Kimura, Helen (4/19/2018)

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Anna Takada: (00:12) This is an interview with Helen Kimura as part of the Japanese American Service Committee and Chicago, Japanese American historical society oral history project. The interview is being conducted on April 19 2018 at Helen Kimura's residence in Glenview, Illinois. Helen Kimura is being interviewed by Anna Takata of the Japanese American Service Committee. Um, so to start, can you just please state your full name?

Helen Kimura: (00:44) Helen Tomoko Hikido Kimura. Hikido is my maiden name.

AT: (00:48) Okay. And, um. Can you, to start, can you just tell me about, um, when and where you were born?

HK: (00:58) I was born in Centreville, California, um, which is today known as Fremont, California, northern part of California. I believe it's a east of San Francisco in a rural area.

AT: (01:15) Then what is your birthday?

HK: (01:18) December 20th, 1937.

AT: (01:24) And uh, can you tell me about how your parents ended up there?

HK: (01:30) Yes. My father came from Wakayama Japan at the age of 20 in 1906. And he was planning to earn some money so he could pull his head up high and return to Wakayama to marry this gal that his parents had arranged for him to marry. However, after being here 10 years and working as a contract vegetable farmer in that area of Centerville, um, he was unable to accrue enough money to hold his head up high and returned to Japan. So he told his parents to please dismiss that first lady that they were arranging for him to marry when he return and sent him a young hearty adaptable young lady. So after 10 years of working here, he sent, my mother came from Wakayama also at the age of 19, so he was, um, 14 years older than she, and I don't know how she endured it, but she was a young girl, um, mixing with the other farmers' wives who were older. And she often said that the thing that was most hurtful was the wives would take turns by week to serve lunch to the farmers that were in the field. And when would become my mother's turn or meno's turn, they quietly whisper, oh my gosh, it's going to be, oh meno's week. I wonder what junk she's going to make. And she said she remembers that as the most painful time in her years as a young wife.

AT: (03:19) Was that because she was younger.?

HK: (03:21) Yes, yes. She was 19 and came from a rather comfortable family. Uh, I think she was one of 10 children. She was in the middle of the town and up to the time she was born she was the only girl. So there were five boys that ahead of her. And then she was the only girl and then years later there was another girl, but she was born amongst boys and I think cosseted. And when she came to the United States and found that she was going to be a farmer's wife, she'd never done anything like that before. But that was something to get used to. And she worked alongside my father in the field doing squat labor that, that tomatoes and celery and very hard labor. She did I think have about seven pregnancies but only bore four children. And consequently my siblings are very much older than I. When I was born, my eldest brother was 19, my second brother was 18, and then my mother had several miscarriages and then, my sister was 12 and a half years older than I. Then I was born like an oops baby or a caboose or late, very late one child. So my mother was a 41 and my father was 55 something like that. There was 14 years difference between them.

AT: (05:01) So, uh that puts you at the, the youngest of four children?

HK: (05:06) Yes.

AT: (05:11) And, so your siblings, um, were they also born in Centerville?

HK: (05:19) Yes, I was the only child that was born in a hospital. The others were all midwives at home and I was breach so she had to be rushed to the hospital and that. But definitely they were having a hard time reviving me and I always joked with my father because he said the doctor asked me [?], I may only only be able to save one, your wife or the baby? And he said, of course, save my wife. So I would always kid my dad. You were going to let me go?

AT: (05:55) Um, can you tell me a little bit about, um, uh, well, do you first, do you have any memories of Centerville? As a child?

HK: (06:08) I do remember when I left I had a close girlfriend and um, when I left, my mom said to take all your toys and all your dresses, which weren't many, do a dab. And I took her, took these to her and she asked me, well, why are you giving me these things? And I said, I'm going away. And I thought it was an adventure. I had never been on a train. And so, uh, she says, well, okay, when you coming back? And I says, I don't know. I do remember that. And then she grabbed me and hugged me and cried. Another thing I remember is, um, sitting in vegetable crate boxes at the end of a row. My mother would be working towards me at the end of, I would be sitting in this play pen light type of thing in a crate box at the big bond and on, and my mom would work towards me. And then when she's going next, the next row, she picked up this crate with me and it take it to the end of the next row. And when I fuss, she wouldn't say, I'm coming, I'm coming, you know. And sometimes she'd give me a celery to cook, bite on. But um, and I do remember a neighbor, my mother's church neighbor and friend, um, they had a, a gal that was a teenager and she would come over to pick me up and they were the Nemoto family, many children. And she was like a surrogate parent doing, she come to pick me up, take me to her home with her big family and I get dinner there. And even when we moved to Chicago, I went to visit her all the way from the south side to the north side. I mean, she was that very much close to me.

AT: (08:13) And before the war broke out. What, what were your siblings doing? Were they in school or anything on the farm?

HK: (08:24) My second brother was eighteen years older than I, ah, was graduating from San Diego State College and, uh, went immediately into the MIS military intelligence service. So I don't recall even seeing him while we were being rounded up to go to camps. My older brother was working in the San Francisco grocery store and typical of the culture, the eldest son of a family in Japan is responsible for the aging parents. So he was working to augment the income. My younger brother, the younger one, was able to go to college. My sister was still a teenager and I was this little late born kid. And I do remember the story my mother told me. She said, um, when I knew I was going to have another baby you so much later than the other children, I didn't know how I was going to tell your brother who was 19 years older and he was working in San Francisco as in a grocery store. And so, uh, when he came home for the weekend, she said, I sat down with him and cleared my throat and girded myself to tell them that I was pregnant. And so she said, I blurted out that, uh we're going to have a baby. He said, who? She said your father and I and he took a breath. And then he said, oh, that's great in Japanese. He said, here I am busting my butt working in a grocery store, thinking I'm going to have to support you because you guys are getting old. But if papa could make a baby I don't have anything to worry about. And she said that made her more embarrassed than even telling him the news. And I guess that's kind of relationship our family had just kind of joking around since that was, she's, she relayed that to me and I thought that was really cute.

AT: (10:39) What are the names of your siblings?

HK: (10:41) The oldest was Mickey Owen and he went by Mike and the second was, um, Kenji, but he received many of names. He was George, he was Ken. And when he was in the service, he had the name of Pancho because he looked kind of Hispanic and he had this, um, mustache and he does look kind of Hispanic. And when he came home from the services, these phone calls would come in and ask, you know, is Pancho there? And I said "who?" So I asked him, ah, they gave me the name of Pancho.

AT: (11:20) And your sister?

HK: (11:22) My sister is Kayo, k, a, y, o and she adopted the name of Mae when she started school, Mae. Kayo Mae.

AT: (11:36) And, so Mickey or Mike was.

HK: (11:42) Mike.

AT: (11:42) Mike was working, uh Kenji was in school.

HK: (11:47) Military service, he was in the ROTC, so he was recruited right away.

AT: (11:50) And um, so can you tell me about what you know about your family's experience with the quote unquote evacuation and.

HK: (12:01) Going back to what, I'm sorry?

AT: (12:02) The, the quote unquote evacuation.

HK: (12:05) Evacuation. Well, Kenji was in the army. My brother was angry because he wanted to join the army, but at that time they were restricted. So, um, I do remember when there was a big to do with the FBI's coming to search our homes and my mother crying. I didn't know why she was crying uh, and my father, uh, was being interrogated and for possible suspicion, but there was nothing that they could pin on him. And we were rather poor. So we didn't have cameras or electronic things that they were looking for and they really searched hard. Um, then I remember uh, going to packing our bags and my mother packed nothing but food in my suitcase, fruit and nuts, so whatever she could find, cause she didn't know what we were going and she layered me in clothes and I wouldn't look like a little swaddling bundle walking towards the bus. I remember my girlfriend coming to the bus with her mom to say goodbye and she told me get a window seat and I says, okay. So I went to get an in-window seat, but all the windows were blocked so you couldn't see out or in. So I wanted to get off the bus to wave goodbye to her, but they wouldn't let you out of your seats either. That's the last I remember off leaving Centerville. There is one other thing I recall when my brothers were all um, living at, living together in that house that my father kind of put together with his friends. It was a two bedroom. I log log cabin, I'd say. That was a outhouse. And um, my brothers would argue whose turn it was to sprinkle the floor because my father didn't have enough money to put the florian, so it was kind of dirt and keep the dust down. They had to sprinkle the floor. And then.

AT: (14:35) With what exactly?

HK: (14:36) Water.

AT: (14:36) Oh, oh, oh.

HK: (14:37) And I remember my mother always yelling at the boys. Stop it! You know, it's your turn. You did it last time. And the funny things like that, I remember, I stayed out of the fray, of course, I was too young. But, uh, I remember that.

AT: (14:55) And um, so you, I, you were, you were quite young, you were four, about four years old. In your family lives. Um. But you, you, do you remember your friend Adele? Is that?

HK: (15:11) Adele.

AT: (15:13) A, Adele,

HK: (15:15) Uhm, they, they owned a, I think, they owned a dairy farm. And she was a little older than I, I think I was rather precocious because I had such older brothers and sisters and I'm watching whatever they do. Um, and my friends were a little older. I just hung around with them.

