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Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
and the Age Discrimination Act of 1975, as amended, the U.S. Department of the Interior
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write to:
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Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Takada, Anna
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Kojima, Aiko
OHMS Object Text
5.4 10/18/2018 Kojima, Aiko (10/18/2018, 11/29/18) 0:53:32 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection US Untold Stories Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded, transcribed, and made accessible online with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago and the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Kojima, Aiko Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/601272551/90864233db Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/601272551?h=90864233db" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:01 And I' ; ll just start with, uh, a little s- Oh, shoot. With a little slating. Um, we can go ahead and get started there. Aiko Kojima: 00:15 So have you done many of the, uh, interviews? AT: 00:19 Yeah, um, we are somewhere between, um, Alphawood and here we' ; re at, um, 80? Around 80. In the ballpark. AK: 00:34 Oh ok. AT: 00:34 Um, so we' ; ve been lucky to talk, er, I' ; ve been really lucky to talk to quite a few people. Um, I feel spoiled, but I get to call this my job and I' ; m just hearing about people' ; s lives. Okay. Um, we should be good to start. Okay. This is an interview with Aiko Kojima as part of the Japanese American Service Committee and Chicago, Japanese American historical society oral history project. The interview is being conducted on October 18th, 2018 at the Japanese American Service Committee in Chicago. Aiko Kojima is being interviewed by Anna Takada of the Japanese American Service Committee. Um, so to start, can you just state your full name? AK: 01:45 Uh, my full name is [Carolyn?] Aiko Kojima. AT: 01:49 And where and when were you born? AK: 01:52 Um, I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, August 10th, 1944. AT: 02:01 I' ; m sorry, 19... AK: 02:01 ' ; 44. AT: 02:02 ' ; 44. And, um, to start, can you, uh, just tell me a little bit about your parents, maybe where they were born and, AK: 02:18 Um, well my real father was born in Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, and then my mother was born in Greeley, Colorado. AT: 02:31 Uh, when, and when did your, did your father move from Hawaii to the States? AK: 02:38 Yeah, yeah. I' ; m trying to think. Probably in, probably 1943 or so, somewhere around there. I' ; m not sure. Cause, uh, uh, they were, uh, divorced a long time ago, so you know, before. So, um, and he, I believe, uh, relocated to Los Angeles and, uh, uh, my mother came to Chicago then. AT: 03:18 So how, how did your parents meet or where? AK: 03:23 Um, I believe, well, my parents, uh, met in camp and, um, um, AT: 03:37 What camp was that? AK: 03:38 Manzanar. Cause she was in Manzanar. AT: 03:41 And so would I have that right that, um, before the war started, your dad moved to LA and then that' ; s how he was put into Manzanar? AK: 03:53 Yeah. Yeah. Um, and, um, as far as your, your parents' ; backgrounds, um, do you know like, uh, what they did for a living or what kind of, where their families were from or what their story was? AT: 04:14 Um, I really don' ; t have too much information about, uh, like my father or whatever. But, um, with my mother, her parents were farmers. They lived in Greeley, Colorado, and, um, so her mother died when she was eight, and then, uh, her father, uh, became sick and he knew he was dying. So when she was believed 13 was when he took her to LA to live with, uh, uh, a couple who became her foster parents. And, um, I don' ; t know, um, who they were or anything like that. So, but I believe they had, they had a, uh, a nursery. And so she used to work in the nursery. AK: 05:09 Did she have siblings? AK: 05:11 She had, um, there were three siblings in Japan. And so that' ; s why the father went back to Japan to see his three oldest daughters. And then, um, she had, }" ; uh, there were five here, born in Colorado. And all of the, no, let' ; s see. Um, the oldest sister, uh, died in childbirth, and she was, I believe 27, but the, then there were two, um, brothers and they died when they were children. Uh, one of, uh, I think lead poisoning and the other, uh, kidney failure or something. But, and, um, AT: 05:58 So the family that your mother moved with, were they Japanese? AK: 06:05 Yes, yes. But, you know, I, she never, uh, well if she did, I don' ; t remember, uh, what their, their names were or anything. Um, but I know that they separated and so her foster father moved to, um, Mesa, Arizona and, but I don' ; t know what happened to, you know, her foster mother. AT: 06:30 Mmm. So as far as, um, like wartime and going to camp, can you tell me what you know about how your, um, AK: 06:46 My mother really, uh, didn' ; t talk about, uh, camp. So she, let' ; s see, she was about 18, I believe. Wait, yeah. Maybe she was older. She could have been 20, but anyway, cause she got out when she was, uh, she was only there for a couple of years, I believe. AT: 07:13 In camp? AK: 07:13 Yeah. And, um, because she was able to get the family, a family to sponsor her. And, um, so she left there I think in like, uh, she, I think she left camp around, uh, the end of ' ; 43 or the beginning of ' ; 44. AT: 07:37 And, um, so what you, what you do know about your mom' ; s or your family' ; s experience in camp? Is that from what she' ; s told you or how, where did you get this information? AK: 08:01 Well, from her, I mean, what she said and, um, she, I, from what I understand, I mean, she was very quiet, so she, uh, she didn' ; t go to dances and things like that, cause I believe they had dances and, um, activities, you know, like that. But, uh, so she never really said too much about it. Um, she came to Chicago and, uh, and that, you know, her, my stepfather. And, um, AT: 08:44 So, next can we, can you go into a little bit more about, uh, so your, your mom left camp, uh, in ' ; 43 or ' ; 40, and she was sponsored. Um, well I guess first just out of curiosity, were there any like, other stories or memories or anything else that you really heard about her particular experiences in camp? AK: 09:09 No. Sorry to say no. AT: 09:14 Um, then so how about when she, when she moved, she was sponsored by a family in Kalamazoo? AK: 09:21 Right then. Um, so we stayed there for about a year and then came here to Chicago and uh, trying to think, um, and she lived with my aunt and uncle for, uh, probably about a year or so. AT: 09:50 Where in Chicago or? AK: 09:53 Yeah. Um, you know, I can' ; t, I don' ; t know exactly where it was the North side of Chicago. Yeah, I' ; d had to be the North side of Chicago, I think. But. AT: 10:09 Did your father go to Kalamazoo as well? AK: 10:12 No. No. AT: 10:15 Do you know where he went? AK: 10:18 Uh, I believe you, he went to LA then, so. AT: 10:24 And so when your mom came to Kalamazoo, she was staying with a family and so was she doing kind of like domestic labor or, uh, AK: 10:39 Yeah, that and she was like babysitting for the family. AT: 10:44 And so it must, she must have been doing that maybe when she was pregnant with you. Yeah. Yeah. Cause you were born in ' ; 44. AK: 10:56 Right. AT: 10:58 Um, and then, so then she, she knew about family staying in Chicago. Is that right? AK: 11:08 Right. Yeah, that would' ; ve been my, my cousins. AT: 11:15 And your aunt and uncle. And so where, uh, when would that have been, do you think that you moved to Chicago? AK: 11:30 Um, probably, let' ; s see. It had to have been in ' ; 45, I think. ' ; 45, ' ; 46. AT: 11:44 And so where are you in the first memories? AK: 11:47 Uh, well I remember living on the South side, but, we were in a basement apartment. Um, because, let' ; s see, um, the grammar school then, uh, I went to kindergarten in, at Oakenwald and, um, and then after that we moved, uh, to the North side. I think we must' ; ve moved to the projects in, in, I' ; m trying to think. We moved to the projects in 1950 and, um, we were on the South side because, um, it must, you know, I don' ; t know exactly how. AT: 12:54 I understand this was a long time ago. AK: 12:58 I' ; m trying to figure right. Cause we were on the South side and then we moved to the North side. AT: 13:04 Um, and when you' ; re on the South side, it was just you and your mom? AK: 13:10 No, uh, my stepfather was there too, so. AT: 13:15 Um, and where did she meet your stepfather? AK: 13:19 Uh, Edgewater beach hotel. Cause, uh, he worked in the kitchen and she did too. And my uncle had worked in the kitchen. AT: 13:28 Is that how she had got the job through your uncle? AK: 13:31 Yeah. AT: 13:32 And so what, what kind of work was she doing there? AK: 13:36 Uh, um, you know, I really don' ; t, uh, know what kind of work other than either the kitchen or the way she was in housekeeping. Um, yeah, that' ; s all that, um. Speaker 2: 13:51 So it sounds like that might' ; ve been her first job that she took in Chicago. AK: 14:00 Right, right, AT: 14:02 And so do you think that would have been while you were living on the South side or. AK: 14:13 I, yeah, I think, uh, because we did start from the South side and then, uh, We lived in it, an apartment, uh, around Chicago and Clark area before moving to the, to Cabrini Green. AT: 14:35 Do you have, um, like any memories of what the neighborhood was like or like what, what Oakenwald was like when you were a kid? I again, AK: 14:46 No. AT: 14:46 It' ; s asking a lot. AK: 14:47 All I can, all I can remember, Um, cause there was, uh, another, uh, Japanese family, I think one or two Japanese families that we knew then. And um, the one family had, uh, an older daughter. And so she would walk me to school that, you know, other than that, no, cause it was, we weren' ; t there that long, so, um, yeah, sorry. AT: 15:23 No, no, no, no. Um, again, this big exercise of memory on this goes back a long time ago. Um, so, so you had been living on the South side and your, your mom had, and you had cousins and an aunt and uncles. How many cousins did you have that were here, AK: 15:48 Uh, two, two. AT: 15:51 Did you spend a bit of time with them? AK: 15:54 Uh, just, uh, it was rare, you know, we would just see each other every once in awhile, uh, because they were in the North side. Yeah. And, um, and then we didn' ; t have a car or anything. So, um, and then plus I think when we moved into the projects, uh, I don' ; t know how often they came down there or no, I don' ; t think they really, you know, particularly cared to come down into the projects and all. AT: 16:33 So, um, so just as far, far as timeline goes, you and your mom were on the South side and you went to Oakenwald for kindergarten. Um, and then was it from there that you moved? Um, further up North? AK: 16:53 Right, right. AT: 16:54 Okay. Um, AK: 16:56 Cause I, I, I know that, I think my first and second grade, this was, um, when we moved into, into the projects because I went to the Catholic school at Saint Dominic' ; s for the first two years. AT: 17:14 After moving? AK: 17:15 Yeah. AT: 17:17 And you said second or third grade? AK: 17:20 No, first and second grade. And then, uh, for third grade on up. Then I went to, uh, Edward Jenner. AT: 17:30 And do you remember where those schools were located? AK: 17:34 Um, Saint Dominic' ; s was located on Hudson. Just, uh, let' ; s see. Just north of Chicago Avenue and, uh, Jenner. Let' ; s see, Jenner was located on Cleveland. I know. Um, AT: 17:56 Okay. AK: 17:56 Cause it' ; s, it' ; s still there. Um, I dunno if it' ; s, if it' ; s Larrabee maybe, I can' ; t remember exactly what, but it' ; s within a couple of blocks of where we lived in the projects and all. And, um, I know that they tore down the old Edward Jenner and they built a new one. But, uh, yeah, I graduated from there and then went to, you know, Wells high school. So when I graduated from there, that was the last class that, uh, but have eighth grade