48:50 And he eventually settled there in a house with my uncle who after
he left the war and went back to, um, you know, after he was discharged from the army. What was he doing for work? Did he continue farming? My grandfather I think basically ended up doing some gardening and for someone. Um, but he didn't do any more of the grape farming. And my grandfather, my uncle that was my grandfather, my uncle, when he went back to the West Coast, uh, started a welding business with a Nisei partner. So they had this welding, a Muffler n' Welding business in Selma. And that's what he retired from. Um, he, they told him they had, when they went back to ah Selma, there was a family there who took in, uh, they had, they had an established business like a grocery business, the Tori's before the war and they had property. So when people came out of the war and they went back to that area, their friends and these were close friends with my grandfather and grandmother. They had a lot of the people stayed in this property until they could find a place to stay. I got the impression it was kind of like a warehouse or something. Um, and so that's where they moved. And then my uncle and grandfather lived together. My grandfatherLK: 00:50:29 would take the bus and I don't think he even drove after that. Um,
I remember my mother saying that after you wanted the camp, I guess is one thing I remember he turned completely white. His hair combed, turned completely white. So my grandfather, back to your question about heritage and Japanese, uh, he would send things. He would send things all the time from Japan, from, from the um, uh, Fresno area who does little house they had was a, my mother called it a shack. I mean, it basically had like a attached outhouse and I stayed there and um, and when I visited in college and um, my brother and sister too, and he, he, um, he had all these Japanese things he would do. He was, I could see how my mother got his inventive things because. So my uncle liked to fish my, I always say my father, my father's side, my aunt who's still living, she's very liberal and lived in the Bay Area, all these lives and she loved the sea otter and my uncle hated the sea otter because the sea otter ate the abalone and he used to like beautiful fish for abalone and if you know people that live in the Central Valley that tend to be kind of more a red neck or more, uh, conservative, put it that way.LK: 00:51:54 So my uncle was going out to, he would go to this moral bay where
the sea otter, they were quite prolific there at one time and go there. So we're the abalone. So he would fish for these abalone and bring them back. And at that time they were huge. I have a lot of these shelves and that if you look at an abalone shell, it's a univalve, you know, it's like a snail and um, when the muscle comes out of the abalone, there's holes for the muscles were held, so now you have a shell with holes and my uncle and grandfather would take these abalone shells and my grandpa, you know, from my uncle's fishing expeditions and put them in at various places in this garden that he converted into kind of a small raisin farm. Um, and they had trees because everybody in California those days would have fruit trees and apple. There were orange trees I think, and walnut trees. And he had these grapevines and he would use these abalone shells as a way to irrigate because if you put them at strategic places in the garden, you could put the hose into the abalone shell and then the holes would spread out the water. So he would do things like that. And a lot of the stuff I think he was doing otherwise too was very Japanese. And when I visited him he one time-- so I would cook. And when I was there,LK: 00:53:26 especially when I was younger, I'd make him pie or whatever. And
one day I was looking for this pot, if you then want to have him there, my uncle was a bachelor so that in my grandfather, the two of them are living there and they don't have a lot of things that my mother had would have in the kitchen back home. So I was looking for this one pot and I couldn't find it. And my grandfather, we had this interesting way of communicating. It's broken English and whatnot. And so I kept asking him for the pot and he said, "Oh, okay." And then he starts going into the, into the yard, and I was following him saying, "Grandpa, grandpa the pot, the pot, he goes way back into the yard, back in this place where there's dirt and he starts digging. I think, oh my, I don't know what's going on.LK: 00:54:09 And he pulls out the pot. So here's the pot. So he takes it back to
the kitchen to wash it off. And then he goes to the bookshelf, he pulls out a Japanese book. It's all in Japanese. And I think it was like, like how to do anything in your house kind of how to book. And he opens it up and there's a picture of a Japanese woman in a kimono in the garden with a pot. So it turned out that the pot, if you put, of course it's bacteria and all this stuff in the dirt, right? So if you have a really a pot that has a lot of stuff on it, I'm like, you can't get off with Brillo or whatever. You don't want to to stick it in the garden and put it in dirt and after awhile you'll, you'll come out clean. So years later I hear my husband, you know, had the, um, I know he cooked something on the barbecue grill.LK: 00:55:09 I said, put it in the vegetable gardening. It was dirt and I said,