AT: (15:39) Would you happen to know what, um, at the time before the war broke out, kind of what the demographics of Centerville was? Were there other Japanese American families there?

HK: (15:51) Yes. Most of them were vegetable farmers. Some of them had nice homes, and you know, better than ours. Frame homes. The bigger the family like Nemotos had more children to work with the farms, et cetera. So their income was a little better than those that didn't have that many children. Um, I knew we had a barn and we had a chicken coop in front. I remember that clearly because when you had to have chicken for dinner, they would hack off the head and the chickens would fly around. I remember that. I remember the outhouse. But other than that, not too much of the physical, it wasn't allowed to go wandering off by myself. So I was pretty kept confined to certain areas in just a few friends that they would let me visit. Never too far away. I wasn't in school yet. So, but I think there were other, I don't know if all the farmers that farmed with my dad on this leased farm lived in the area that we always saw them. And uh, they had trucks, pickup trucks they would pile into. So I don't know if they came from various areas that they were picked up, but I saw them frequently.

AT: (17:24) And uh, do you know if there were any, um, Japanese school or.

HK: (17:32) Well, I know my brothers and my sisters went to school and uh, I saw their class pictures. There were other Japanese kids in there. I think they also went to um, a Japanese school on a weekend.

AT: (17:52) And so at home, was Japanese the language that was spoken?

HK: (17:56) In the, in the house, yes, amongst the parents, with the parents. But with my brothers and sisters, it was all English. So I don't have a strong command of the adult Japanese that they did when I was more half and half. And My mother spoke half and half. Um, I could a lot of the Isseis, they didn't say gyunyu which is milk, you know, they say miruku, you know, um, in the vegetables we'd call spinach. And I have a very, very funny story about my mom when she came to Chicago, which I don't know what it would be proper to say it, but you know, she was combining what she learned in the factory and Japanese becasuse ...[?] very interesting, to say the least.

AT: (18:46) We'll, will, we'll get there.

HK: (18:49) You can edit it out.

AT: (18:53) Um, was Your family religious at all?

HK: (18:55) Yes. Um, I was raised in a devout Christian family and I did ask my mother, how did you become a Christian? And my father was here first, he came when he was 20 and he said he learned English by going to the Christian churches in the evening, which taught English. So his main reason for going to the church in the evenings was to learn English. And then when my mother came, he told her that if you wanted to learn English, go to the Christian churches. And when both of them were going to the church to improve their English, they started thinking about the religion. And there were some Japanese Issei Christians that were part of the membership became part of the membership and was sort of recruiting and proselytizing to the newcomers. And according to my mom, she said she was attracted to the Christian faith because in her lifetime up Buddhism or Shintoism was more a way of life. They didn't have Sunday school at that time to learn about, um, what, what deity, uh, responsibilities they have, what responsibilities or deities had other than when someone died, you had a little shrine and you left some food for them and for your ancestry. But she said, I didn't get the feeling of anything for us that Christianity gave us. And at that time I needed something to hang on to, to live this new life that I had. And both she and my father felt that the, uh, Christian religion, which had an afterlife, uh, appealed to them and the faith would help us get through the daily fate [?], would help us get through the difficulties that they knew they were going to encounter. And that my, my mother particularly was encountering at that time. So I think at her young age, she was very vulnerable to grasping onto something or that would help her.

AT: (21:26) Umm.

HK: (21:27) And my father supported her. And at one time she was so depressed and her life as a farmer's wife, not having any other ladies her age that she said she cried. And my father said to her, there's only one other job I could think of that I could transfer to. And that would be in Los Angeles. I think it was Japan town. Um, where should, he had a distant cousin that was managing a boarding house. So if you want to, we can go there. And that's where she became pregnant with the first two boys and she said her daughter, her job was, it was a boarding house with very transient people came and went and it was cleaning up after these trenching people and the chamber pots that were there. And she says, being pregnant and the boys were 18 months apart. She said it became unbearable. So after my second brother was born, she says, I don't think I can do this. I'm Mama [?] every day. And I still have to do the job. So he said, well, the only other recourse is to go back to Centerville and take up farming again. And she says, yes, I'll do that. And so she was sort of locked into that life and she bored well and then, as it started getting on their feet, that's when the war broke out.

AT: (23:19) So um. Going from there. Can you kind of take me through what happened to your family during the war?

HK: (23:28) Oh, from, from the time we left Centerville. We left Centerville, we boarded, boarded this bus and I heard a Japanese gentleman behind me in Japanese say, I think we're going to the camp for a racetracks. I just heard racetracks and Japanese. And I turned to my mom and I said, oh, I think we're going to the racetracks. We're going to see some horses. And I told her in Japanese, you know, we're going to see some horses, and she looked at me, she says, no, and you couldn't see out of the windows. So when we alighted indeed, we were at the camp for racetracks. And when we got off the bus, I remember all these soldiers standing in a line in front of us, barricading us from going forward, but follow the line and go to this. I don't know if I, this's a [?] stall or a pen, but they had told my mother and I heard pick up a bag, I think it was a burlap sack and fill it with the hay. And I remember turning to my mom and say, see, we're going to go feed the horses. And she said, no, we're not. And I did ask her then why are we filling the hay in these bags? And she says, that's where mattress and this is what we're going to live. And we went and um, went to one of the barracks that were built, but my girlfriend lived in a stable and I played with her a lot. [?] Sometimes I sleep at her place, sometimes I sleep in the barracks. And I distinctly remember the barracks had the ceilings, they were pete and they were open at the top and you could hear everything, all the rooms down this barracks, um, what was going on. If a kid was being spanked and disciplined, you could hear all of that and then our parents would use that to deter us from doing anything naughty. You know, see he's getting spanked. If you don't, if you're not good, that's what happens to you. It's a lot of times I go over to my girlfriend's place and stay with her and stable, which was really worse conditions, terrible. But we didn't know any better. I do recall, um, the, uh, food was served the mess hall was in the grandstand of the race tracks and we stood in long lines, the mess hall lines. And my father built a little carrier that's like a pizza carrier. It had, it was a, um. It was a wooden peaked carry case that had a handle on top all out of wood and had a sliding door and there was a tray and he would go and get my meal and bring it back in that so that I wouldn't have to stand in the lines. Especially if it were raining or you know, it was inclement weather.

AT: (26:47) So he'd bring it back to the barrack.

HK: (26:48) He bring it back to the barrack and then I eat in the barrack.

AT: (26:53) And were you, so um, Kenji was serving, so he probably wasn't there.

HK: (26:58) He was not there at all.

AT: (27:00) Ah, your sister and your oldest brother?

HK: (27:02) They were there in Tanforan. We were there in Tanforan for six months while they were building the camps. And then we were told to get on this train. I don't remember a hearing where we were going. I was very excited because I'd never been on a train and it took two nights in one day. I remember that. All the windows were again were all blocked. And to me it was an adventure. I got to sleep on it, you know, things that I'd never done before. And when we alighted it was in this desert area, um, the buses picked us up or some of them, some of them were put in pickup trucks and then we drove. Okay. I can't remember how far but came to this desert plateau in Utah outside of Salt Lake City. And I'm with delighted. I thought I was at the beach and, um, I guess I didn't really take notice of the bob wires. I knew there were a lot of black paper buildings. I don't even think I noticed the centuries that were posted. But I learned from my husband when I, after I married him, and we were talking about our first impressions of our camp, he went to Manzanar and he said, you thought it was the beach? And I said, yeah, I mean, I always wondered what the beach was like. And I said, what did you think? And he said, well, that's the first time I was really disciplined by my mom. She slapped me. He said, why? He says, I was really mad that they kept shuffling us around. I couldn't bring my dog, who was, you know, my favorite friend and pet. And so now we come to this desert of Manzanar. And he said, I asked my mom, what are we doing here? And she said, we're being protected. And he said, I looked at her and I said, that's a lie. And that's when he got his slap across the face. And she said, why do you say that? And he says, Mama, if you're being protected, you see those rifles in those centuries up there, they would not be pointed in. They would be pointed out. And I asked him, how did you know that? I mean, I didn't even look up there cause I was pretty sure he was two and a half years older than I. And he said, well, when I play cowboys and Indians, you'll never protecting anybody by pointing a rifle at the person you're protecting. I said, oh. And I used to tell my children, he had my respect from that day on, this is a smart guy. But, um, I do remember it just being wide expanse of sand. And I ran and took off my shoes and ran in there and I think I was happy. And I, I do remember the barracks and my sister, my brother, my father and I, and my mom lived in one, I think it was about maybe 15 by 20. We had one of the larger ends, and I know the pot belly stove because I would accompany my brother to go get the number to fill the pot belly stove. And then there was one light bulb, bare light bulb right near the stove and the blackout curtains my mother made. And uh, the army cots that we slept on. I do remember going to the bathroom little later on, um, in the middle of the night. And this is another thing I learned later on that was so naive. I told my sister, I said, you know, it's really nice when you go out to the bathroom at night and the light comes in and shows you your way. And that's when she said, no, they're not showing you your way. Those are the search lights. They don't, you know, you're not supposed to be roaming around and looking for people that are trying to escape. I said, oh, that's, that's still nice. They show me the way through, go to the bathroom. But prior to that, my father had built a little chamber pot. He left when I was on the younger end, but as I got older, I didn't want to sit on that anymore.