because there were so many kids that, um, they changed it to, you could graduate up to sixth grade and then you went to, uh, upper grades, uh, Cooley Upper Grade Center, and then Cooley High School. I don' ; t think that' ; s there anymore. AT: 19:06 And, what, would you happen to know at what point or when, um, your mom and your stepm- stepdad, um, got married? AK: 19:18 Uh, it' ; ll probably be like a 1946 AT: 19:21 So relatively soon after you had come back to Chicago. AK: 19:30 Mmhmm. AT: 19:30 And, um, and then did they, did you have siblings? AK: 19:36 Yeah, there' ; s nine siblings. AT: 19:39 So you were, you were the eldest? AK: 19:41 Right. AT: 19:46 Yeah. And, uh, what is the general kind of like, age difference between you all, AK: 20:00 Um, AT: 20:00 Or when was your next sibling? AK: 20:02 Well, I was three, so then after that there' ; s like, AT: 20:08 and you can, if you want to give me the names too, of your siblings and the order AK: 20:12 Oh, okay. Yeah, it' ; s uh, Ellyn, E, L L Y N , and then Robert, uh, Bill, Phyllis, Donna, Roger, Pat, Annette and Linda. And there' ; s like, you know, between a and a year and a half, uh, between each, each kid. AT: 20:55 So you being three, it' ; s not you, it sounds like you had siblings. You got company, AK: 21:04 Yeah. AT: 21:06 Pretty shortly after moving to Chicago. Um, all right. Let' ; s see. So, Um, Do you know what your stepdad was doing at Edgewater beach hotel? AK: 21:24 I believe he was a cook there, you know, like a, um, I don' ; t know what kind of cooking was, you know, whether he was doing the salads or stuff like that. AT: 21:42 Um, and then, uh, AK: 21:53 Oh, maybe he might' ; ve been a waiter there. Well, I don' ; t, I don' ; t know. AT: 21:58 Your mom and your stepdad. Um, do you know how long they stayed at the Edgewater beach hotel? How long they were working there? AK: 22:08 Um, I think she, she, uh, quit, I don' ; t know how long she was there, but, uh, yeah, she quit working there and, um, He started working as a waiter over at a place called St Hubert' ; s grill, which I don' ; t think is, you know, uh, in existence anymore. But, um, um, yeah, I mean. He had a drinking problem, so this is why we continued to live in, you know, the projects and all, and, uh.vBecause all, all our other friends, especially Japanese, uh, families, you know, moved out fairly quickly. AT: 23:08 Moved out of... AK: 23:08 They moved out of the Cabrini Green and, you know, they were living in, uh, uh, homes and things like that. AT: 23:18 And your stepdad, was he living, you guys were living together in Cabrini. AK: 23:26 Mhmm. AT: 23:28 And so I' ; m sorry, what, what year was that? Probably around that you moved into Cabrini Green? AK: 23:35 1950. And then they moved out in 1967, which was just, you know, October of ' ; 67, which was just before, uh, the riots started in April because of Martin Luther King' ; s assassination. AT: 23:53 So you all were, you were through, there for about, um, about 17 years. AK: 23:59 it was 17 years. Yeah. AT: 24:01 Umm. And you mentioned there were a couple of other Japanese families there. What was, what was kind of the general demographics, um, when you, when you first moved in, of Cabrini Green, what was Cabrini Green like? AK: 24:19 Um, you know, actually the, there were like, uh, predominantly, uh, Caucasian, you know, Polish and, and Greeks and, uh, Italians. And then, um, I mean it was pretty well rounded. Um, but as I said, by 19, by the mid fifties, that had changed, especially since building the, um, they were starting to build the high rise and, um, uh, the influx of, of Appalachian whites and, and the blacks from, you know, the South and all. There was also a, uh, um, I think it' ; s still there, Lower North Center. It was a, um, uh, a place where the kids could go. Like after school they had like, uh, different, um, activities, you know, almost like an after school program, you know. It was, it was good. They had, during this summer, they had day camp. And, um, uh, you could take different classes and things like that. They had piano lessons. And AT: 25:51 is that something that you and your siblings took part in? AK: 25:55 We did the day camp, you know, during the summer. And um, I' ; m not sure. I don' ; t recall. There, they might have been too young to go the, but I think my sister and I went to a, some of the classes and whatnot. AT: 26:20 You said there' ; s piano classes? AK: 26:22 Yeah, well the piano classes, you know, it was a group piano lessons and um, so I took a couple of the classes but um, so I must' ; ve been about about 15 then. I think. Yeah. Cause I started working part time at um, Henrotin Hospital, which is no longer in existence, but it was a small hospital located on the Lasalle and Oak. AT: 27:02 What was the name of it? AK: 27:03 Henrotin, That' ; s H. E. N. R. O. T. I. N. I worked in the uh, uh, diet kitchen. So. AT: 27:17 And so was that, um, you must have still been in school at that point? AK: 27:22 Yeah I was in high school then. AT: 27:24 And so when would you work at the hospital? What hours? AK: 27:31 I think we worked from, uh 5 to 7:30, somewhere around there. Yeah. AT: 27:40 In the evenings, after school? AK: 27:44 Yeah, mhmm. AT: 27:49 And, um, just a few kind of general questions about growing up. Um, was your family religious at all? AK: 27:59 Yes, we, um, with one of the families, it was, uh, the Menominee family. They used to go to the, what we call the Chicago Avenue church, which is Reverend Oyama' ; s church. And it was on, uh, Chicago and Noble and, uh, they took us, uh, to the church and that was in ' ; 58. AT: 28:23 So, AK: 28:29 But prior to that, but prior to that, um, I believe it was either Wheaton, no, it must' ; ve been Moody Bible. Uh, students would have one of the, uh, vacant apartments and they would have a church and Sunday School there. And we would go to that. AT: 28:49 In the, AK: 28:49 In the projects. Yeah. AT: 28:54 Mmm. Was that something that was attended by folks who lived there or, AK: 28:59 Right, yeah. AT: 29:01 Um, and uh, AK: 29:06 But then when, when, uh, we were introduced to, uh, the Chicago Avenue Church, um, we started going there and, um, so somebody would pick us up and take us to a, uh, the Chicago Avenue Church. It was, what was it called? Uh, the Japanese Church of Jesus Christ. AT: 29:34 Mmm. And what, uh, what sect or, uh, denominations where. AK: 29:44 It was interdenominational. AT: 29:49 Um, and, and so was the, ' ; 58, um. Let' ; s see, so you would have been just about in high school when you stopped going to that church, is that right? AK: 30:10 Yeah. Yeah. AT: 30:13 Um, what about other activities outside of school? Did you do anything? You mentioned that the after school program, which used to, AK: 30:23 Well, once I started working then I didn' ; t have, so, uh. The church would have, uh, like a youth group on Saturdays. We could go to that. AT: 30:39 And um, well it sounds like it was a Japanese church, so it was mostly Japanese families? AK: 30:48 There were, uh, Caucasians also, but mainly Japanese AT: 30:52 Um, and well, and that' ; s right, you, you were, you are, the oldest 10 kids. So as the oldest where they, did, you have to kind of take on a lot of responsibilities to help out your mom? And. AK: 31:14 Yes, cause back in those days they did not have, um, disposable diapers and, um, you know, just cleaning, you know, doing the laundry. Um, and back in those days, we had, we had a wringer washer and, um, and then for, we had no dryer, so we' ; d have to either hang them outside or hang them in the, you know, in the apartment AT: 31:48 Mhmm, um. And also to just get a better sense, um, you know, of course Cabrini Green from its inception had seen like a lot of changes as far as the actual structures. And so when you moved in, uh, it looks, they would have just had the low rises at that point. AK: 32:16 Right. And Montgomery Wards was not too far from us. Cause it was right by the river there. Over near Chicago Avenue. Let' ; s see. I' ; m trying to think how old, like my sister and I, um, we got a job with IGA grocery store delivering the circulars in the row houses. AT: 32:45 I' ; m sorry, delivering the what? AK: 32:45 Circulars there. The grocery circulars, there' ; d be flyers. And, um, so we would get a dollar and a half and we' ; d have to, you know, put these flyers in every mailbox in, uh, uh, in the row houses. And so what we would do, we' ; d get them, we' ; d get them on Tuesday night, fold them and then, uh, deliver them on Wednesday. And, um, so we thought folding all those circulars was a lot of, you know, a lot of work and all, so we employed our younger siblings to help us and, you know, we' ; d give them a nickel or a dime. And back in those days, that was a lot of money. But, uh, they did it. So, um, AT: 33:44 Just delegated the task! AK: 33:45 Right. AT: 33:46 Do you remember how much you all were getting paid for it? AK: 33:49 Yeah, we got a 1.50 each. And that was, you know, for basically two nights worth of, uh, cause it took us maybe about, uh, two hours I think, you know, to deliver them cause we were walking and, um, it would be Cam-, let' ; s see, Cambridge, Mohawk, Cleveland and Hudson. Those are the streets. And I, you know, I don' ; t know. I can' ; t recall how many, uh, apartments. Uh, but, and then when the, when the high rise came, they wanted us to deliver him the circulars inside the, uh, the high rise. And I thought, no, because it was soon after they were built and everything and where the people were moving in, there was, you know, crimes happening and the elevators are breaking down and all. Um, I think we' ; d, we' ; d delivered it once. And what we did was we just threw all the circulars in the elevators and, and left because it was just too, uh, it was too scary to even go in there. So, um, so we decided it' ; s not worth it because we weren' ; t going to get paid any more. And, uh, so we just quit. AT: 35:18 Um, so I' ; ve, I' ; ve mentioned to you, it' ; s, you know, not very often that you get to hear from, uh, Japanese Americans who grew up in Cabrini Green. Um, and I' ; m just wondering, uh, if, well I guess that aside, I' ; m just, I' ; m curious to hear more about, what, I guess what Cabrini green was like in those earlier when it was just the low rise, AK: 35:55 Um, AT: 35:56 Because that' ; s when it was still new. AK: 35:57 Yeah. AT: 35:59 And my understanding, AK: 35:59 Cause they were built I think in the, uh, mid forties. AT: 36:05 What I, what I found was, um, the initial purpose, so was the Chicago Housing Authority and they had initially built it for, uh, workers during the war. AK: 36:19 Right. AT: 36:19 So people to help out with, um, that kind of stuff during the war, which was mid forties. Um, and it sounds like the, the original plan was to house people temporarily. AK: 36:33 Right. It was basically a housing for people to get on their feet, uh, after the war and all, and, uh, and, and a lot of people did. Um, but it was just, uh, it became a place, you know, for the poor. And, um, um, I think that, uh, you know, from, from my point of view or, you know, by, uh, perspective, um, it wasn' ; t as bad as, as, you know, living in the high rise projects, that to me was bad. And I think, you know, in retrospect, the whole idea, uh, of housing, all these poor people, you know, and so many was not, you know, uh, not, not a good thing, but, um, I don' ; t think that, um, you know, my family as a whole, had, you know, uh, problems or anything. Um, but we, we did know that we knew what we did not want in life. And, um, the only way to do it is through education and, and, uh, uh, just being, um, more positive, you know, rather than a negative. And so it was a good experience. Um, I mean, a lot of people think, Oh my God, you know, you, you lived in Cabrini Green and you' ; re a [how-bet?]