just dig a hole and put it in there. And it cleans it off. So we do this from time to time if it's during the summer. So those are kind of Japanese things under, but I don't know. Um, he would send us books. And I know my mother had various things she would do, she would be one of the Japanese Nisei women who would make all the New Year's dinner feast.AT: 00:55:38 And when she would cook for you, these meals, were you eating a lot
of Japanese food?LK: 00:55:45 She was kind of a, uh, she, uh, yeah. So until you get older that
you realize, oh, we didn't do that. So a lot of my Japanese friends, Sansei friends, they'd say, oh, I can't go a day without rice or I can't go, and I had an Italian friend who said I can't go three days without pasta. So then I'm hearing this from my Japanese friendsLK: 00:56:03 Oh, I couldn't go. But my mother didn't make rice all the time, but
uh, she didn't. But then she had certain things she always made rice with and certain things she didn't. And as a result I kind of liked rice but, but I wasn't a lover of rice. I like potatoes more and um, but she would like kind of make hamburgers kind of with and then make a pot of rice. And I always thought, why can't we have him with bread? You know? But then she would sometimes make hamburgers, but it was sort of like, I'll make hamburgers with bread, with French fries because you make our own French fries. I'll make hamburger patties that you put, shoyu on with rice. So she had things like that. But um, yeah, she was, I think it was harder on her too because my father was from Seattle and until I got older I didn't realize, wow, the, the Japanese from Seattle, are very different from the Japanese, from central California or from California for that matter.LK: 00:57:01 So, you know, landlocked central California, you don't get a lot of
fish. So my mother, she would cook fish but not as much as they cooked fish in Seattle. In fact, my grandmother fished. She would go into the Puget Sound. She goes, she was also pretty bold. And when in a rowboat with my grandfather and fish. So.AT: 00:57:24 As far as um shopping for food and things like that. Do you have
memories of Japanese grocery stores?LK: 00:57:36 Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah. My mother would go both to Star Market or York
Superfoods. I think it was called York Superfoods. Um, but mainly to Yorks, because my mother, I think the husband, I believe that's Helen Fukuda was married. She was married to Tom Fukuda. But I think they were divorced eventually. But Tom Fukuda owned this gas. He owned that gas standard gas station. There's a photo of it. It's where Ginos East is.LK: 00:58:09 Do you know where it is? It was a pretty strategic location. Again,
another place that would cost a lot to own now, but I think he owned that property. My mother would go over there and get gas and I think they go back to somehow California or the or maybe Japan somehow. So my mother would patronize those establishments. And Helen was a real character. I remember going in there and uh, there was even at my husband, I got married in the seventies and we would go there with my mother and together and he was amazed because she would have in a barrel, you know, tofu floating around. And they used to put, choose to put the tofu in a plastic bag, always reminded me of going to the fish store, the where you would get an aquarium fish because they put it in a plastic bag and she would put it in the plastic bag and tied in and I think in a Chinese food container or something. We'd get tofu there.LK: 00:59:07 We'd get various things. She would frequently give my mother the
egg sack from a fish for my dad to bake. My mother liked to bake it. My dad liked it and she'd bake it for my dad. We'd never eat that. It stunk too much. Um, uh, various things, botan ame, is that what it's called? That Japanese candy in the box. The sticky yellow, red candy with the prize inside and the, and then the loose caramels. But usually we like that one better. Um, so yeah, I love that store because it was so homespun.AT: 00:59:49 Um, and so have you been in Chicago since your childhood?
LK: 00:59:54 Oh yes, all my life. Um, briefly studied away. Uh, but really I
went to, I went to. So I went to three grammar, grammar schools and eventually I went to the Halogen and, and finished grammar school there and then went to Roosevelt High in Albany Park.LK: 01:00:11 So always schools in Chicago and CPS. And then, um, I went to
Circle, went to the University of Illinois at Chicago, um, for my undergraduate and I graduated in 75. And so I met my husband. Eventually I worked in Chicago and Northwestern various I went to, I worked at Marshall Fields that worked at Jewell Food. Know I worked, I worked for Nobi's gift shop, which is another Japanese establishment. And my good friend Janet is the daughter of the Mr. and Mrs Matsumoto started that, a gift shop on Harlem Avenue in Elmwood Park. So I worked a lot. And uh, eventually, uh, after about, I guess it was 1979, started a graduate school at UIC and I got my PhD in 84. And then I in that, I think as an Undergrad I studied in Colorado one summer for Rocky Mountain Biological Life I studied in Woods Hole. But I basically lived in Chicago all my life with my husband.AT: 01:01:25 Did you continue involvement with any Japanese American churches or.