AT: (31:53) It's [?] is probably around the time that you deep potty trained and learn how to use it toilet.

HK: (31:57) Yes, yes. But he didn't want me to go walking out in the middle of the night going by myself. So he made this and of course, I really outgrew that right away. I'm a big girl and it'd be like my sister, you know.

AT: (32:14) Um, so how long was your family in Topaz

HK: (32:20) Uh, I'd say three and a half years. We went in in April, 42 and came out in December of 45. So, um, and I remember a lot of the things my mother told me when I was in camp, I was still, when I first entered too young to even go to kindergarten, which was held in one of the barracks. Um, and she would tell me, I'm working in the mess hall. Your dad is working, digging the ditches for the drainage system. Prior to the time he got a stroke. But, um, your older brother who's waiting to join the army, uh, would be a, um, like a migrant farmer. The farmers would come pick up these young guys in pickup trucks and they go out for the day and earn a few pennies and then come back just to kill the time. And my mom would tell me, now you are all alone. You know there's no one watching you, no one supervising you. I'm busy. That's working. This is just in school. So you have to be a good girl because there are many eyes watching you. And one of the biggest problems here is idleness, if nothing else to see or do. So if they see some kid in trouble, they're going to tell the parents so they're not going to blame you if you're naughty, they're going to blame me. And years later I keep thinking of that saying how wise to teach young children to be responsible for their own actions. I saying it, it's going to impact the most dearest thing in your life, which were your parents and I think many, many children that were young and in camp were told that it's sort of cultural, don't bring shame on the family, et Cetera. So on the whole, I think we were pretty well behaved, pretty, primarily the girls. And um, I do recall one time when some of the older girls be friend of me and they, my mom is to have a prayer meetings in our little room and there was this old man, Mr Kakimaru and he catered to me. There weren't too many young children amongst his peers, you know. And so he would always give me candy or you know, was very solicitous of me. And these girls who are older than I, they were probably 9, 10 and they, many of the um, entries with stand in this long PX line to buy something in the PX store. And um,

AT: (35:19) PX?

HK: (35:19) It was the, um, I can't remember the name of what it was run by the military, and you buy sundries, little things [?], toothpaste and stuff like candy and um, these entries were all standing in line and these girls are telling me, that's Mr. Kakimaru he's always so good to you, why don't you go up there and ask him for some money? Then, maybe we could buy some candy. And I didn't know what to do with their, these were my friends, they were older, you know. So she pushed me up, I went up to him and he said, come like this, go up to him asking for some money. So I went up and um, I don't know what he said, but I know I said, can I have some money to buy some candy? And the ladies that were standing behind him heard this, true to form of what my mother told me, and he gave me a nickel or something and I ran back and gave it to the big girls. That evening, um, and that evening I was also supposed to go to um, Japanese language school. And that evening my mother heard from the neighbors that your child went up to Mr. Kakimaru and begged for money. Well, my mother came up to me and did you do that? I says, well, yeah, because the girls said, you know, Mr. Kakimaru was telling me to come over and they figured that he's going to give me something. So they said, ask for a nickel or, I can't remember. And so that's what I did. And she said, didn't I tell you, you have, you have to be a good girl and you don't go begging. And I must've been about five. And so she said, which hand did you put your hand off for him? And I said, this hand. My sister had just come home from school and I don't, I still don't know the product that my mother used to use for [?]. [?] was, it was like a little moss that you put on achy places for arthritis and you put it on there and then you light it and it would just smolder and give you heat. And I knew she used to use that on her shoulders or whatever ached. So she told my sister to hold me, she put me on the, on the cod, just hold her and just make sure her hand stays out and she says, put your thumb up. And My mother put this thing on my knuckle here, it was, looked like a piece of moss and she lit it. And I just think the thought of the match scared the heck out of me and I was crying and she said don't move. And after it was over, I did have a scar for many many years. I don't recall it hurting that much or whatever, but it was like a little blister I guess. And it became like a little scar and I had that til I was in high school. And that was a definite reminder to always behave. Don't do anything naughty. But I didn't know I was really doing anything naughty because I just, these older girls, you know, should know right from wrong, but I remember that so clearly.

AT: (38:54) Well, and you had mentioned that your um, your family everyone was kind of out doing their own thing and even at such a young age you were kind of left to your own devices.

HK: (39:07) Yes.

AT: (39:07) So does that mean that you were to stay in the barrack all day, or what was.

HK: (39:12) No, I just stay, I, I, I would go walk from my barrack to the next block, three blocks over and play with my friends. Most of my friends were little older. Um, there weren't too many that were my age whose parents were working. Um, so if I didn't like what was going to be served at my mess hall, I would ask, I would tell my mom, I'm going to go eat with Misako. It's okay. So I have a lot of freedom. I would go to another place and another girl's apartment apartment and play with her. I remember this one girl Ayako, she her, um, her father had a lot of arthritis and a treatment for that would be for her to walk on his back. It's sort of like a flir [?] with her massage and her weight. And I remember doing that. So she says, why don't you take a turn? So I would walk on her father's back, back and forth. We'd entertain yourself by going to different blocks. Um, this lady that I told you, uh, was sort of like a surrogate mother or a sister to me lived in the next block.

AT: (40:37) And her name was ... ?

HK: (40:37) I go see Chie-chang and she'd entertained me. We worked in a little garden that she was planting, just [?] roam all over. The thing I do remember was the little kids, of my age and my block, we'd always carry a twig or a stick that we found in our little pocket or belt loop the boys and have it in the belt loop and someone would shout, snake time, snake time and we would all run to the laundry facility and it was a long room, maybe 25 feet long. And they had all these ropes we could hang your sheets and things after you wash them. And that meant that a rattlesnake. So snake weight the weight into the laundry room and we'd all line up shoulder to shoulder and we get our little twig out and then you put it under this rattlesnake or any snake and you walk it over til it fell off. Then the next kid would put his up and we do that till we got it out to the desert. That's a game that I'll never forget all we, when we'd hear that, we just gravitate to what [?] saying that. Another game was, um, catching dragonflies. You have dragon fly races. And my mother gave me, uh, uh, the envelope, not a pimple [?] about, spool of thread. And I called that in my pocket and we get an ice dragon fire. Someone would hold it by the wings and we tie this a thread very lightly around your body and let it out. And that would be like a Kite. Now most of the dragonflies would go round and round trying to get free. But when they say, okay, races on, ready, set, go, you let go of your thread and the dragon fly that when straightest won, never, no prizes or anything but just the honor of your dragon fly went straight and they all said, well, there's certain ways you can tie the thread that makes them go straight. And you know, all those things that people made up. But I remember that very clearly. And um, the toads we used to bring home and my mother would have a fit, but uh, the um, ditches that my father then men were digging for the drainage system in the desert. It's very hot and they would get up to a hundred degrees, you have no fan or ventilation. And then there was a rain, these ditches would fill up with muddy water and we take off our shoes, pull up our dresses and jump into them and just [violently treading and splashing sound], and interestingly, our parents, my parents never scolded me. And I did ask her many years later, I said, you know, when I think of how muddy we were, she said, well, it was your form of entertainment. You know, there were no swimming pools at that time. So we all just felt that this was recreation for you. And I don't know any of the mothers that be rated their children unless they were older and knew better and got there at school pants, all dirty. But we know how to protect our clothes and the girls just put their things in her panties and winning [?] up to here.

AT: (44:19) Were you ever up school age or did you ever graduate school in camp?