. That' ; s what they hear about it now. And, um, but it wasn' ; t, you know, it wasn' ; t like that. Um, and I, I don' ; t think that, yeah, I don' ; t think that my siblings had any, any, uh, physical problems or, you know, fights or anything like that. There might' ; ve been one or two, but, um, on the whole, everybody knew the Prosises and, uh, AT: 38:55 And so is that your stepdad' ; s name? AK: 39:01 Yeah. Prosise. Yeah. AT: 39:03 What kind of name is that? AK: 39:05 It' ; s, um, I think French and in French and German. So, and he didn' ; t see, he came from Verdun, Illinois, which is a small, at that time, a small coal mining town or something like that. But, uh, AT: 39:26 And do you know when he moved to Chicago? AK: 39:29 No. Yeah. I don' ; t know. Cause he, no, he, he was a graduate of a Wesleyan and, um, but he didn' ; t do anything with his education, you know, so, um, but otherwise, uh, it was, it was, you know. Memories of him are horrible. So, you know, it' ; s, it' ; s uh, um, that part, you know, uh, of my childhood, I wouldn' ; t, you know, I don' ; t relish. So, but, but otherwise, you know, I think all my siblings came out fine and, and they' ; re doing well. Uh, my youngest brother wrote a book about his, uh. He, he States that, you know, he, he' ; s a product of the, uh, uh, Cabrini Green and then going to, uh, to the suburbs, you know, which he calls mansions and then the education, cause he was a district superintendent in Mundelein. And so, um, yeah. AT: 41:09 So we have a few minutes left, AK: 41:11 So if you want me to come back, I can come back. But it' ; s just a time when, because of we' ; re doing a luau, so I' ; m trying to get, you know, AT: 41:24 Oh, I see, sure. Well, and I want to get you out of here on time AK: 41:27 And I can also have my sister come to, uh, cause she' ; ll be moved in by then and whatnot. AT: 41:33 Uh which sister, would that be? AK: 41:33 That would be Ellyn. She' ; s righ, yeah. And she' ; s an educator. She' ; s a, uh, uh, she taught English, uh, high school English at Austin when it was, it had gone from one, when we were in high school. It was all white. When she was teaching there. It was totally black. And, um, uh, she was, uh, a good, you know, teacher and then she went over to Lakeview and she was there for about 25 years, so. AT: 42:10 Oh and well, and that was, uh, that' ; s actually, uh, something I was curious about. As far as the rest of your siblings, um, from the time that you all were living in Cabrini, did everyone kind of go through the same, uh, schooling as, as you did? So your siblings went through Jenner? AK: 42:30 Yeah. Well, yeah, they had different schools. They went to Jenner. And then, uh, let' ; s see, my sister Phyllis. Okay. Number five, she, this was when they instituted the program where, uh, the poor kids could go to better schools or whatever. And so she went to Von Steuben and cause I remember she would have to leave the house like six o' ; clock in the morning to get to Von Steuben from the projects and all. Um, so she went to Von Steuben. And then, uh, my brother Robert though, he went to Lane and bill went to Baller. And so Ellen and I went to Wells.And then by that time they had moved to, um, uh, the North side from, uh, Cabrini. They move over to, uh, what was it around Southport and Addison area. So they went to, um, Blaine elementary school and, uh, Lakeview. AT: 43:50 And would you, after high school, what did you move on to do, AK: 43:56 Ah, after, after high school I went to live with my aunt and uncle. AT: 44:01 Um, were they still on the North side? AK: 44:02 Yeah, they, it was over, uh, around, uh, uh, the uptown area. So I lived with them for four years, and then I went to, uh, I got my own apartment and, you know, I was working and everything. AT: 44:19 And what kind of work are you doing? AK: 44:22 Uh, office work. AT: 44:27 Um, And, uh, w- after living with your aunt and uncle and while you were, you know, as an adult, working adult, over, where did you move from there? AK: 44:49 Um, after my aunt and uncle, I got my first apartment, moved over around the Clark Fullerton area. Um, after that, uh, my sister and I got an apartment over on Broadway and Waveland. AT: 45:11 Um, so mostly sticking to the North side. AK: 45:14 Yeah. Yeah. AT: 45:28 I, I am considering asking you to, AK: 45:32 Ok, AT: 45:32 I just have, you know, a lot of questions, but I want to be sensitive to your time. Uh, I guess as we kind of wrap up, um, I would be curious. Well, Oh, one question I did want to ask was, uh, when you were going through your, um, schooling elementary and high school, were you going to school with other kids from Cabrini green or the kids of the schools, I guess, where were they coming from? AK: 46:06 Yeah. Uh, let' ; s see. Yeah, there were some, some kids from, uh, Cabrini cause, uh, I maintained, uh, uh, friendships and um, but you know, it' ; s strange because when I became like a junior, um, my friendships just changed and whatnot. And so, um, I, I really don' ; t know what ever happened to some of the kids, but, um, yeah, because then, you know, uh, I became more involved over a church and, and uh, um, AT: 46:59 In high school. AK: 47:00 Yeah. So I don' ; t, yeah, cause I didn' ; t have, uh, like friends, like in the projects area, it was, um, more on the outskirts cause they lived in, in, uh, apartment buildings and things like that. But, uh, yeah, there was only a couple of kids, a couple of girls that, you know, went to the same school because some of them, I can' ; t remember the names of the high schools that they went to, but it was more on the South side I think. AT: 47:43 And, um, how long were you attending the, um, Chicago Avenue Church? AK: 47:52 Uh, till about 1964. AT: 48:02 And did you start attending a different church? AK: 48:05 No, I sort of stopped going to church then. And, uh, which I did, but I would, you know, they built, they built another church on the Northside, uh, Clerk and Devon. And, uh, but in the interim they had, uh, uh, rented a facility over, uh, Trinity I think. Uh, so like on Ashland and Berteau somewhere in that area. And, um, so I' ; d go to church there, you know, in and out kind of thing. AT: 48:52 And I guess, uh, as we wrap up, I know we didn' ; t fully get to to everything, but it seems like even from a young age, whether it' ; s through church or families, you knew you were in some way kind of connected with a bigger Japanese American community in Chicago. Um, and I know you still are now, um, whether through church or, or the ukulele club. This is a very broad question, but how would you, I guess if you had to compare the Japanese American community of Chicago sort of in those earlier memories of it and compare it to now, what would you say? What has maybe changed or, or maybe what' ; s the same? AK: 49:54 I think that, um, I' ; m trying to think when, uh, cause cause we were involved with the, um, um, I think it has got NCAA or something. AT: 50:12 Uh, the athletic? AK: 50:12 Yeah. AT: 50:12 CNNAA. AK: 50:15 Yeah. CNNAA, yeah. Cause my, I know my youngest brother was, uh, involved in that cause he played basketball. Um, the other two not so much cause they were older and so they were working and whatnot. But, um, I think that some of the younger siblings were more involved in, in, uh, like baseball and volleyball and, you know, uh, activities, um, I was involved with, you know, the golfing and uh, but in comparison, um, I think because we, you know, we, we weren' ; t, yeah. You know, we weren' ; t real, well it' ; s only through church that we were involved in any of the activities and whatnot. Um, yeah. Cause some of the, you know, like my younger sisters were more involved, uh, in the church activities, um, than I was, you know, at that time. And, and uh, uh, my youngest brother was more involved in, uh, the church activities. The two older ones were not. So, um, yeah. AT: 51:55 And it was just like, what, what you' ; ve seen as far as maybe how people were organized then versus now? AK: 52:02 Um, yeah, I know that, that, uh, the, uh, the, the nisei at, at [Leonard Fink?], uh, was really good. And I don' ; t know if they have that now or not. I see. Cause I' ; m kind of out of the thing. I know that, that, uh, there' ; s, um, Ty Momii has the basketball camp, you know, at, at, uh, Ravenswood. But other than that, I don' ; t know. Uh, I don' ; t hear about it, you know, because I don' ; t have, uh, like my younger, all my siblings who are married and have kids, they' ; re all they' ; re, uh, involve either their own church or, um, their own community. So I don' ; t think that, I don' ; t, I don' ; t even know if they have, uh, uh, that social type of, uh, uh, organizations anymore. All right, you know. Because I mean, I used to Bowl the, uh, Southside, a Nisei league and all, you know, but that was a long time ago. So. AT: 53:20 When you were young, did you, um, have a connection with your Japanese American identity? AK: 53:27 No, because, uh, I didn' ; t go to, um, I think it was Olivet, used to have dances when, ah. I just never had time for that, so, and I don' ; t know how to dance anyway, so. AT: 53:48 Well, um, I know you have to go and thank you for, for taking the time. Um, if it' ; s okay with you, I would love to, to talk to you more, maybe another session. Um, but before we wrap up now, is there anything else that you might want to add or that I might' ; ve missed? AK: 54:13 Uh, No not really. AT: 54:13 And, and if, if so, we can kind of just call this part one and then, you know, talk another time. But thank you so much again for coming. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KojimaAiko20181018.xml KojimaAiko20181018.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Untold+Stories& ; layout=1
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Kojima, Aiko (10/18/2018, 11/29/18)
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2018-10-18
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Series: Untold Stories
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Kuramitsu, Keilyn
Interviewee
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Kuramitsu, Hawao
OHMS Object Text
5.4 11/16/2017 Kuramitsu, Hawao (11/16/2017) 0:41:40 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Kuramitsu, Hawao Kuramitsu, Keilyn video 0 https://vimeo.com/302205865 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/302205865?h=638c7156c2" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] KeilynKuramitsu: 00:00 Where were you born and raised? Hawao Kuramitsu: 00:02 Where was I born? KK: 00:04 And raised? HK: 00:06 In Honokaa, Hawai' ; i. KK: 00:09 What, what' ; s your birthday? HK: 00:11 March 27, 1925. KK: 00:18 What can you tell me about growing up in Hawai' ; i? HK: 00:21 Hawai' ; i was lot, lots of fun. Freedom. Lots of fresh fruits, you know out of the trees and the weather was nice. And I, I lived a, about half a mile away from the ocean up in the hill or so. The ocean we could see it right there. KK: 00:55 What are some of your fondest memories of living on the Big Island? HK: 01:02 On the Big Island? KK: 01:04 Yeah. What are some of your fond memories? Do you have any specific memories of things you did with friends, with HK: 01:10 Oh, well, you know, we didn' ; t have much to do. We, the ocean was so far away. Um, the only swimming we could do was in a pond. Oh, what we, what we did was we went to the uh, big, um, uh, where, where they kept water and you know, that' ; s how we, in a water cooled off from the heat. KK: 01:48 So how long did you live in Hawai' ; i? HK: 01:51 All my life until I came to the mainland. KK: 01:55 When did you come to the mainland? HK: 01:58 19, I think it was 1958. KK: 02:04 What brought you to the mainland? HK: 02:06 I went to school. KK: 02:09 Where did you go to school and what did you study? HK: 02:11 Chicago. I went into uh youth work? KK: 02:18 So what did you do exactly? HK: 02:20 Hm? KK: 02:20 What did you do? HK: 02:22 What did I do? KK: 02:23 Yes. What' ; s youth work? HK: 02:26 Well, after I graduated I, I always, ah, I need into camping. They offered me camping so I, my life was camping. KK: 02:39 So what did you do? Did you work at a camp? Did you operate a camp? HK: 02:44 I operated a camp. Re recruit, recruited the kids, but ah, hard work was a person checking you and but after that the teacher would be coming back all the time though we weren' ; t, wasn' ; t that hard work. It was ah, it was okay. I enjoyed it. KK: 03:17 Who were the kids that came to your camp