LK: 01:01:30 Yeah. So when my father died and my mother is still living, my
mother felt that he should have a Buddhist, a kind of ceremony. So they, the ceremony was at the, um, all the while, they, uh, the, the funeral home in Lakeview on Belmont and Greenwood, Greenwood Greenfield. Uh, and uh, so it was a Dr., uh Reverend Kobose, I think did the ceremony or was it Reverend, maybe Ashikaga, but Kobose's were still there. They came and, uh, as did their son. So they were all. That was in 95' and then we went onto, um, then. So when he died, my aunt, my mother had to [inaudible], then I went to this kind of connected back with the Buddhist Temple Chicago since I haven't really been going too much, but, uh, also got active in the j, some of what with the Japanese, JASC, Japanese American Service Committee. My mother was active, kind of. She, she loved them and she would contribute. But when my father became more disabled, she had to stay home all the time so she couldn't do as much.AT: 01:02:50 Why is that involvement something that you think maybe your mother
valued and that you felt?LK: 01:02:58 Um, I, to tell you the truth. I think I really pulled away. Not,
not that I said I don't want anything to do with the Japanese community, but I just got involved in so many other things. I, um, I didn't really do a lot in my. I had Japanese American generally have Japanese American friends and very close to, um, high school friends. Some grade school. Um, but, um, they, uh, I think it's interesting, those friends from high school, they aren't also involved in community so much. I guess our lives let us elsewhere and it wasn't until I got back in, my parents died that I started to kind of get back to the community. I think I missed some of that. Might my mother died. It might be in four years. My husband who's Caucasian and I lost our four parents in four years' time, before we were 45 years old.LK: 01:03:58 So it's kind of an early time for one to lose their parents, all of
their parents in fact, and I think I needed to be around Nisei and then I learned, I have to say I learned a lot more about my Japanese heritage by coming back to the Japanese community or just coming to the Japanese community as an adult. Um, but I, I think the Soka Society at the Buddhist Temple in Chicago has been just great and helped me quite a bit. Then at the end they're dwindling, I will say, and either moving away or passing on. Um, but I, I, I, that's basically what I feel personally. And then I've learned a lot about things through Alphawood, here, I mean, I learned so much from this exhibit and the tours that I've taken, um, and doing my own research now. So I think it's really important learning about myself as well as my parents, my family.LK: 01:05:01 And so, so it sounds like a lot of your, um, your interest both in
kind of the community but also the history, it sounds relatively recent. Um, have you, um, can you tell me a little bit about how you think, um, maybe the incarceration experience and or the experience of resettlement, um, are there any ways that you've seen, um, kind of like an intergenerational impact of these experiences play out in your own life?LK: 01:05:55 Yeah, I can see how, so on the sad side, I, I can see how through
this Alphawood exhibit as well as the art of Gaman and other and visiting the National Japanese American Museum. And, and in more recent years people sharing their stories and I see how my, how much hurt my parents probably suffered through and how difficult it was for them and coming from poverty. It really is, especially in my mother's case. I think um, how much it impacted the way that they raised us, even though they didn't talk about it but what they wanted for us. And you know, I had lots of, um, I think my mother and I had very similar, had similar personalities and energy level and, and we, we clashed quite a bit, we argued quite a bit. And, uh, and then my mother died rather suddenly what happened is she had a fall, fell downstairs in the home and ended up being a, going out, having surgery to remove pressure on her brain.LK: 01:07:08 She never really recovered from that and died. So it was really an
accident that took her life and uh, it was so sudden. And, and it was when I, again, when I, um, it was right after I had started on the recovery from breast cancer. So it was a very traumatic time. And at that time too, my mother was taking care of my uncle who had Alzheimer's disease in California, so she wasn't home. She was going out to California a lot. So I didn't really get a chance in those last year or two before she died to really see her much even and talk to her. And so I didn't have a lot of answers. And now that I see what I learn more, I see how, yeah, some of the choices she made, some of the things she did was because of that and, and how she passed on these things.LK: 01:08:01 Um entered through the generations and uh, I wish I knew more about
what happened to my parents, grandparents in Japan and how they came to. So I think we carry a legacy with us generations. Um, but I also think on the positive side that once you recognize some of these things for what they are fundamentally, um, one can heal and address so I don't have children and I, I realize I think too children, my husband also, not to go into any detail, but he had a traumatic childhood and I think both. That was one of the reasons we both didn't have children, although we really, um really focused a lot on our careers and I for a long time I thought we did that to avoid it. Um, we did that and that's why we didn't. But I think it was also we knew we couldn't do it deep, deep down to have children.LK: 01:08:59 I think it was very we were still suffering a lot from what we