HK: (44:23) Yes. Um, I went in at four and a half and I don't remember kindergarten so much, but I do remember going into a barrack and there was a long bench much like our tarots [?]. And we sat on our knees. There are no desks and we said elbow to elbow with the next student. And we colored or did whatever we had to. And my teacher's name was Mrs. Seal. And she came from the, uh, outside of the community. And if you were a professional Japanese American prior to coming in, you could teach, or you could be a doctor for very small amount of payment just to keep busy. But, um, there were quite a few Caucasian teachers that came in. We had a Sunday school there. And, um, the Christian children, we'd go to Sunday school and I remember these big picture book with Jesus sitting in the middle and, uh, the different ethnicities of children around him. And this will lead to a story that I had when I came out of the camps, which is so vivid in my mind. But to me it was how everybody lived. I didn't complain. I thought it was fun. I had a lot of freedom. You gain confidence because you can take care of yourself. Um, and I think that benefited me as I came out of the camps and adapted to various types of, uh, communities. And, um, actually when I look back, a lot of the values I received from my parents examples, quiet examples, uh, of forbearance, of discipline, persevering just unconsciously I think becomes part of your attitude and value system. And when I look back, I think my life has really been a string of blessings because of that early experience. So I don't think I was negatively impacted. I was too young. But my brother did finally go into the army. The second one when they opened the enlistment and I later learned from my husband whose brothers also went in that, um, one of the bigger camps, I think it was Manzanar had, um, students that were, um, young people that were key base, you know, key base are, and came back after doing the elementary school in Japan under their grandparents' tutelage, were very upset to be put in these camps cause they had a dual loyalty in a way, or dual background and the Japanese American kids that never went to Japan didn't know anything about Japan. We're saying, we want to join the army. You know, why don't they let us join the army and the, little bunch of key bay kids are the no no kids were saying, what do you want to do that for? You know, you're American citizens, we're all American citizens and were imprisoned here? I don't know why you guys want to go fight for them. This is what they did to you. So there was this conflict according to my husband and his brothers were, of course, wanting to go into the army as my brothers were in my camp. We didn't, we didn't have that type of a conflict. But I think because of this big conflict in this one camp, it resonated with the government that think, okay, we don't want this infecting all the camps so we will open the enlistment. And that's when you saw the mass exodus of all these army aged kids and that's when my older brother was able to go out and serve his country. And interestingly, I did ask my mom, did you, did you have to give them permission? And she said yes. And I said, did you have some feelings about that? She said, no. I said, well, why not? Did you have some animosity towards the people that put you here and now your sons are going to give their lives for them? It's just, no, this is your future. And they are fighting for their future and your future. Why would I stop them from doing that? And little things like that come back to me, which makes me feel that they sacrifice a lot of what they didn't tell us, kept it in. I'm sure they had feelings of the emotional trauma, being uprooted at losing everything you worked for and then your sons want to go and fight for their forefathers. You know, and I did read some books where some infantry men that were, uh, stations, Japanese Americans that were stationed in, um, the battalions with the battalions in Hiroshima or some of the islands would come across somebody that could be their relative. And I think about that. But my, my, um, brother that was in the infantry was not in Japan, the older one who was in MIS. Um, I think he communicated a lot with him, but he was more in Australia and some other places. But I would, would like to ask them, you know, did you know of anybody that that happened to?

AT: (50:35) Do you remember when Mike left camp to join?

HK: (50:40) Well I don't know what the year was, let's see, we were in there at 1942.

AT: (50:47) I believe 43 is the year.

HK: (50:50) Yeah. I, he went in as soon as it opened up. I know that because I have very little memories of him in camp with us eating with us, sleeping with us. All I know is that in the early part he would get on a pickup truck and go somewhere and was happy to get a little bit of money to pay, go to the PX and buy something.

AT: (51:17) Umm. And you, you actually just mentioned, you touched on something that I was curious about, um, did your family continue to, to eat together and kind of function as a family union

HK: (51:28) No, that's, that's where you lost all community within your family. Um, my mom is working in the mess hall. My father had had a stroke. Um, I would find they didn't want to sit with anybody. No, there wasn't a time where we're going to eat at this time. Be there. You just came. And if you happen to be with your family at the same time, you could sit if there was room, but they were like picnic tables, so you kind of have to save a spot, which no one did. And I just don't remember eating with my family. I was very happy to eat with Sea, a man, older man, who I would chit chat with. It didn't matter if he was older or my age. I did like to eat with my friends at lunch time. Dinner time, usually, was at our [?] because it was getting dark but lunchtime I would eat with my friend Misako, and uh, Yoshiko and go to their block. And those are people that we kind of knew in the Centerville area. And we went to the same camp.

AT: (52:49) Did you, I know this, this is a very specific thing to remember, but um, do you ever remember any conversations with your parents, you know. As a child about, about the situation and kind of what was happening to your family?

HK: (53:09) No, that's one thing I don't remember. Um, because I was so young and I didn't even think my mother talked a whole lot with my sister who was a teenager. I think they had more conversation with the two older boys when they were younger, but, um, they weren't fluent in English. By then I, English was my first language and the only time I remember having conversations with my mother was when it was a directive or like the punishment. No chit chat or life lessons. Um, how are you doing in school or anything like that? No. Did you, did you go to Japanese school today? You know, um, did you sweep the floor? More directives. No real conversations. And that went on pretty much most of our lives. And when we came out, you were so involved in moving forward. You have your Caucasian friends, you have your Nisei peers, you're doing this, going into this. Um, they had to Japanese speaking church, her group would come over for prayer meetings at our house. I don't interfere and say hello. I spoke a lot to my sister who was 12 years older than I.

AT: (54:48) And, um. Looking back now, uh, in what ways would you say, ummm, or, in what ways do you think that the, the whole evacuation and camp experience impacted your family? Like what?

HK: (55:12) Well, I never heard any complaints from my brothers. They talked a lot about their army experiences and again, I think all of us, we were focused on our futures. They knew that eventually they're going to get out of there. I didn't, I thought this was how everyone lived. Um. And my brothers were gone throughout our incarceration. My sister was a teenager when she graduated high school. She was a, sponsored by the white single family in Lansing, Michigan if you wanted to go to college. Um, she and her friends, these younger sisters of the lady that I thought was my surrogate mother from Centerville, she had two [?] younger sisters, they were about my sister's ages, and um, they all decided they want to go to Michigan State University. So if you had a sponsor out there where you could be a domestic to fulfill your years of residency requirement, they would, house you and feed you. And I don't quite know how the tuition was paid, but I think, uh, I, I, I have never asked about that, but they must have gotten some help. And I don't know if these sponsors were going to partially help them with the government's help or whatever, something was, uh, prepared for them. So my sister left when she graduated, went with the girlfriends to Lansing, Michigan. And unfortunately she was working for about, maybe seven months and she came down with tuberculosis. Now when she was in the camps as a high schooler, she did volunteer like a candy striper at the infirmary. And I didn't know this, but I think tuberculosis was one of the diseases that was running around there. So when she came down with tuberculosis in Lansing, Michigan, they got, it was a remnant of Topaz. So at that time there were no antibiotics. So she was put in a tuberculosis sanatorium. And, um, while she was there, I just think of the strength of my mother. They had written her saying that my sister may need to have a lung removed and which he signed up for two [?] procedures and my mom said, no, I want to see her before I sign anything because at that time, who knows, you know, she might've died. So she asked me, took me to the war relocation center office and pleaded her case that I need to go see my daughter, she needs this operation and I won't allow it until I see her. And um, and I would have to take my daughter here because there's no one that's going to be able to watch her. So they did relent and I remember this so clearly. I was sort of like her interpreter with words she couldn't remember. And I think that was about five and a half. And we got on this train and it was a freight train with all GIs sitting on the floor. And we were probably the only females on the floor facing them. And my mom made me this dress, a skirt out of the blackout curtains and her, took one of her blouses, a slips and maybe a blouse. Cause we were going on a train to Michigan. And, um, we sat on the floor and [?] my mom said, no, don't drink a lot of water because I'm not going to go through two freight trains to go to the train that has a potty that will be pitstops. So just hold it, don't drink a lot of water. And the other mancho she would always say is put your legs down but your skirt between your legs, put your dre, constantly because of a little child, you're fiddling around and you didn't wear, girls didn't wear pants in those days. So I remember that so clearly and pitstops in the awfully long and I didn't quite make it. And prior to going on this trip, we had, uh, I had a chance to order things from Sears Roebuck and I ordered flowered cotton panties. And this was the first purchase I had underwear and I was so proud of them. I mean they have different colored flowers on them. And, uh, when I kind of piddled in it and we got off at the pitstop. My mom says [?] panties and I thought she was going to wash them out but she threw him out. I'll never forget that I was sullen. I pouted I wouldn't look at her for the rest of the trip from Utah to Lansing, Michigan and those who are my dearest possessions, they were brand new. And so they're all the more but your dress down but just between your legs. Cause then I had nothing to wear [?]. And she said, I said, why did you throw them out? She says, well we couldn't take these wet things with me. I had nothing to wrap them in whenever it started leaking and I just wouldn't listen to her. And I remember that so clearly. And we were met in Michigan by the Weisenger family and then Mr. and Mrs. Weisenger and they drove us to their home, which to me was like a castle. And it was a white frame house. Two stories, green grass, huge lawn. They had a collie dog. They had a teenage son, Johnny, Johnny Weisenger, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. I mean all my gosh, my sister's room had her own bathroom. I'd never seen a separate bathroom, only was the latrines and you know that we had in the camps and the outhouse when we lived in California and she had a canopy bed [?] like Organdy type of stuff on it, you know, in this thing, and I reach out to [?] live here forever. It was like a princess. And um, we would go, Mrs. Weisenger would take us to the sanitorium every day. We had five days, so four days we could stay there. And then the fish, they would have to travel.

AT: (01:02:39) Going back to Topaz.