and what was your camp called? HK: 03:20 Oh, Camp Shannon. And uh the kids were inner city kids, from uh, from the community green and from the near South side. KK: 03:36 And what did they do at camp? HK: 03:38 What did they do? Everything they enjoyed it, they must have if they were coming back. KK: 03:46 Were there activities for the kids? HK: 03:48 Well, yes. Everything. We had counselors, I work with them to swimming. KK: 03:59 So in 1958 you moved to Chicago from the Big island of Hawai' ; i. HK: 04:05 Right. KK: 04:13 And you moved to Chicago for school? HK: 04:16 I went to school, yes. KK: 04:18 Where did you go to school and what did you study? HK: 04:20 Youth work. KK: 04:23 Okay. What, what college or university? HK: 04:29 George Williams College. They' ; re anymore, they were on the South side. KK: 04:46 What was your first impression of Chicago? HK: 04:50 I liked it. You know there' ; s so much to do. We had a change of a climate, summer, winter. And I, I enjoyed the snow too anyway. KK: 05:05 You did? HK: 05:08 Oh yeah. KK: 05:10 Was it a difficult transition to go from living on an island to a city in the middle of the country? HK: 05:21 No. No. No difference. Except that the weather, it was either cold or hot. KK: 05:31 What about food? HK: 05:33 Food, didn' ; t matter. Because I like any kind of food. KK: 05:41 So I want to backtrack for a second and ask you about Pearl Harbor. HK: 05:51 Pearl Harbor KK: 05:51 What do you remember that day and if so, what can you tell me about that day? HK: 05:57 See the date I' ; m not sure. Whether, you know, it' ; s been so long. I think it' ; s, 1940, 1941 or so. It was on a Sunday. I usually get up early and then I heard it over the radio. You know, they were bombing Pearl Harbor and so we ran, I ran out but they sent us all home and we, had to stay in our vicinity, in the home. Blackout. KK: 06:41 Who sent you home? HK: 06:42 Oh, they had a, you know people that were in charge. KK: 06:48 Who is in charge? HK: 06:49 Oh, the, the, well, the gov, the State. They had people, the Army. KK: 07:00 Were Japanese Americans or Hawaiian Americans telling you you had to? HK: 07:05 No, no, no. We had, they stayed away from anything. They left it alone because that was the best thing they did. There wasn' ; t a, like the main land where they move them. They couldn' ; t move us anyway. There wouldn' ; t have been enough space. There wouldn' ; t have been enough people to do it. KK: 07:29 But were are you afraid? HK: 07:31 No, no, no. It was okay. KK: 07:37 Um, tell me about your parents. HK: 07:41 My parents, my parents, my dad was a, from Japan. My mom was from Hawai' ; i, so I' ; ve, I, I know you ah, Yonsei, fourth generation because she was born in Hawai' ; i too. KK: 08:03 What were your parents HK: 08:05 He, he, he was a mechanic. Had his own garage and he did real well. KK: 08:15 Why did he move from Japan to Hawai' ; i? HK: 08:18 Well, looking for something better to do and he did okay. He' ; d traveled back and forth. KK: 08:28 Did he ever have any problems traveling to and from Japan? HK: 08:31 No, no, no, no. KK: 08:31 Did he travel before and after the war or did it end? When did that end? HK: 08:40 Before the war. It ended when the war started though. He couldn' ; t go back until after the war was over. KK: 08:55 And what did your mom do? HK: 08:57 My mom was a housewife. She didn' ; t like to move, she didn' ; t like to roam around. So she just stayed there. KK: 09:09 How did your parents meet? HK: 09:12 Well, if I guess ah, they must have, you know, somebody in between and. KK: 09:18 And what were they like? HK: 09:24 Oh, they were like, okay. They never bothered me because they never saw me anyway. KK: 09:33 Why did they never see you? HK: 09:34 Because I wasn' ; t home at, you know, that, that often. I never had meals with them. KK: 09:42 Were you always busy? HK: 09:42 Busy doing something else with a, you know, my friends and. We were, we were big. You know, I like my a, I, I like my, about playing baseball and basketball and well so, that' ; s what we did all the time. KK: 10:07 Did life change after Pearl Harbor, for you? HK: 10:16 Uh, hard to say because I wasn' ; t doing anything and nothing bothered us. We weren' ; t, you know, they didn' ; t put us in a cage or put us in a Camp or anything. We had all the freedom so. KK: 10:34 Was anything different? HK: 10:35 Different for me? No. You know, yeah. I grew up, my community, a lot of Filipinos, so I grew up, you know, among them. There was only one Chinese. We were good friends, went to school together. No Koreans. No, no, no whites. No, whites were more upper level in a big, big, big get all the money and so. KK: 11:18 Was it, what was it like to move from a place where you' ; re not a minority, being a Japanese American in Hawai' ; i, there are a lot of different Asians living in Hawai' ; i. What' ; s it like going from that type of environment to now moving in Chicago, in which nobody looks like you, everyone looks a lot different? HK: 11:50 Actually. Uh, uh, you know, the the whites are, the brothers were in Chicago, so we had back up and it made no difference for us. We, you know, we were, we would be going to fishing and camping. KK: 12:27 So why did it not make any difference to you? Were you still being treated the same? Like you were in Hawai' ; i? HK: 12:36 Well, nobody bothered us and our, there were lots of Japanese here in Chi, Chicago area so. KK: 12:46 So HK: 12:50 My, my biggest, uh, thing was when I, I graduated college, uh, camping. I went into camping in the, there was a church group that we connected and they, you know, we became very good friends and they were basically all Japanese so. KK: 13:10 Do you know the church group? HK: 13:18 Uh, they' ; re, they' ; re all gone but the church is still there. KK: 13:25 Do you know what the church is called? HK: 13:28 Uh, no. I forgot but it' ; s on the near West side and the North side, Rockwell Street area. KK: 13:48 How did you connect with that church group? HK: 13:54 Oh, I would say, uh, when I took over the camp, I had lots of people, you know, friends that would come and help me in camp. Set up the camp, clean the camp and you know, a few of them were very good friend, neighbors where I lived. And you know, they had the church there, they came up and they liked it because they had good time. KK: 14:33 Were you religious? HK: 14:35 Hm? KK: 14:35 Were you religious growing up? HK: 14:37 Who? Me? No, I wasn' ; t. We were, we were never that religious. No. KK: 14:48 So why did you join the church group? HK: 14:52 I didn' ; t join them, they joined me. In a, in a way ours happen to have them because they, they were helping me and they were happy to be busy doing something on the weekends and operation goal. KK: 15:10 And it must be it, what, what was it like to find a community in Chicago? What was it like when you discovered a bunch of Japanese Americans? HK: 15:24 Uh, well to begin with. At the uh, her brothers were here, so you know, it wasn' ; t that hard. You' ; re gonna they had their family and, yeah. KK: 15:55 Can we talk about the period in between? So Pearl Harbor happens in 1941, you moved to Chicago in 1958. HK: 16:07 Right. KK: 16:08 So can we talk about the years? 1941 to 1958, what were you doing and where were you? HK: 16:18 Oh, where was I? I was home. Oh KK: 16:22 So following Pearl Harbor HK: 16:25 Oh it, I minded that nothing but uh, we were, we, we we did everything we wanted to do. We uh, we got married during that time and uh, we had a kid, and when then we decided, you know, I would like to go to school. So we came up to the mainland. I used to spend a lot um working with young kids. KK: 16:54 Um, specifically after Pearl Harbor, what did you do? HK: 17:07 Pearl Harbor? KK: 17:08 December 7th, 1941. HK: 17:11 Nothing much. Just we, because we couldn' ; t go out, blackout. We had to stay quite awhile. Every day was blackout, no school. KK: 17:26 So what was blackout exactly? HK: 17:29 No lights, in the night. KK: 17:33 You, you weren' ; t allowed to go to school? HK: 17:36 Huh? KK: 17:36 You weren' ; t allowed to go to school? HK: 17:38 Oh no, no, no, no. Yeah, our school was closed too. KK: 17:43 For how long? HK: 17:44 I would say half a year, I think. KK: 17:46 Why was the school closed? HK: 17:52 Because of the war. KK: 17:56 So you had to be in your home at a certain time? HK: 18:03 Right. KK: 18:03 You had to have the lights out? No lights? HK: 18:05 No lights, no. KK: 18:08 And school was closed? HK: 18:10 Blackout. KK: 18:12 What did you do? HK: 18:17 Read. You know, listen to TV, you know, I mean uh, at that time TV wasn' ; t that good, but the radio. And we were at a ballpark playing, getting together and so we, we, we it was okay. We amused ourselves. KK: 18:50 You okay? HK: 18:55 I' ; m okay. KK: 18:58 Do you want any water or tissues? HK: 18:59 No. KK: 19:03 How old you were? Let' ; s see. 1940 you' ; re 21 when Pearl Harbor happened. No, no, sorry, no, you were 17 when Pearl Harbor happened? HK: 19:18 Something like that, yeah. KK: 19:20 So you were still in high school? HK: 19:22 I was still in high school, yeah. I think uh, I think a Sophomore maybe. KK: 19:34 So. HK: 19:34 And then we, we missed half, a half a year of school. And then when I went back I was a junior. KK: 19:43 Was it difficult? HK: 19:45 Oh, no, no, no. We were happy to be back in school because I got to see all our friends. KK: 19:56 Did you ever hear any stories, um, during this time about Japanese Americans being seen as disloyal or helping Japan or anything like that? HK: 20:13 Oh no, no no, no. They had no problem in Hawai' ; i. They had, as far as we know none, none around. Except um, Kibei' ; s or. See the first people that they took in were the priest and what. Then the ones that were, you know, very, um, they took quite heavily in the church and those people, they, they picked up and they, they were in camp. KK: 20:53 Why did they take those people? HK: 20:57 Well, they, they, they never gave them a chance to be, you know, they' ; re very probably [coughing]. Probably loyalty. They had no choice but. KK: 21:20 Was there any fear that your father would be taken away? HK: 21:26 No. He, he had, uh, [coughing] he had a good record. And, uh, he was, he, many of the big, big timers. Why, why they liked him because he, he, he took care of there uh, you know, what their, their needs. So they didn' ; t want to lose him and he was okay. He, all he did was do his thing and. KK: 22:04 Was there a story where you thought that he might be taken away and the family had to pack bags? HK: 22:12 Well, when they, when they, when they took the, uh, church, uh, priests, you know, my dad was very, very close to the church and what. But they, like I say, the people liked him and they vouched for him and. KK: 22:36 So what did you do after graduating high school? HK: 22:40 Who me? I uh, I worked at, uh, I, well, well I just uh stayed back and um, worked with my dad, in the garage. KK: 23:00 When did you join the military intelligence service? HK: 23:05 When they drafted me. KK: 23:07 When did they draft you? HK: 23:10 Gee, it' ; s been a long time. 19, just before the war broke out, I was in the Army. KK: 23:28 Before the war? HK: 23:31 Just before. KK: 23:31 So before Pearl Harbor? HK: 23:38 Mhm. No no no, after Pearl Harbor. KK: 23:46 Mmm. HK: 23:46 Because, uh, my, my recollection is there were, sending us to uh, you know, language school. There were so many, you know in the Army. And they were sending us for interpreters and uh, the war ended when we were on a boat heading for the mainland to school. KK: 24:15 Hmm HK: 24:16 But they continued send out, when I ended up in Texas for basic training. KK: 24:26 What was that experience like? HK: 24:28 Okay. You know, you were with your friends and we did together everything. We were, we were a little better than the minority, the Black, you know, they were segregated like that but on a bus they had to sit in the back, but we all sat in the back too, because many of our, our group was Hawaiians and they were dark skinned too. Yeah. You have to use a different toilet that was in Texas. KK: 25:12 Was that surprising for you? HK: 25:14 Well for us? Well, it