didn't know that was handed down and to also we were caretakers to our family and my father was losing his sight. He, for much of my childhood, even though, um, when he started quit driving, um, he couldn't see what he constantly had bruises all over his legs and he was walking into things. So we, we learned not to put knives on the side and we learned how to deal with the person who was not abled. And my father, my husband had an, a disabled parent as well. So I think as caretakers and also through what, well, World War II generation, you know, parents and um specifically my parents gen, um the incarceration and my grandparents, um, it had an effect. So we're not, we don't have children to teach, but we do both of us and myself.LK: 01:10:08 I do a lot of mentoring. I, um, I most recently had decided I think
I really want to focus too on really Japanese and Asian women because I do a lot of women's work, volunteer work through my professional work and a young people especially, um, generations of young, not just the millennials, which would be probably my children's generation, but the ones in between too the Gen xers and stuff. So I think that's how I'm trying to use what I've learned about my own situation to try to heal and stop sort of the bleeding in a way, you know, the festering and I think a lot of what the Japanese have gone through, the Japanese Americans, the Japanese in America, have gone through, can resonate to other immigrants, other to women, I think women and as women we suffer a lot as the caretakers, as the family members. So that's the way I think this exhibit has also moved things along for me.AT: 01:11:20 And if you could leave some kind of legacy or message yourself for
generations to come, what do you hope, to know or understand?LK: 01:11:39 I think um, to really embrace the gray that things are not black
and white and that's certainly true racial, but I don't mean it so much racially or I need it more in terms of extreme, right and left conservative, liberal, Black or white. However way you want to describe the extreme. The gray, a, the one thing that I've found because it really, I never have been a black and white present, been in the gray, but that's really hard to be in the great when people want to be in the black and white, they want to peg you. They want to. But that's a kind of a gift that I had. I think I'm able to see that. And uh, so I think being in the gray, it makes you see the Black and fight for what they are and help bring the white to the gray and the Black to the gray in the middle.LK: 01:12:37 Uh, not to say that middle of the road is the way it should go
because I know people that say that uh I'm not, I don't do that. I don't do this. Not that at all. It's just an attitude to just be. It's an open minded attitude because if you're there then you'll see something that will peak your interest. And I think to be there you need to be, well certainly open minded, but you need to have a lot of exposure. So you need to put yourself out there and be in uncomfortable places with people that maybe you find uncomfortable to be with or maybe people outside a stuff you've been doing otherwise all your life. So to this point, um. So my sister had died. She now almost to this day, she died two years ago and um, prior to that, um, things were happening and my sister was suffering from a long illness, cancer, and I was suffering quite a bit.LK: 01:13:40 I'm from worry of her and so all these other things that happened
in my life. And I, um, my husband and I decided to go to Second City to improv and we grow and we liked it so much. We, we continued it and we finished the improv training center and then we continued on and we did. We just finished actually last week we finished a year of their program and acting and did a lot of storytelling or I'd done a lot writing. And my husband was taking film. Now we've, it, this is, we're not, we're both artists at heart. We learned because we both, that's how we bonded. We were both artistic and we love art, but we're both, our professions are not that way. My husband is a planetree, and I am a biologist, a businessperson and um, but the thing is that, that opened up my acceptance of me and I've gone back to my art which I left.LK: 01:14:42 I left at a younger age because I think it was so emotional and
difficult and it turns out my family is very artistic and in I found many, many things art in music in this house. Even my grandmother was an art, musician, the one who died when my mother was 13. So I think to be open and to be explored exploring life will enable you to, if you have any things to meet, more needs to heal, help heal that as well as be a very, a great contributor to society and you pass it on a little to the next generation, whatever that whoever that is and then it doesn't necessarily mean it's Japanese. But I think the Japanese Americans can get a lot from that. And I actually feel I'm very grateful to be a Japanese person. Um, because it, I think we have a lot there that enables us to do that.AT: 01:15:43 Thank you so much again for coming in and for sharing. Before we
wrap up, is there anything that you'd like to add or that I might've missed?LK: 01:15:52 Oh, no, I just, I'm really happy that in my lifetime there's been
this opportunity to learn more this much and uh, I think, uh, yeah, I, I just think thank you for this opportunity.AT: 01:16:11 Thank you so much Linda.