HK: (01:02:40) Topaz, yes. And um, my mom was praying every time I saw her, had a bible out and praying. She asked everybody in the church or Christians friends, please pray for my husband who was in the infirmary. Brace for my boys who were in service. Pray for my daughter who was going to have to have a surgery. Pray that we get there safely. That's all I remember. My mom always in prayer. She would get to see my sister in her room. I have to stay behind the glass because I was a minor. And I remember my sister telling me later, oh my gosh, when I looking out of the glass and see you still going to smile up at me, all I saw were the whites of your eyes and the whites of your teeth because it was all sunburned. And she said, is that right, is that amazing baby sister. And she was as white as snow cause she was so pale and she heard complexsion was lighter than mine. And I just thought she looked like a ghost. And um, we were there for four days every day. And at the end of the fourth day, the doctor came out and he says, I don't know what happened, but I don't think that to my mother, your daughter, we'll need this operation. Of course now my mom became very, very good. Well, you know, her prayers were answered and then we came home at that time there were two Nisei fellows, I don't know. Oh, I think they took, they had a car, they took their sisters to, um, Lansing and then we're going to be driving back. So instead of taking the train, we were able to get her ride with them. That's when I discovered discrimination because they wouldn't let us out of the car when they go into this little storefront to buy a hamburger or a sandwich, you know, and you stay in the car. And then I could see, I asked my mom why I cannot go with Harold. And she said, but because they don't want us in there. And I could see how they were kind of mean to Harold, who was, Harold must've been about oh 26 or something. And he'd come in and I distinctly remember the radio, the song no can do, no can do a mama and a papa say no can do. And that played that over and over from Lansing, Michigan, all the way to Utah. And it must've been the song of that era and they just played it over and over in New York [?]. It's funny things that you remember, but I do remember having to stop for meals, which was very sparse. And the fact that some people did not like it. I didn't feel that in California, but I did see how they were. Ummm. Seeing slurs, you know, uh, just by the looks in their eyes, they were not very nice to Harold that was going in to pick up on meal

AT: (01:06:01) So, this is from viewing from the inside .. trip.

HK: (01:06:03) Inside the car. I never got out of the car.

AT: (01:06:08) Uhmm

HK: (01:06:08) Then, when I had to go to the bathroom, it was in the bushes.

AT: (01:06:12) And so when you got back to Topaz, ummm. Around what time, Ummm, was this when your sister was in Lansing? And.

HK: (01:06:27) Gosh, let's see, two ... About 44? I'm thinking because she was still in there, but we came out.

AT: (01:06:39) Oh, okay.

HK: (01:06:40) Yeah, she was still in there. And that was another reason why we chose to come to Chicago. There were four reasons, you know, one before they would release you would be to pledge your allegiance to the United States and be willing to go to war for it. And my mom says, my two boys are in the army. Uh, secondly, you had to have a job prospect. Um, big companies like International Harvester, Scott Foresman, we're saying come to Chicago, big clothing manufacturing companies. Um, we're saying because a lot of the ladies could saw and so come to Chicago, we have jobs for you. And thirdly, you had to have, um, a place to live or a sponsor. And my mother's cousin was a doctor and he was recruited a little earlier than our release time from Topaz to, uh, take a professorship at the University of Illinois, a medical campus. So he came out earlier and he sponsored us to come and stay near him because in the apartment building he was in on the south side. Um, there was another doctor who was, uh, from Hawaii and he was going to be going back to Hawaii or vacation or something and his apartment was going to be empty. So I guess my mother's cousin said, you know, my cousin is coming out. Could they stay here for a couple of weeks or so till I can find them a place to live. And indeed we did stay there and we found a big apartment building just about walk-down. Uh, and it was perfect. There was two large u-shaped apartment buildings or the owners were saying, we will rent to you Japanese people. So it was a mixed population but a lot of Japanese people that were coming out of the various camps. So again, it was an ideal situation for me. There were kids my age, there were a lot of young kids whose parents married and started their families and had these babies and young toddlers so I could babysit in this huge apartment building, um, and earn money from the age of nine. So I had a regular babysitting job from nine years old. Uh, our next door neighbor, they wanted to manage a grocery store on the west side of Chicago. So since our apartment was right next to them when their children came home from school, it was my duty to watch them feed them their dinner, which the mother had already prepared because certain nights they stayed open late at the grocery store. And because my parents live right next door, you know, if there was any emergency, I had my parents. So it was an ideal situation. And then I had two families above me with young children. So other times when the parents wanted to go to a JC on dance or something, I would be able to dance, uh, watch their kids or we would bring a lot of the childrens to one apartment and I would babysit them. So it was a good moneymaker for me.

AT: (01:10:03) What, uh, would you happen to remember the address or where this.

HK: (01:10:06) 3835 South Lake Park Avenue was the u-shaped buildings that we moved into [?]. Most of those kids went with us to [inaudible] grammar school, which was on 40th street, Lake Park, so straight down Lake Park. And throughout going from our 38 all the way at grammar school, all these apartment buildings had some Japanese in them as well as other ethnicities. And I remember I was going to tell you the story the first day I went to school, um, my, my mother went off to her job in a dress factory. My brothers, one of them after he came out of the army, was managing a, cleaners in Detroit with his GI buddy. My, uh, older brother, he was working at International Harvester and my sister was still in the sanatorium. And I remember going to school Okumon [?] school, which was a fairly new school, two stories high, beautiful campus around it. And I went and when my mom came home, I said, mama, you should see my school. And I said, is this heaven? And she said, what? I said, this is heaven? And she says, no, why do you ask that? I said you should see my school. It has all the children of the world and the only relation I had to diversity in such amount was in the picture book during Sunday school. And I said, you know, like that book we used to sing out of in Sunday school, Jesus loves us. They are children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white. I says, you know, when I go to school, I see all these children. And she started crying and I said, what, why are you crying Mama? And she says, um, I'm happy for you, but that I kind of felt that that wasn't the truth. And years later when I was in high school and read a book, I had a book, that I read on the incarceration as the first time I read a book on the incarceration and had to give an oral book report. And I told the story and included some of my experience and the questions from the children were so interesting because they, they knew everything about us [?]. They had a regular life and they kept asking, well, what did your parents think? You know, and I realized then, I never really thought to even ask my parents, tell me about how you felt because as a child, you keep moving forward. And um, I went home that evening [?] answering all the different questions and I said, you, I really don't know, uh, parents speak Japanese and I speak mostly English and they're so much older than most parents. I do think I should ask them. So I did go home and talk to my mother about it and it was very vague. You know, I'm getting, you know, you just come on and um, I see, you know, there's something that's been in the back of my mind from the first day I went to school at Okumon [?] and I told you about the diversity for kids. And I kind of thought maybe this was heaven and you crying. I said, was that the truth mama? And she said, no. I said, why did you cry? And she said, my big goal in life was to see that I can raise this late born child to adulthood and here we are after the camp experience and you're going to your first real school. And I realized you never saw diversity before. You kind of think that this is like heaven and she said, I felt so derelict in my duty, in my goal, that you had these notions that most children your age, no, they don't even question it. And that hit me and that's why I cried. And I said, isn't that interesting that even at that young age I knew it was shielding something from me. And it wasn't till I was in high school in an all white classroom that their questions brought that to mind and they're probably have a lot of conversations with their families and the families probably tell their parents, tell them what happened to them when they were younger, et cetera. And it was the sort of like a light bulb moment for me. And I remember that so clearly when she said the tears in her eyes, she said, my goal in life was to raise you to adulthood and please [?] let me live until I could raise her to adult eighteen. And interestingly when I did graduate, she had a breakdown. She went into depression and the psychiatrist at that time said, I think this is a delayed menopause, she was so driven to make sure you reached adulthood and after that her, her goal in life was over. And I feel guilty because when I graduated in January of 56, I said, mama, you don't have to work anymore. I had a very good job as a public stenographer at the peoples' gas lighting Coke Company. And , I said, you don't have to work anymore. She was working at a cleaners on the west side. One of her church members had a cleaners way on the west side and she would take that bus to the street car every day, five days a week. My father was an invalid. He had a hem, uh, he was Hemiplegic, stayed in the house but thankfully he was able to fend for himself. He could dress himself. He had done a Hemiplegia so he was paralyzed on just my time [?]. But I thought I was doing her a favor and I said, mama, you don't have to work. I got a good job. I will supplement. But my brother was bringing in and my sister was bringing in, you stay home, take care of papa. And it was Feb. I [?] graduated in January. It was about the end of February. And I came home and papa said, I dunno what's a matter with your mom? But she hasn't changed out of her pajamas. She hasn't gotten out of that chair since you left, she's been facing that window. That's when I knew something was wrong. And when my sister came home from, um, steiner school, I forgot the name of it, the synography school at that time, she said, I've told, I says, [inaudible] mail has been [?] like that all. She doesn't speak and she's a very chatty person. And my sister said, I think we need to take her to the doctor. And we tried to find a Japanese psychiatrist. There was no such thing [?]. So we have to go with an English speaking psychiatrists. And she was an a psychiatric clinic, that unit, inpatient unit of the south side for about four months. She had electroshock therapy and she forget everything. It would put her into Amnesia and then she gradually recovered. And it was an ongoing thing for about a year in and out, in and out.

AT: (01:18:31) This is the, uh, 1956?