didn' ; t bother us. We, we, we, we uh, basically we all, well we were Black. So we were in the back of the bus, the driver didn' ; t like it, but what could he do? In town, we used the, you know, segregated bathroom and. KK: 25:44 Why did you feel like you were Black instead of white? HK: 25:48 Because we weren' ; t white. I guess our feeling was that we will, you know, we minority we have to back, you know, help each other. KK: 26:11 Was there segregation in Hawai' ; i? HK: 26:18 Yeah, I don' ; t think so. Because otherwise, you know, they couldn' ; t do that to the Japanese because majority and so they just left people alone, which was the best thing they did. KK: 26:38 So you, so you didn' ; t experience segregation until you came to the mainland? HK: 26:45 Segregation, yes, no. Especially in Texas. KK: 26:47 What was that like? HK: 26:52 When we up, when we went to north. North defense. I spent time at a Minneapolis language school, we were there. So Chicago, you know, Chicago was six hours, so whenever we had, they all could, we all go to, we all came to Chicago. KK: 27:38 So when you were in language school, what did you do? How did they, how did they train you? Or teach you? And who did you train alongside, other Japanese Americans, different minorities, Caucasians? HK: 27:51 There, there were, you know, Kibei. In other words, you know, Japanese American, Japanese, American, but they were very good, they were Japanese and Japan and American, a relationship there. And, uh, they were a lot of a very good ah teachers, you know, no, none, none were white though. KK: 28:23 What were your living accommodations like? Did you live with all Japanese American soldiers or did you live with other people? Was it segregated or no? HK: 28:34 Oh no, no, no, no. KK: 28:37 We, we, we, we were a mix. Like I say, Filipinos, Portuguese. HK: 28:46 But no white people? KK: 28:53 Well, Portuguese were white. HK: 28:53 Okay. Umm. So why, so how, for how long did were you training for the military intelligence service? And when did they send you back to Hawai' ; i? HK: 29:24 Oh, oh, my military career was going to, you know, the school. And I know I say a year and a half my military and then in the end, they sent us home. KK: 29:44 And then what did you HK: 29:45 They were, say uh, they, they, they couldn' ; t turn us, not that, they didn' ; t want to send us to Japan because our time was almost over and it was just like a free trip going and they have, they have to send you home. So they said I' ; m just going home. KK: 30:07 What did you do after, once you returned to Hawaii? HK: 30:11 Yeah, I think I didn' ; t do much. I just stayed. KK: 30:17 Do you remember what year they sent you back to Hawaii? HK: 30:20 No, it' ; s been so long ago. KK: 30:24 When did you meet your wife? Do you remember what year that was or what you were doing? HK: 30:31 Quite awhile. A long time ago. KK: 30:42 Why did you never visit Japan? HK: 30:49 Well, I went to language school, but uh, I guess my time was closed, why they didn' ; t send me. And I wasn' ; t that interested in a way. Some of my friends says, well, you were lucky because, you know, they didn' ; t like, they didn' ; t like the Japanese. That interpreters, that you know like most of them, most of the interprets were from Hawaii so was dark skin like, where the other Japanese were white like. So they treated them um not, well, when they had day off, they' ; d go down, you know, to the restaurants and what. They cater to the Americans, but the Japanese, you know, you had to, the Japanese ignored you. Well, they didn' ; t like us to begin with, so you know, it' ; s like, why are you here? You know, they wonder why. KK: 32:11 So why weren' ; t you interested in going to Japan? Because you heard that Japanese people were not kind HK: 32:20 No, no KK: 32:20 to Japanese Americans? HK: 32:21 No, actually, my, my time was almost up and I wasn' ; t gonna spend three more years, so. KK: 32:32 But why did you personally, you know, even years later, you know, decades later, why did you HK: 32:37 Well, I wasn' ; t that interested in going, I haven' ; t been there period. KK: 32:44 But why no interest? HK: 32:46 No interest. KK: 32:46 But why? HK: 32:50 Oh well, I just didn' ; t care to go. I guess. KK: 33:05 When you moved to Chicago in 1958 did you, did you intend to stay in Chicago? HK: 33:16 Well, when I, when I graduated and, uh, from college and you know, in interview I had offer from Hawaii to go back, to work. But what you call, but mom, she says I' ; m not going back. He was an immigrant and going back to Hawaii again. And in a time I got tied in with camping so. KK: 33:46 Why didn' ; t your wife want to go back to Hawaii? HK: 33:53 Well, her family was all here. KK: 33:59 Was that a difficult decision for you? HK: 34:02 No. No, no, no. I, you guys have made it easier for me because then I could just take camping. KK: 34:14 Do you have any fond memories or what, what are some of your fondest memories of living and working in Chicago? HK: 34:26 Well, I would say, you know, I had never any kind of a problem with people. We are, we' ; ve made good friends with, you know, different people, the church group. Well, you might, because I was in camping so they would, I got to know many of them and uh, I would say, we just establish, established ourselves. Um, suddenly I realized that you made more money by being up here. KK: 35:17 Can you tell me more information about the Japanese American community in Chicago? Where most people lived? What most people like to do? HK: 35:27 No. You see, I don' ; t, I because I was camping. I wouldn' ; t, I didn' ; t spend too much time in Chicago. I was away. The only time I saw many people were when they came to camp. And grammar, grammar, taught school. So she didn' ; t want to move too. KK: 35:57 Where did you live when you first moved to Chicago? HK: 36:07 Northside. KK: 36:10 Do you remember the address? HK: 36:13 No. Oh, we were at Agatite 9 whatever. Then we moved to uh well, a [Argyle?]. KK: 36:24 Barnard Street, Barnard. HK: 36:35 Yeah. KK: 36:35 Where you were living, were there other Japanese American families living in those areas? HK: 36:44 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. They were all over. KK: 36:48 So when you lived in Chicago, you' ; ve lived in Chicago since 1958 that' ; s you know, over 50 years, living in Chicago. It' ; s more over 60 years actually. You' ; ve never, you never in Chicago, ever experienced any, any racism or was made uncomfortable? HK: 37:18 Oh no, no, no. Well actually, you had your own friend, and you know family and you know. KK: 37:28 Did it seem that people generally accepted Japanese Americans? HK: 37:32 Oh yeah, they accepted. KK: 37:41 Why did you decide to study youth work? HK: 37:44 Hm? KK: 37:44 Why did you decide to study youth work? HK: 37:47 Why did I decide? KK: 37:49 To study youth work? HK: 37:54 Study? KK: 37:54 You studied youth work at George Williams College. Why did you decide to study? HK: 38:00 What? Studied what? KK: 38:02 You studied youth work. Why did you choose to study that? HK: 38:07 Oh, because I wanted to work with young kid. KK: 38:13 Why did you want to work with young kids? HK: 38:16 Because I, before I moved here, I spend a lot of time one, a boy scout and and then all of a sudden I had a chance to go to school and get paid to do something like that too. KK: 38:38 What did you like about working with young kids? HK: 38:43 Oh, it was fun, doing this, doing that and they, you know, the enjoyed, big smiles and. KK: 39:02 What did you do with your free time when you weren' ; t working? What were some of your hobbies in Chicago? HK: 39:22 Oh, nothing much, I liked to cook, garden. KK: 39:37 What did you like to cook? HK: 39:37 Huh? KK: 39:39 What do you like to cook? HK: 39:40 Anything KK: 39:46 Did you cook? Did you learn how to cook when you were young or when? How did you learn how to cook? HK: 39:52 No. No. When I, when I worked with a young kid, boy scout. KK: 40:08 Is there anything I didn' ; t ask you that you wished I asked or anything you want to say about your life that I didn' ; t touch upon? HK: 40:17 No, I think uh, I enjoyed what I did, what I had. I, uh, nothing, nothing, nothing can take the place of doing what you wanted to do and my big thing was working with young kids and uh. KK: 40:38 What are some of your hopes for. HK: 40:59 Hm? KK: 40:59 What are some of your hopes for future generations, or do you have any advice for your grandchildren? HK: 41:08 Okay, hope they do what they want to do and have a good life. KK: 41:18 What' ; s a good life? HK: 41:22 When, when you are, well, when you did things and you enjoyed it. And you, you did it because you enjoyed it and had a good time. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KuramitsuHawao20171116.xml KuramitsuHawao20171116.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Kuramitsu, Hawao (11/16/2017)
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2017-11-16
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
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This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Interviewer
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Takada, Anna
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Kurisu, Eunice
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/23/2017 Kurisu, Eunice (9/23/2017) 0:51:52 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Kurisu, Eunice Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/300641403 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/300641403?h=165a281d22" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00 Hi, can you just state your first and last name? Eunice Kurisu: 00:04 Eunice Kurisu. AT: 00:06 Okay, and then, um, so where, where and when were you born? EK: 00:13 I was born in Norwalk, California, August, the 10th, 1925. AT: 00:20 And can you tell me a little bit about your hometown? EK: 00:24 I really don' ; t know much about it. And we moved several times in a very short period of time. And my father passed away when we, I was not quite four. So, um AT: 00:42 Where, where would you move to? Where were some of the places you were moving? EK: 00:50 Um, I really don' ; t remember, exactly. But we ended up, that I could remember, was Santa Monica. And, um, my mother worked as a custodian in the church there. AT: 01:10 And did you have any siblings? EK: 01:13 I have two older brothers and a sister, brother, younger. So I' ; m the middle child. AT: 01:20 Okay, so five total? EK: 01:21 Five children. AT: 01:23 And so was it, it was just your mom and your siblings when you were moving around? EK: 01:26 No, well, at first, um, there were four of us siblings actually when my father passed away and my mother remarried a couple of years later and my younger brother was born, so he' ; s a stepbrother. But AT: 01:42 And, um, when did she marry your stepfather? EK: 01:50 Um, 1931, I believe. AT: 01:57 And, and what did he do? What did your stepfather do? EK: 02:03 Huh? AT: 02:03 For work? EK: 02:05 Oh, he was a gardener. Not a very efficient one because apparently he didn' ; t work too well, but, so my mother was really the breadwinner actually. AT: 02:22 So was Santa Monica the the place you remember the best of your childhood? EK: 02:29 No, not really. Um, we, after we married, after they got married and my brother was born, we lived near Hollywood for a short period of time. And then we moved to, um, a Japanese family was moving to Japan and they had a chicken farm. And so we moved there. And that was in Vernon, California. AT: 02:59 And how long was your family there? EK: 03:00 We were there probably from 1933 til 1940. AT: 03:10 So quite some time. Seven years. EK: 03:13 Yeah. And, uh, the summer of 1940, the property was sold, so we had to move and, uh, we were able to purchase some acreage in Downey and we lived there for, until the war broke out. AT: 03:33 What kind of property was it or what were you farming? EK: 03:37 Well, it was, still. She still stayed with the chickens, but it was a five acre lot and it had a lot of fruit trees on it. And she worked very hard all those years. AT: 03:55 And as a, as a child, um, what was that like moving around so often? Did you like it or? EK: 04:04 Didn' ; t know any better. AT: 04:06 Sure. And um, and what about, um, school for you as a kid? EK: 04:18 It went fairly well, I guess. I, um, when I lived near Hollywood and I went to grammar school there and um, for some reason or other that they skipped me a half a year, in second grade, then they, the following year they skipped me another half a year. So I was a year ahead of most and so my age. Which now that I look back could be not an advantage really, since you' ; re not mature enough to, you know, associate with kids a year, younger year, older than you are. AT: 05:04 And in some of these areas that you were going to school, um, did you know other Japanese American families? EK: 05:12 I can' ; t remember any, uh, except after we moved to Vernon, there were several Japanese families. Yes. AT: 05:22 So was that, was that a different kind of experience? EK: 05:25 Well, yeah, in a way it was, it was a little different, but we never lived, uh, really in the Japanese community as such. And my mother was a hardworking woman and there was very little time for social activities. So we pretty much had to entertain ourselves. AT: 05:52 The kids? EK: 05:54 Well, we were in a rural area, so. AT: 05:59 And, um, did your parents come to the U.S. from Japan? EK: 06:05 Yes, yes. My mother and father came in, uh, um, early part of 1920, ' ; 21. And, um, my oldest brother, my mother was pregnant with my oldest brother about seven months and she would definitely wanted him to be born here. So she came on the ship. AT: 06:36 Why was that? EK: 06:38 Well, because she wanted him to be born in the United States and as it would happen, um, after my father passed away, um, there were four of us. My youngest sister was about a month and a half old at the time. And, um, her parents in Japan wanted to have her come back to Japan to help take care of us. But she said that they' ; re all American citizens and they' ; re going to stay here. AT: 07:20 And, and your parents where in Japan were they from? EK: 07:24 Kagawa ken AT: 07:26 Both of them? EK: 07:27 Yes. Well, no, I' ; m not sure about my father. I just remember my mother saying as she was. AT: 07:37 And then, uh, where were you in Vernon, um, when, uh, the war broke out? EK: 07:46 No, we were in Downey. AT: 07:48 In Downey? EK: 07:48 Yes. Because that was in 1941, December. Uh, so we have been just been in Downey for a year when the war broke out. And, um, that year, September we were able to buy our first brand new car. It was a four door, Plymouth and December, the war broke out and we went to camp in April 14th of ' ; 42. AT: 08:28 When, when your family got that car, was that, was that exciting news? EK: 08:34 Yes, it was. Well, of course, you know, we were all, we had nothing but used cars up until then. So it was really, it was nice. AT: 08:50 And, um, so in December, do you remember the actual day that Pearl Harbor was attacked? EK: 09:00 It was a Sunday afternoon. AT: 09:03 And do you remember what you were doing at the time or when you found out about it? EK: 09:08 I can' ; t. We probably had gone to church that morning and sometime in the early afternoon. I' ; m not sure. We must' ; ve heard it on the radio. AT: 09:25 How old would you have been? How old were you at that time? EK: 09:27 I would have been 16. AT: 09:36 And, um, what kind of church did your family go to? EK: 09:41 It was called the Union Church of Los Angeles. So it' ; s um congregational and Presbyterian. AT: 09:55 Uh, did you always go to church since you could remember, since you were a kid? EK: 09:59 Going? AT: 09:59 Going to church, did you always go to church? EK: 10:05 Oh yes. As a child, yes, we all went. AT: 10:13 When you were in high school, did you do any other extracurriculars or anything outside of school? EK: 10:19 Um, no, not really. I helped with my mother with eggs, every afternoon it was the seven day week job. AT: 10:34 So that would be outside of school hours? EK: 10:36 Yeah. Yeah. AT: 10:38 And, and what were some of the tasks that you had? EK: 10:40 Well, it was mostly in sorting out the eggs and um, cleaning them if they were dirty and then weighing them to make sure, you know, large, medium, small. AT: 10:55 And was that something that all of your siblings did? EK: 10:58 Well, I did. My brother' ; s helped with the feeding of the chickens everyday. And taking care of them otherwise. AT: 11:12 So when you were 16 and you, you got the news about Pearl Harbor, did you think anything of it or what, what was your reaction? EK: 11:19 Well, typical teenager, you know, could change at the time, but as time went on, it got more serious. We didn' ; t know what was coming. AT: 11:38 Did you talk about it with your family, your parents, or your older brother? EK: 11:43 Probably with my brothers, a little bit, but we didn' ; t anticipate what would happened. AT: 11:52 And then, um, when did he, do you know, remember when the Evacuation Orders came out or when you heard about them? EK: 12:00 It was, it was probably the early part of April or end of March or early part of April. Yeah. And actually the one notice that we got that we had to be at a certain place at a certain time was a week before. So April 7th, I guess, cause we, we boarded a bus with what we could carry, not knowing for me, we were going on the 14th, and then we ended up in Santa Anita. AT: 12:42 Can you tell me a little bit more, if you' ; re able to remember. Um, can you describe what, what happens and, and what was going on with your family when you got those orders? When you instructed by your, your? EK: 13:04 My mother never said too much about it, and we just followed instructions when she gave us some. But, um, I remember, um, when we got the date that we had to be at a certain place was a week before and I had to call my oldest brother who had just graduated from USC and he was working in something there. And so I had to call him on the phone to tell him that he had to come home right away and get ready to leave. That was the most that I can remember. AT: 13:53 And so that, that phone call that was on you to make, not your mom? EK: 14:01 Yeah, I made, I made the phone call because she had other things to get together with only a week to do it in, you know. So. AT: 14:18 So did your, your mother, did she have to sell the car and the land? EK: 14:24 I really don' ; t know what happened, but we left it on the property. And it was leased to um [Grain and Milling Company?] That they bought the feed to feed chickens from. And I don' ; t know what the details of that were. AT: 14:43 And then so, your oldest brother, did he meet you back, um, at home or did you meet somewhere else? EK: 14:51 Oh, no, he came, he was living at home at the time. He just happened to be at work when I heard news and I had tell him to um, come home. AT: 15:03 And then, so, um, how did you all get to Santa Anita? EK: 15:12 Our neighbor across the street who had a, dairy drove us up to the corner of Paramount and Firestone in Downey. We didn' ; t know what we' ; re gonna see, but we' ; ve got a, they loaded us on buses. They didn' ; t tell us anything. AT: 15:37 Were there. Were there other families? EK: 15:39 Yes, yes, yes. It was a full bus. AT: 15:48 And um, how long was that, that trip? Cause you' ; re, you on the bus, you didn' ; t know where you were going? EK: 15:54 Um, probably a little bit more than half an hour. They did, we got off the bus and there were words and Anita and the Burks were not completed yet. So we were housed in the stables for about a month or so until they completed. AT: 16:23 When you arrived, um, did you have to register or anything or what happened? EK: 16:28 Yes. Well, like I say, the parents did everything, so I just tagged along. You go here, you go there. But um, it was the younger kids, they didn' ; t really care about what was happening there, just to be in a different place and. People, um, after, after we were settled, um, we were able to get a job, something within the camp too. Um, and uh, I worked in the recreation department and they organized a baseball league for after dinner. And my job was to keep track of the standings of the teams and betting averages, which they printed in the camp newspaper every week. And my, my oldest brother was on the editorial staff, Santa Anita paper, Pacemaker it was called. AT: 18:01 Why was it called that? Do you know? EK: 18:07 It, part of the horse racing thing, I guess. I don' ; t know who named it, but that' ; s what they called it at time. AT: 18:18 Do you remember your own first impressions of Santa Anita when you arrived? EK: 18:24 Well, it was different. It was um, because everybody you saw was Japanese, which was unusual for me to be in that environment. Um, but you, you know, they' ; re people just like you are, you know, so. We got along as pretty much, I know my younger brother and sister enjoyed the idea of going to a mess hall with their friends rather than with the family. And they would play from early morning until it got dark. And parents had very little control over what they did during the day. Cause there were so many kids running around. Of course, they did a organize and start school for the younger children, which was good. AT: 19:38 Did you know anyone, um, in camp that you knew from before or in Santa Anita rather? EK: 19:51 Maybe a couple, but not very many. AT: 19:58 And were you making any friends? EK: 20:00 Yes. Yes, yes. Well, naturally the people you work with and your neighbors, and. AT: 20:06 And um, did you have to go to school in addition to having the job or did you know? EK: 20:20 I was, I was a senior in high school at the time. AT: 20:23 Because you skipped a couple of grades? Cause you were 16? EK: 20:28 Yes. So um, they had a graduation ceremony for us in Santa Anita and my high school had sent my diploma from the high school, so I received it there. And, it, of course, in 2004, they let me go to another graduation, with the graduating class and received another one. AT: 20:58 That was with, um, which graduating class from? EK: 21:03 Downey High School. AT: 21:05 Oh wow. EK: 21:07 My children went to Warren, Warren High School, which is a second high school, but it wasn' ; t built until after the, long after the war, so. AT: 21:18 And then, um, so how long was your family in Santa Anita? EK: 21:26 From April til I' ; m thinking late September, early October maybe. AT: 21:37 And do you remember how many students were in the graduating class at Santa Anita? EK: 21:45 No, no idea. AT: 21:46 Was it, was it a lot of people or was it a smaller class? EK: 21:51 I really have no recollection of that because they were from a wide area of schools. I don' ; t remember, I don' ; t actually remember the ceremony itself, but I know we did have one. AT: 22:09 And then as far as, uh, living and sleeping and all of that, was your family in the same um? EK: 22:16 Barrack. AT: 22:19 Mhm. EK: 22:19 Yeah. One, one barrack room. AT: 22:24 And. EK: 22:24 No furniture except the Army cots. AT: 22:28 Did you all have your own cots? EK: 22:31 Yeah, one cot per person. AT: 22:34 That would have been seven people? EK: 22:36 Yes. Right. AT: 22:39 And then, um, so in the fall, where did you end up going? EK: 22:48 Because my brother worked for the newspaper. They gave him an option to choose any one of the 10 different locations. And he picked, uh, Jerome, Arkansas because the weather being more close to the California type of weather. And so that' ; s where we went. AT: 23:15 And how long was that trip and how did you get there? EK: 23:17 Oh, train was, it was, it was a very warm period of time, I remember. And uh, cause they tried to give us salt pills for the heat and it made me sick. But um, oh, it takes several days because they would sidetrack us in order for two trains or any more valuable cargo to go through if we happened to be in the way. So it was, it was several days. I can' ; t remember exactly how many. AT: 24:01 And what, forgive my ignorance, what, what is the salt pill supposed to do? EK: 24:07 I don' ; t really, don' ; t know, but uh, they expect, I guess they were afraid of heat stroke or something because the trains didn' ; t have air