HK: (01:18:35) And thankfully, um, it took her, I'd say maybe two and a half years to fully recover, but she didn't have any regression. But every January she would have a regression. It, you could see signs of it coming back again. It's amazing what time does to your brain. She without even knowing that this is a time when she went into depression, I guess memories would come up and would sugar [?] again, another slight visit to the, um, clinic, let you had to go to freshen up there [?], which was that time, they didn't have any drugs for depression and it was this barbaric method of shock therapy. And I remember that very clearly and she wouldn't know a thing when she came home. So I learned at a very young age to be responsible for not only my father who was disabled since camp, but now my mom and my siblings had to go off and make a living and my mother couldn't work anymore. So it was, it was a difficult time, but I think all of that served to benefit me to make something of myself and to go back a bit after I had this wonderful grammar school experience with all my friends that I developed that also came out from the camps that were my age and the diversity of the population in school. That became more and more ethnically diverse by the time I graduated. I did, um, graduate in a winter class somewhere along the line because I'm a December baby. I was, um, I have a year or so behind when I came out to camp to start school. So, um, somehow they felt that I should be double promoted or whatever. So I missed finishing school with the kids that I started with, you know, Amy and all those other kids. So I was in a winter class half a semester ahead of them, have a year ahead of them and I graduated and I was so hoping to connect with all my classmates in Hyde Park. But the neighborhood was really changing and my siblings and my mother who were the breadwinners at that time, we were living on the south side [?] that we had to move for my sake because they didn't want me walking that distance by myself. So

AT: (01:21:28) What exactly was changing about .. [?]

HK: (01:21:30) There were, well, there were more, um, blacks coming in. I remember my brother slept on the, um, we had, uh, we moved several times in this apartment building from a small apartment as income increased. And the last apartment we lived in had three bedrooms. It was a long apartment. My mother and father slept in the small bedroom in front by the kitchen. We had a dining room and then we had a bathroom and my sister and I slept in the larger bedroom that was next to the bathroom. We had an adjoining door and now my brothers, actually it was two bedrooms. My brother slept on the sun porch.

AT: (01:22:12) Was this a different building, or just a?

HK: (01:22:14) Same building, but they had different size apartments and cause the first department we moved in had one bedroom, one bath and six of us lived in there. When my sister came out, that's the apartment we lived in. My sister and mother slept in the dining room, my father and brother slept in the double bed in the bedroom. I slept in a roll away cocked and when my brother Ken, Kenji came home from Detroit, uh, from working at the cleaners there. He slept on the hideaway sofa in the living room and one bathroom. I didn't know how, when I think back on how luxuriously we grew, you know, my children grew up. How did all those people, my mother, my two brothers and my sister and I use one bathroom, they had to get out to go to work. I was a little later cause I went to school on my own. How did we do it in the morning with this one little bitty bathroom? Unreal. And how we used to live, have dinner at the small kitchen at table and the small kitchen and um, it would be so hot that when the boys came home from work and my father would be roasting, they wear these sleeveless undershirts and the boys would just wear their shorts. I mean they're undershorts cause they're so hot. And my sister would come home from school or Steiner school, put on a pair of shorts and sit there with her bra. My mother comes home from the factory. She would wear a slip, take off her nice dress, just have a slip and put an apron on. And I think about that, you know, didn't think anything of it. And we sit around this little chrome table and here is where I wanted to tell the story about my mom. She would work at this dress factory piecework every puff sleeve she made for a child's dress, she would get a ticket and my job, she'd come home with her, [?] full of tickets and she said, you sit at the kitchen table while I'm finishing dinner and I want you to paste them in this booklet. Don't lose them because that's my paycheck. That's on Friday. She would get paid and I remember one day she was making dinner and she must have cut a finger or done something. All of a sudden she shouts, Sakana spinach and I said, what did you say, she said, oh, they say that at the factory. Every time things go wrong, they say, Sakana spinach. And I think I was about eating heaven [?]. And I said, um, are you saying son of a bitch? Yeah, they say that all the time. And I ask, Mama. And she said devoted Christian, right? I said, mama, I, I think that's a swear word. I think you're saying son of a bitch. She says, yeah, that's what they say, Sakana spinach. So what does it mean? Sakana spinach, and I said, well, it's a bad word. I don't know of the meaning, all I know it's a bad word. So I said, I don't think you should say it anymore. So when my brothers came home individually from their jobs, I said, you know you, you better go talk to mama and tell her what son of a bitch means. And they said, what did you say? And all of a sudden the attention was drawn to me. And where did you learn that word? Where did you learn it? You don't ever say it, do you, I said no, no. I just know it's, it's a bad word. And mama was saying Sakana spinach and she was mad [laughing sound]. I just thought it sounded like the swear word. I said, I think you'd better tell her cause she asked me what's it meaning? And I said, I don't know. So they were too embarrassed to tell mama.

AT: (01:26:30) How old were you at that time?

HK: (01:26:30) I think I was about 11 and then my, um, sister came home. I told her, uh, she was more understanding and she says, oh my God. So she goes into the kitchen and mama you were saying Sakana spinach, but you know, that's a bad word in English. It's something else and this is what it means. Helen didn't know what it meant and my English name was Helen and so, um, I could, by then I was in the living room doing something and I could hear my mom said, oh, forgive me in Japanese, forgive me Lord. I didn't know what I was saying. I promise I'll never say it again [laughing sound]. And I remember that so clearly because she was shrinking it. And I'm looking at my brothers, you know, and then [mumbling and inaudible].

AT: (01:27:21) When you, when your family was in Chicago, were you going to a church here?

HK: (01:27:26) Yes. I've always gone to church. When I lived on the south side, I went to the Alice community center church, uh, with the, um, revered Nishimodo. And that's where some of my other friends that came from the camps, some of them were attending different elementary schools for their style. And that's why I got to know them, that we weren't going to Oakland Wall [?]. They all different, went to Hyde Park. But I got to know other Japanese American kids that were my peers from there. And it was a long walk for me, but I walked all the way from 38 all the way down there. And um, that was the beginning of, of I guess, uh, knowing that, uh, maybe some boys might like you because they would walk all the way. I'll walk you. I said, no, you won't. I live far away. But you know, a couple of them a couple of times when they fall down, how far it was [laughing sound], but it was, it was a time of blossoming and getting to know new people, you know, going into puberty, you know. And then when I moved, um, to the north side to go to high school, um, my mom was very, my parents were very religious and the people that they worshiped within Topaz would meet at each other's places and they moved to Chicago and they were the Issei group and they pulled their money. I don't know how they did it, but bought this church that was a half a block from where our house was in the north side. It was a three story flat that my brothers and sisters and mother pooled their money and bought this three story flat. So when my older brother got married, he lived in one apartment and I thought, you know, when each kid got married, they could have a place to live. The bulk of us lived on the second floor, which was a big apartment. My older brother lived on the first floor after he got married with his family and we rented out the third floor to another Japanese American family and um, that could bring in some income to kind of pay the mortgage. We lived right across the street from the low [?] and Masonic Hospital where I did a lot of nurses aid work, candy striping as earning money. My church was half a block away. The Issei people, um, pulled their money, bought this, uh, church that was a frame old church and the building behind it, which was a sanctuary for the minister. And we have movies of that. Or you could see these Issei men loaded truck going to some churches that were being demolished, bringing stained glass windows of pews, everything to remodel this church. And that was a labor of love just to watch them. And they remodeled the whole place. It wasn't a beautiful church, but it was serviceable. We had the basement Sunday school and then the, the sanctuary the, um, uh, the other, I forgot the [?] name of it, but the building behind it where the minister usually [inaudible] stays and um, use that as Sunday school room too. So I [?] really, um, from the time I moved to the north side was very involved with the church from the time I was a Sunday school teacher to a choir director. I got married there,

AT: (01:31:22) What was the name of that Church?

HK: (01:31:22) Lake Side at that time, Lake Side Japanese Christian Church on the corner of Sheffield and Wellington. And, um, it was another time of development for me. Uh, we would go, we never went on vacations, but we would have our summer conferences and we would have our conference at Dead Lake Geneva. And, um, every year we would go for a week and, um, see, see a different state, see the lake, those, uh, baptized in a Lake Geneva. It was, it was a fun time plus a time of learning and becoming deeper in your faith.

AT: (01:32:14) Were there services in Japanese given those Issei?

HK: (01:32:16) It was, the Japanese services were at two o'clock in the afternoon. The English service was at, um, 11 o'clock in the morning. Sunday school was a 9: 30 in the morning. So I'd be there Sunday school at 9: 30. And when I got older, uh, high school level, I taught Sunday school. And then for the church service, at first I would be just a parishioner. Then I became a choir director. And then I worked with the youth chorus, the teenagers, and we'd have a, we'd seen more upbeat instead of the usual Hams. And um, it was, it was a wonderful time for me. And I remember I was so active in the church. Most of my peers were working, you know, uh, some of them were able to go to college, but, um, I graduated when I, I married when I was 26 and which was, uh, five years, six years after I take my first job. So they always saw me working, you know, I had my job at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. And when I said that I was going to get married, they threw this huge bridal shower for me. And I remember this lady coming up to me and she said, oh, I'm so happy for you Helen. We thought you were going to be our career girl, which is a politically correct way in those days. I'm saying, you know, we thought you were going to be an old maid, but I will always remember that cause it wasn't till years later that I equated it with being an old maid, but I thought it was so nice. They do this huge bridal shower for me and I got married there.