conditioning or anything and um, they were full of people, which made it even hotter. So other than that, I have no idea. AT: 24:38 And while you were on that trip, where are you aware of where you were going? EK: 24:44 Yes, we knew were going to go. AT: 24:48 Um, and so when you got to Jerome, what, what was that like? How was that different from Santa Anita? EK: 25:02 Well, I guess we were probably one of the first group to arrive there. And our barracks was the furthest Northeast corner of the camp, the end room. So you couldn' ; t go any further Northeast than that. And of course where we worked wouldn' ; t have been at the opposite end of the camp. AT: 25:29 Well, I imagined that it would be easier to find your home than some other homes. EK: 25:35 Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. AT: 25:39 And so did you just, did you continue working while you were in camp? What, what did you do once you got there? EK: 25:46 Um, in Jerome I worked, um, on the mimeograph machine and I would print out whatever notices that had to be sent out. And also those paper, once a week we would print. AT: 26:06 Did you have to apply for those jobs or how did that work? Did you sign up? EK: 26:12 I don' ; t remember how I got that job. I just, I guess my connection with my brother being in the newspaper, had a little bit of weight to it. AT: 26:24 Was the other brother above you, was he also working? EK: 26:30 I, you know, I know that I think, I can' ; t remember exactly what he did. It, it' ; s, I' ; d never asked a question. I, I know he was there. I know he did some kind of work, but I couldn' ; t honestly tell you. But my best guess would be that he worked probably something with motor pool because he was mechanically minded, but I can' ; t be sure. AT: 27:04 And your young, younger siblings were they still in school? EK: 27:07 The younger two were, yes. AT: 27:14 And then what about, um, your family life? Would you, would you eat together or would you only really see each other? EK: 27:22 No. AT: 27:23 When did you see each other? EK: 27:25 At night. When you had to go home to sleep. But, um, but you made friends and you naturally would eat with your friends if you, whoever you happen to be with at meal time. AT: 27:53 Do you have any other memories of, of Jerome that stick out for you? EK: 28:00 Not too many. I uh, I know I did go to several socials that' ; s what they used to call the dances on Saturday night where they had recorded music. The different, uh, clubs or organizations who had put on a social. And it was a meeting place for people. AT: 28:30 What were some of those clubs and organizations? EK: 28:36 I remember one was, uh, a group of, um, young men from Hawthorne and they were called the Hawthorne Juniors or something like that. Well, in fact the newspaper staff probably put it on a social at one point or another. And various, so musicians would do that, from time to time. AT: 29:07 Were they mostly for young people? EK: 29:10 Well, yeah. Yeah, they would be. AT: 29:15 And how long did you all stay in Jerome? EK: 29:18 I was there from the time of, got there until I left in on June 1st of 1943 and then I came to Chicago. And I worked with a family. AT: 29:40 Did you come alone? EK: 29:40 Well, with a group of other people. AT: 29:46 Friends or how was that? EK: 29:48 Well, not really friends, but they were going, they were going to the same place I was. AT: 30:00 And can you tell me more about how that that came about or how you found out about? EK: 30:06 To leave Chicago? Oh to come to Chicago. Well, I had a friend who I met in Santa Anita and when we got to Jerome, she was there and she introduced me to another girl. And she later on, um, got a job in Chicago. And so I got in touch with her and she in turn helped me get the job with Barbara' ; s family. AT: 30:47 So you, you had, um, you were connected through? EK: 30:51 Connected, yeah. AT: 30:53 And as this happens, the girl that I contacted took me on her on our first day off to her brother' ; s place and we had dinner and I later married him. Everyone: 31:20 [Laughter] AT: 31:20 So was your family, your family was still in Jerome? EK: 31:24 Yes. AT: 31:25 And um, do you remember having conversations with your mother or did she help at all with the decision making in that? EK: 31:37 Did what? AT: 31:37 Did she help at all with the decision making and you coming to Chicago or was that kind of. EK: 31:42 Surprisingly she didn' ; t object. I wonder if they know even today, that' ; s she would have trusted me to come. But, um, no, she pretty much left us on her own. AT: 32:16 What was Chicago like when you first got here and where did you arrive? EK: 32:23 Um, probably Chicago Union station I think. And I think her father probably met me there. We were there by then, you know, gas rationing was in and so mostly traveled on public transportation. And, uh, I don' ; t remember riding in a car very often. AT: 33:11 And so before you arrived, you, did you have the name and the information of the family you' ; d be staying with? EK: 33:17 Oh yes! Yeah, yeah. And during the time that I was here in Chicago, my family, the camps were people were leaving. And so they consolidated Jerome and Rohwer together and my parents moved to Rohwer. And so after I got married and got pregnant, living in Chicago by myself with not an option because my husband got drafted. And so my mother came to get me and I went back to Rohwer and that' ; s where I had my daughter. AT: 34:08 And what year was that that you went back? EK: 34:11 Um, would have been late 1943, ' ; 44. AT: 34:26 Um, so you, and what was the name of the family that you were staying with? EK: 34:33 Pardon? AT: 34:33 The, the name of the family that you' ; re staying with? EK: 34:37 Senn S. E. N. N. AT: 34:39 The Senn family? EK: 34:39 Yeah. AT: 34:41 And, um, so you would have been with them for uh, a little over a year? EK: 34:51 Yeah. Approximately. Yeah. AT: 34:55 And where did they live? EK: 34:57 They lived on the South Side, I think it was like 55th Street. Another Speaker: 35:04 Hyde Park AT: 35:09 And um, what were your, your first impressions of the city? Cause I imagine that was your first time coming to Chicago. EK: 35:18 Well, actually it' ; s the first time I lived in the city because I always lived in rural areas. So it was a little different. You enjoyed what there was. AT: 35:37 Did anything surprise you about it? EK: 35:41 Probably a lot of things. Being a teenager and thinking that you knew everything there was to know about everything, you know, so probably everything was kind of different. AT: 35:59 At that time were there other Japanese Americans in Hyde Park or not? EK: 36:06 Yes, yes, there were several. Yes. That I knew, yes. And occasionally we would be able to get together. AT: 36:17 And was it mostly folks from camp as well? EK: 36:24 Probably more so. Yeah. AT: 36:27 Okay. And then, um, so you went back to Rohwer in 1944. AS: 36:40 Do you want to tell the, part of the time with us, in Michigan, that you spent the summer? We spent the summer EK: 36:50 Oh, yes. You know, uh, the family took a vacation home and stayed in Michigan shores for several weeks and I have a picture of that with her. Yeah. AT: 37:10 So not just Chicago, but also Michigan or. EK: 37:12 Michigan, yeah. AT: 37:19 And then, um, when you returned to Rohwer in 44' ; , your whole family was there, not just your parents? EK: 37:30 No, my brother and my old two older brothers had moved to Cincinnati. AT: 37:35 And what were they doing there? EK: 37:37 Um, my oldest brother worked for McCalls Magazine and I' ; m not sure what my other brother, I forget. He was working, but I didn' ; t know him exactly. AT: 37:48 Always off the grid that one. What, what, what were your brothers, what were their names? EK: 37:58 My oldest brother' ; s, Paul, Sam, my sister' ; s name was Jesse and Arthur, was the youngest. AT: 38:09 Um, and where the younger ones, were they with your parents in Rohwer? The younger ones, were they with your parents in Rohwer? EK: 38:17 In Rohwer, yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. They still would' ; ve been in school. AT: 38:25 And how long did you stay there and you, that' ; s where you had your first child? EK: 38:31 Yes. Uhuh. AT: 38:35 So how long were you there? EK: 38:39 Well, the first, first train load back to California was in late July, I believe, to arrive in L.A. about August the 1st of ' ; 45. And the family had made reservations to stay at a hostel in Los Angeles. And I did too, but unknowingly they my name was not put on the list and until I got to L.A. and found out that somebody had not put my name on the list. AT: 39:19 So what happens? EK: 39:22 I was kind of frustrated didn' ; t know what to do. But um, the young Caucasian gentleman came up and heard the conversation and he took responsibility for not having to put my name on the list. I don' ; t know whether it was true or not, but he offered his parents' ; home because they were out of town at the time and he said, you can stay at my parents' ; home. And so the family and my daughter and I stayed in his home for, in their parents' ; home, for a couple of weeks, I think, until the hostel opened up and we were able to move to the hostel. AT: 40:10 That being, the hostel being in L.A. ? EK: 40:13 Actually it was located in Sawtelle. AT: 40:18 Sorry? EK: 40:18 Sawtelle S. A. W. T. E. L. L. E. It' ; s near Santa Monica. AT: 40:29 So that wouldn' ; t have been far from where? That wouldn' ; t have been far from where your mother was before the war? At one time? EK: 40:38 Yeah, at one point. Yeah. At one point. Yeah, it was kind of my, the church. AT: 40:45 And do you know what year that would have been? That you returned? EK: 40:48 That would have been ' ; 45. AT: 40:52 And um, where were you married at that point? EK: 40:57 Yes, I was married the year before. AT: 41:00 And was your, your husband was still serving? EK: 41:03 Yeah, he was in the service. He was in Germany, but the Occupation Force. AT: 41:11 And uh what did your family do once you' ; re in Sawtelle? EK: 41:18 Well, we had put, my mother wisely had made arrangements to keep the property we had in Downey. And so, uh, eventually we were able to go back to it, the house that we lived in burned down, but there was an older building that we may do and we stayed in that. And although it didn' ; t have any cooking facilities, my brother found a wood stove and we would do our cooking outdoors, until we could get set up. AT: 42:02 And so you then you settled in, back in Downey? EK: 42:07 Yeah, right, right, right. AT: 42:10 And, uh, was your mother able to pick back up the chicken business? EK: 42:15 Yes, yes, yes. She was bound and determined to do that. Very strong. AT: 42:24 And, and what about yourself? Were you helping out or EK: 42:30 I helped out where I had to, pretty much. AT: 42:36 And, and while you' ; re raising your firstborn, EK: 42:39 Right, right, right. AT: 42:44 And then did your family stay there for? EK: 42:46 We lived on that property until 1973. And that, um, oh, by then she had retired from the chickens and um, my brother Sam, who was her partner in the business, had moved to Whittier and he had his own family. Seven children, exactly. But while they were living in Downey, he lived in one house. We lived in the middle. And my oldest brother lived in a third house and each time the wife got pregnant and had a baby, I got the rest of the family to take care of until she got back on her feet. AT: 43:55 And um, back a few years during, you know, while the war was still on. Were you communicating with your husband? And what was his name? EK: 44:08 Jim, yeah. Yeah, we wrote letters and actually he got an early release discharged from the Army because of being a young father. AT: 44:27 So when was he? EK: 44:29 So he was in approximately 18 months. AT: 44:31 So he would have been coming back up in ' ; 45? Is that right? EK: 44:41 No, ' ; 40, ' ; 40, ' ; 46. Summer of ' ; 46 I believe that was. AT: 44:52 And was he originally from Chicago? EK: 44:55 No, he, his family came from Madera, California, which is in central California. And his family owned 80 acres of vineyard and they raised tomtom