AT: (01:34:18) And where at, you said you were living in nearby. So where were you living?

HK: (01:34:21) That was a 43 Wellington Avenue near Halsted and Wellington. Um.

AT: (01:34:29) And, what year ...

HK: (01:34:29) And right down the street from Ivan whole restaurant theater, you probably don't remember that. Wellington and Broadway.

AT: (01:34:38) Umm, and um, what year was that that your family moved there?

HK: (01:34:41) Um, nine, let's see 52.

AT: (01:34:49) So this was when you were in high school then?

HK: (01:34:51) I just graduated a grammar school. It was a, a January graduation, it was a winter graduation and so, uh, I moved immediately to start school on the north side. And this is another, I think a wonderful story of my life. I was so upset that I couldn't go to Hyde Park with all my friends and I cried for two weeks and I went to my youth pastor and I said, I, I re, I'll take a train, I'll take the street car, whatever I want to go to school with my friends to Hyde Park. That was further south then Oaken wall [?]. And my pastor said, no you can't because you're out of a district. And I had heard that some kids were going to school high schools out of their district by borrowing a friend's address. So I told my mother that and she says, absolutely not. You are not using and lying and using someone else's address, this'll be a good school for you. And that's when I talked to my pastor and he said, Helen, this will be repiphany. I said, what's that? He described it to me and he said, it's going to change the whole course of your life, but it would be dependent on what choices you make, so make sure you make the right choices. And I had no choice. So I went immediately to the school and kids that were transferring in from a different, uh, district or together one of my good friends was Josie [inaudible]. Her parents were from a Syria and we got to be good friends. And um, very similar. She said, my parents, I think in behind their minds, they wanted me to marry a Japanese American, you know, fraternize with the Japanese Americans. And she was saying, yeah, my parents too. So she's in similar to, um, the, um, Nisei athletic association that I belong to. She was in a, the Syrian type of organization. She says, yeah, and you know, my mom and she wants me to, if I'm dating anybody wants me to date on a Syrian [inaudible], I know exactly what you mean. But so here we were in a primarily white school [?] and so we kind of shared, uh, our backgrounds, although from different ethnicities. And interestingly, when we went to sign up for our curriculum, our, our, uh, classes freshman year, both of us will be friended by these very Caucasian kids. And I didn't know until much later that these children that befriended us boys and girls were in Dr Brown's division, which was like the home room. And when I talk about somebody that's another person, they say, oh, she's, she's from Dr. Brown's division. I thought, what's so special about Dr. Brown's division? Dr. Brown was a math professor in some college on east coast who was on a sabbatical or something that wanted to teach at the lower level. So he had the privilege of choosing from the feeder schools, the kids that could be in his division. So I'm assuming that they're high achievers, if he could pick whoever he wanted from all the feeder schools. And so Josie and I, Josie and I will not from the feeder school, so we didn't know what it meant, but these are the kids that came up to itself. Where [?] do you go signing up for? And I said, well, and the only role model I had was my sister who was now a medical secretary at the University of Illinois med center. And I said, well shorthand and typing and bookkeeping and home [?]. Well, aren't you taking any college prep? And Josie was on the same page too. She was going to be a secretary, and signed the first college prep and I didn't want to sound dumb. So I said, well, are you? And they said, yeah. I said, [inaudible], like what? So there's, oh, Algebra, Biology, Latin. Oh and I looked at Josie, well we could do that, but the two of us were smart enough to hang onto a shorthand and typing [laughing sound] cause we didn't know what we're getting into. And we all became very good friends. But like a click with these kids and from doctor Brown's division and I still in contact with them. They were definitely high achieving. They moved up the ranks of being leaders of this school. We followed because they were all friends. I would have never had the confidence really to go after things that I did, were it not for them paving the way. So I became very active in the school, which brought a lot of recognition, which brought a lot of opportunities and they went on to college and Josie went to secretarial school. I took a job at the, at graduated in January 56 which was a smaller class because it's a winter graduation. And I, um, started work there and the Steno Pool. And when I applied for the job, they asked me, are you going to school? And I said, no, I don't think so. And it was that year, January and June graduates were being offered scholarships if you were voted in as a citizen of the month. And I really didn't quite know what that meant because I wasn't really interested in it. But the month of January was outstanding high school, senior representing Chicago Land YMCAs, which meant that all the YMCAs in Chicago nominated probably a high school senior volunteer and they were interviewed or whatever and came up with one and that person was plastered on the front of the Tribune like, I can't remember which paper and had the title of outstanding high school senior of the month and told them that they were representing YMCAs. Second month was something else, I think maybe Park districts. Third Month was parochial high school. Fourth Month was Chicago public high schools. And I vaguely remember going to an interview and I don't even remember where I was working. And there were like 10 other students there. And we were interviewed by a panel of dignitaries, [inaudible] I didn't even know what dignitaries, that was Jesse Owens. There was George Kilgaman, um, uh, cup, earth cups in it. Alfred J. Pick of the Pick Congress Hotel, the owner of the Pick Congress Hotel and a couple of others. Um, and I didn't know who they were. I wasn't into media at that time and they asked some questions and then I was anxious to get that to my job. And so in April, here comes a girl into the Steno pool and says, congratulations Helen. And I said, for what? What I do? And she said, didn't you see the paper? And I said, no. She says, well, you won citizen of the year, of the month for Chicago public high schools, outstanding senior. I said, really? I said, well, I won a scholarship? I said, I can't take it. She says, well, why not? I said, because when I took this job, they asked me, was I going to school? And I said No. So she must have told the boss of the Steno pool and the boss came and told me, I understand that you don't feel you can take the scholarship. And I says, no, because I, I just said I wasn't going to school. So she put her hand on my shoulder and she said, I have to have you meet someone. Come with me. Oh my gosh, what did I do? And so she took me to the executive offices of the Chicago, of the, the uh, People's gas like a Coke company, which is on Michigan Avenue, you know, and introduces me to the vice president of people's gas. Like Coke company, and she said, this young lady here won the scholarship for outstanding high school senior and is the outstanding senior ofthe month and she doesn't feel she should take this scholarship because she said she wasn't going to go to school. And he looks at me and chuckles and puts his arm around me, says, young lady, you have to take that scholarship. I said, I do? Why?

AT: (01:44:59) Where did you end up going to school then?

HK: (01:45:02) Um, I went to first year to the University of Illinois, uh, Navy pier, cause I didn't know if I could go on from there. And he said you have to take the scholarship because I am on the [inaudible] chamber on the Board of the Illinois Chamber of Commerce that is sponsoring that scholarship. It's [?] how would it look in front of my employees, is restricted from taking back. So you have to take it. So then it was a mad scramble, um, because this was April and school starts in September. I didn't know the first thing. What was I going to major in? What was I going to do? And I knew if I did go to college, it would have to be at Navy Pier. It's a state college. Two years I would live at home and I still could work. So my sister is the one that said, who was at the medical campus said, um, I asked her what, what, what, what would I take? You know, sure, well, you have all the prep, you can take anything you want, but I think you should think of what you want to do as well. I don't know. I thought maybe secretary like you, you don't need college for that. And she said, you don't remember your autobiography, do you? When we were in grammar school in eighth grade, we had to write our autobiography. And um, the last chapter of the last page was what I wanted to be when I grew up. And I remember that. And she said, do you remember what you wrote? I said No. She said you want it to be either a baby doctor or a Hollywood makeup artist as I did [?]. And I thought about that and yes, I babysat a lot and I grew up around a lot of sick people and I thought it would be nice to be a baby doctor. I didn't know what a pediatrician was. Never had one and I wanted it to be an artist. Most of the Japanese American kids were very good in art. We did all the stage, uh, background and everything. We've got an out of a lot of things because we worked okay, good in reading so we could do square dancing or painting or whatever and miss on reading class. And I said, oh yeah, I remember I talked to my brother when I told them I wanted to be a makeup artist cause that's when I started watching movies and learn from some video that they showed a movie that how they make up the masks and make a person old, makes a person beautiful.

AT: (01:47:51) So this is probably in Chicago they are watching movies.

HK: (01:47:54) Yes. It was on the south side. I was going to grammar school and that's what I recalled and that's when I wrote my autobiography and that's when we would go into Shakespeare theater with Amy and all my friends and see movies once in a while. And so I guess that's what entered my mind because my brothers told me, you don't want to go into art. It's a very competitive field and never make any money. So that's when I think I connected Hollywood makeup artist with art or maybe a baby doctor. I forgot all of that and my sister brought it up. And so she said, you know, um, I have a friend who was entering this brand new curriculum at the University of Illinois med center and it's called occupational therapy heretofore all the veteran's hospitals. We're embracing the concept of rehabilitation for the wounded veterans. And they would just [inaudible]

AT: (01:48:57) From which, which war would that have been?

HK: (01:48:59) Probably Vietnam. uh, all the others I guess, it has been brewing, but no one ever put it together. But the veteran's hospitals, because they were, uh, having to help the wounded but [?] doing a lot of them wouldn't get, weren't giving it a name like rehabilitation or physical therapy or vocational therapy. This was all coming for, um, probably with the wounded of, uh, Vietnam, which was a lot of young people and the veterans hospitals were establishing that and so the University of Illinois was saying, you know, we should start a curriculum and rehabilitation focus on occupational therapy because Northwestern is focusing on physical therapy and they didn't want to duplicate anything. So in the Midwest to become an occupational therapist or a physical therapist, you [?] mostly came to Chicago because also the universities [inaudible] were offering it. And um, so she said, I have this girl, then she was Japanese American Gal. Um, I go, I mean, what was her name and she, I want you to shadow her. So I did, I shadowed her and whatever she did, it was combining medicine, creativity, uh, innovation. You have to use your imagination to help the disabled become more independent, I would ever means, which a lot depended on your imagination. And so

AT: (01:50:38) So this was a nice combination of

HK: (01:50:38) It was, and I said, immediacy. That's what I want to do. So now I had a goal. So then I went to the director of the medical center of occupational therapy, Miss Beatrice Wade, and I said, I just shadowed one of your students and I think I would like to enter that curriculum. However, I understand you have to go downstate and I can't afford that. I just got this scholarship. I can live at home, go to Navy Pier, and I could still work and augment the money that I'll need to go downstate maybe next year. And she said, well, this is the first time I'm going to do this, but I'm going to make a concession for you. I will take some of the classes that you're supposed to take downstate and substitute something close by in at the Navy Pier. So she went out of her way to do that for me. Meantime, ah, as I was finishing up, I received a scholarship from the Illinois League of Women's Voters, don't know where they got my name, how they knew about me, and then even know what they did. Sounded very impressive. And um, at the same time, my sisters went to a different [inaudible] Christian Church, uh, with, which had a lot of young people her age in their, uh, in their membership. And she had a friend who was a manager or something at the Clark Linen and Supply Company on Russel Street. So she said, I can get you a job as a clerk typist over there after school. So when you finish school you go take the bus straight down to Russel street and work at the Clark Linen Supply Company. That's what I did.

AT: (01:52:35) I do want to just let you know we are approaching time a little bit.

HK: (01:52:40) Okay.

AT: (01:52:41) So we'll have just time for a little bit more.

HK: (01:52:44) Okay. Um, is there anything else, oh I, I, I can go through my, my profession

AT: (01:52:51) Umm, well

HK: (01:52:51) Or if you want something more.

AT: (01:52:53) Yeah, I think, um, to wrap up, uh, one thing I like to ask folks before kind of completing [inaudible], uh, if you could leave some kind of message or, or leave some kind of legacy for your children, grandchildren or future generations more generally, what's something that you had?

HK: (01:53:14) Well, I think what resonates with me is what my parents handed down to me. Um, in this day of entitlement that you have to, uh, make your own way. You can't be dependent on other people. The more effort and time you put into making our own decisions and doing what you want to do, struggling if you have to in the end, it will benefit you far greater than having your way paved for you. I was able to get through with the help of many people. I don't know why, but I think. When you have these, um, goals they see in you and it, this is what a lot of my friends had said to me that, um, they see this, um, ambition, this diligence in you. You don't know that you're showing it, but that's what encourages them to give you opportunities. I have had numerous opportunities throughout my education. I would've never been able to finish six years of school and go into the profession I did where there was also a lot of opportunities. And I'm thinking, why me? Why so many opportunities and blessings and many people ask, how did that camp experience and [inaudible] people impact you? I said, well, one thing I know it did not impact me negatively from the outside looking in. Many people could say it was a lot of [?] deprivation. Um, you, you certainly didn't have a lot of other your friends might have had, you know, your Caucasian friends. I had the emotional support of my Japanese American friends who went through similar trials and made wonderful lives for themselves, but it comes down to who you are inside. And to rely on yourself, not rely on the outside world and other people you can do it. And if, if we can instill that in these children today in this society that is all about entitlements, about giving or receiving, I should say it's going to be hard. I look back on the fact that my mother said, if you are naughty, they will blame you. They won't blame me. If we can instill that in our children to take responsibility for their own actions, not that mom's going to bail you out. Not that, that Dad's going to do this for you, that you are responsible for yourself as best you can and make them proud and make yourself proud. I just can't stress that enough in the environment that our world is going in now, especially in the United States. And I live amongst a lot of people here who are self made. And that's another thing we share. A lot of people here have done great things in their lives, but they came from, um, difficult backgrounds and they are Holocaust survivors. And that's the common thread. And we all get along. We respect one another and we don't see the differences in ethnicity. We see the person and it's, it's so similar, they have the same values. Um, I think that's what makes my life going forward. Uh, still a journey and not sitting here thinking of all the stuff that happened to me before, what I've done before, but there's still things that you can do with what you've got into. Now it may be on the form of contributing, giving back to society, giving back to these people that have helped you all along the way.

AT: (01:57:39) You, so, you've mentioned the opportunities that were kind of, presented to you, uh, throughout your life. And I'm just curious before we wrap up, um, how, how you see, your move to Chicago and to somewhere, you know, kind of that you probably wouldn't have come if it weren't for the war and the incarceration experience,

HK: (01:58:04) What Chicago gave me as opposed to any place else, you mean?

AT: (01:58:07) Or, or just, what, what, what has that move, like how has that impacted your life

HK: (01:58:13) Or this,

AT: (01:58:13) Or how do you think your life might be different if you never came to Chicago?

HK: (01:58:17) I, I can't even think of it being any different. I do know that when, um, I grew up and have relationships and the staff is socialization with other Japanese Americans that were slightly older than I, not a whole lot. I was surprised that they never went into camps. They were not on the west coast there, um, immigrant parents immigrated to Chicago or to the east coast and they were so happy and surprised when all these Japanese Americans came to Chicago. They, they were the minority amongst many ethnicities, um, here in Chicago. And it never don't [inaudible] me. But I thought I had, I had the best of both worlds. I mean, I had the support of my Japanese American friends. I was in their organizations. We were in the girls' clubs. I met Japanese American fellows. At the same time, I also made the transition into the, uh, all the Caucasian society. Um, I just think that it, I just had a, a very blessed life, always considered and um, I don't see any negativity. And I think it also comes from the fact that a lot of the friends have told me that you say everything came to you. You had these opportunities in college after college, et Cetera. But I think people saw that you had a standard that whatever you did, you're going to put your best effort forward. And, um, you went after the opportunities. There were many opportunities that people probably would have never even looked at. But if you're hungry, that's what you're going to do. But then they said, well, there are some people that'll just sit back and say, well, I'm not doing that, you know, and I was ready to, um, scrub floors if I had to. But I think it's, it's what you want to do. You have to have enough confidence in yourself, which I think the camps gave me. I was, had the run of the place, you know, no one was looking after you, but you had to accept the responsibility for behaving. And so a lot of other people that were, um, doing the best that they can, it forced you to do the best you can. I, I just really don't see any negative portion of it. The only sadness I have is the trauma. It was to my parents. To my sister was a teenager because I remember when I felt like, as a teenager, you want to fit in with certain people. You want to look a certain way. You know, she didn't have that. And I remember her complaining all the time, look at this, what they sent [inaudible], I can't wear this. But she had to, I was young enough. My feet are bad because they always sent me shoes that were too narrow. So to this day I have that problem. I problem with my eyes because the doctor when we came out said, did you live at, I live on a beach front? And my sister said, who took me to the ophthalmologist, no, did you live on a desert? And she said yes. And he was surprised. It was a young ophthalmologist. And so she, he said, she said, well why are you asking where we lived? And she said, your young little sister here has a lot of scarring in her eye and that usually from wind or Sandberg and sure as a young child you get the sand storms come in and you're doing this, right? So I have the effects of it now I'm paying for it. But when I think of the whole of my life, I think it was just a real bless of life. And if I leave tomorrow, I'd be happy [inaudible]. Three children, happily married. Hopefully the diversity in my family will be what the world will be one day. And all my grandchildren, they all get along. So what's to be unhappy about, you know, and then my husband and I've done well enough and he would, he had to go through college and get his Undergrad in 13 years. So he's the other side that didn't have these opportunity. He was taking care of his mother. And so when he was finishing up his schooling, I was, I was working and consequently didn't have children until later until he finished school and can get his career on the road. So it's just been a blessed life and I can't imagine it any other way. I don't have any bad feelings about not going back to California. I would have probably been a farmer's girl. Right? So it's been a good life. I'm really happy that everything happened as it did and, um, so many good people out there gave me opportunities, and it's still a blessing to move forward.

AT: (02:03:52) Well, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me, um.

HK: (02:03:56) Anytime.

AT: (02:03:57) Really appreciate it.

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