grapes, which they turned into raisins. AT: 45:22 And um, his family did, were they in camp as well? EK: 45:28 Yes, they were, they went from Fresno Assembly center, which was, I think that Fresno fairgrounds. And they went to Jerome. AT: 45:44 And then he went to Chicago because that' ; s where? EK: 45:47 He went to, yeah, he found a job in a candy factory in Chicago. And so he was working there. But the rest of this family with two, uh, Gila. AT: 46:04 And so when he was released, where did he? EK: 46:07 Came back to Downey. AT: 46:08 And so you said you were on the property until the 70s. EK: 46:18 Mhm. AT: 46:18 Where did you move after that? EK: 46:21 We moved to another house, not about a mile away, still in Downey. My, my baby, my youngest one was in high school and he was a senior, when we moved. AT: 46:39 Was that Russ? EK: 46:41 Yes. AS: 46:48 Mhm. AT: 46:48 And did you, um, did you ever talk about your, your experiences, um, during the war with, with your family when you were raising a family? EK: 47:02 Not really. Subject never came up. It was a world of little kids all growing up together. So. AT: 47:15 And when you, when you returned to Downey, um, were there still not many, um, Japanese Americans in the area or in the town? EK: 47:29 Probably not. AT: 47:39 Um, oh, one thing that I had meant to ask, um, when you were growing up, did you speak Japanese with your parents? EK: 47:49 Yes, necessarily. But, um, my mother was determined to become an American citizen and she couldn' ; t do that legally until the late 1950s and when, when that became possible, she did that. And she did get her citizenship without going to a class to learn about, she more or less did it on her own. So she was very proud of that. And after that, every election she was there. AT: 48:34 She sounds like a a very strong EK: 48:36 Yes, very, very determined. So she, we, although we spoke a lot of Japanese, she also necessarily dealing with people who came to buy eggs. She had the English became a necessity, so she was probably lot more proficient in that than a lot of the Japanese see safe. AT: 49:08 And how is your Japanese now? EK: 49:11 Mine? AT: 49:12 Do you still speak? EK: 49:13 Nonexistent I have nobody to talk to. Well I do one or two, but very seldom and it' ; s not something that I' ; m, I really probably should know more, but I' ; m an American. AT: 49:42 I, is there anything, um, in your daily life or otherwise that you practice or, or hold on to your Japanese heritage? EK: 49:58 I don' ; t think so, unfortunately, I mean, it' ; s a foreign country to me as it is to anybody else. I visited once and it was at the time, it was a very interesting experience, but, um, I didn' ; t have a dying interest to learn all about it or anything like that. AT: 50:33 When did you visit? EK: 50:36 Well, there again, it was probably in the 1980s. AT: 50:46 And, um, if, if you could leave your, your children and maybe your grandchildren or your family with any kind of message or legacy, what would you want them to, to know or carry with them? EK: 51:06 Just be a good American. Be a good person. Anything else? AT: 51:23 Well, is there anything else that you might like to add or that we might have missed in the conversation? EK: 51:28 Not really. AT: 51:28 Does anyone else, have any? AS: 51:41 Don' ; t get me going. I' ; ve learned so much. AT: 51:43 Well, thank you so much for taking the time for speaking with me.. EK: 51:47 Oh, you' ; re welcome. Thank you. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=KurisuEunice20170923.xml KurisuEunice20170923.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Kurisu, Eunice (9/23/2017)
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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Takada, Anna
Su, Karen
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Llewellyn, Yukiko
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5.4 11/5/2017 Llewellyn, Yukiko (11/5/2017) 1:09:24 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Llewellyn, Yukiko Takada, Anna Su, Karen video 0 https://vimeo.com/303626481 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/303626481?h=82211598bd" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 To start, can you just state your full name? Yuki Llewellyn: 00:00:03 Uh, Yukiko Helen Llewellyn. AT: 00:00:07 And where and when were you born? YL: 00:00:10 April 22nd, 1939 in Los Angeles, California. AT: 00:00:16 Um, and so I' ; ll be asking you some questions that I already know the answer to. So it' ; s not that I' ; m not listening, but just to have for the record. Uh, can you tell me a little bit about, Um, your parents and, and where they were from? YL: 00:00:34 Um, my dad was from Hawai' ; i and my mom was born in, uh, Wyoming, but as a child was sent back to Japan to be raised by her grandparents. Well, she' ; s known as a Kibei. And, uh, my mother had an arranged marriage, so she was married by Japanese law, you know, with her, um, father approving. And then she sailed to the United States to meet my father. Um, she was 18 when she moved to the United States. They were together when I was born and she was 20. I can always tell how old my mother is, you know, by, she was 20, so this is how old she is now. Um, I can' ; t remember. I used to know how, I think my father was three or four years older than she was. Not, not very much older, you know. So there was a, they were a young couple, um they AT: 00:01:54 What kind of, um, backgrounds where they' ; re coming from? What did their parents do? YL: 00:02:01 Well, momma was the high school graduate in Japan. She was not employed anywhere. She was probably the only young woman who wanted to go to the United States. And this was an opportunity. There was a family friend who said that I have a son who' ; s looking for a bride. Uh, unbeknownst to them really, uh, I learned this after the fact. My father was a Baptist. My mom was a Buddhist. She didn' ; t speak any English and he didn' ; t speak very fluent Japanese cause his parents were in Japan. But he was in Hawai' ; i and I don' ; t, I don' ; t know of any employment he had. Ah he was a fruit stand vendor. On his, um, on my birth certificate you have to, you know, put down what the father' ; s job was and it said fruit vendor. And of course, I said, what' ; s, what' ; s a fruit vendor? Well, he had a cart, I guess, and, and sold fruit that, that he a got. But not, not a job as we know it, you know, not a category. Um, I understand from my mom that, uh, she worked as, uh, a maid, you know, did, did kind of, uh, I mean she didn' ; t have secretarial skills. Uh, she did some, uh, sewing at um garment worker type thing, which she did later when, when I was growing up in Cleveland, she worked at a garment workers factory. AT: 00:03:48 And what were the circumstances for them ending up in the L.A.? And do you know anything about their life there? YL: 00:03:55 No, except, uh, where we lived was where I was born. I was born in the apartment that they lived in. Um, there are pictures of me with my mom as a baby on the rooftop of the apartment building. And you can see the L.A. Towers, you know, from downtown, from the pictures. They uh, split up sometime before the war because when the war came, she was with me by our selves and he was not in the picture at all. She told me as I was growing up that my father had died in the war. So there was no reason for me to look for him. Had I known that he was also in Manzanar, which I found out much later, I probably would have looked for him. But at three you' ; re not, you know, you' ; re not good to do that. So the, everything in the records that I could find in Manzanar was that, you know, there was Mikiko Hayakawa, Okinaga, they did attach that last name to hers on one record and then it was Mikiko Hayakawa. And then Yukiko, Helen Okinaga, which is on my birth certificate and then Yukiko Helen Hayakawa. So of course, I said, oh, does that mean I get twice as much money because I' ; m listed twice? No. So I' ; m listed both ways and they let her choose the government, let her choose what you and she said Hayakawa because I have more papers with Hayakawa on it from when I' ; m moved from Japan to the United States. Karen Su: 00:05:54 When did you find out that your father was not dead? That he was still alive? YL: 00:06:02 I was married and working at the University of Illinois and I' ; m trying to remember, there was a company and I don' ; t know, the company' ; s name was find people fast and they came to the radio station in Champagne. Well, the guy said, I can find anybody for you, you know, I have all this data. And my friend Nancy called me, I was at work, and said call the station and just give your father' ; s name because we thought, I think somewhere along the way my mom said something about he, she didn' ; t know if he was dead. And I said, well why did you tell me? It was easier. Then you know you' ; re not going to fight your mother for having that lie to a child. So then I start, but I was grown woman, you know, with a child and called the radio station and Okinaga was such an unusual name. He said, oh, uh, I don' ; t think there are many Okinaga' ; s. And I said, what? And there was only like half a page and they were dates from, oh, I don' ; t know, a few years and of current people and where they lived. And then the people who have just died and my father had just died, just died. Imagine that. But at least his last address was on there. And so I got the address. I mean they were nice enough to send me what they had. Uh, I wrote to my father at that address saying, if you received this, and I enclosed my, birth certificate that had his name on it. So people wouldn' ; t say, why is this person writing to me about this guy who had died? His widow answered my letter and she said, by your, the copy of your birth certificate, that is my husband, who was your father. Said, I did not know he had a child before he married me in Manaznar. They had three children in Manzanar and if it weren' ; t for her kindness to filling me in what she could, she sent me a picture, you know, of the children, picture of herself and my father at you know, his seventy years old or whatever he was, I would have nothing. I would have just that blank space. So it' ; s real hard for me to tell the story of my parents because I don' ; t know it. Uh, the kindness of this woman who I don' ; t think I would have done it. I don' ; t think I have that in my heart to do it. She must have been distraught to know that this child was looking for her father who was married to her. He never said he had a child. He said he had been married before. Didn' ; t say any names. AT: 00:09:41 Did you continue to be in touch with her, after that exchange? YL: 00:09:45 I tried, but it' ; s really hard. Um, I heard from her children and they were very nice, but there was nothing a hook to get, you know, there were no interests. There were, our kids were different ages, you know, I mean it was just really hard and I didn' ; t, I' ; ve, I' ; ve heard kids, you know, who had like second families, but they were right there. These people lived in New Jersey, you know, when I lived in Champagne, Illinois. Um, but they know my name, you know, of course I know their' ; s, cause it' ; s Okinaga. And when it was, it was known that the child in the picture, you know, named at birth was Okinaga, this woman said, my children said, isn' ; t that fascinating? It' ; s our name and our name is so unusual. Are we related? And at the time it was like, well, no, I' ; m sure we would have known. So it was a little strange, you know, and I didn' ; t fault them for not contacting me. I tried later, I think it was too little, too late. Uh, the letters came back, you know, the address was not correct and I don' ; t know where she is. I don' ; t know where the children are. The, there was one boy and, uh, two daughters. And the boy was a police officer in Tennessee. And I thought he would be the easiest defined, but then it was also probably easiest for him to find me, you know. So I, I just let it, my son really want me to find him. And, and he, when he wrote to me, said, hey, great to have another boy in the family because he was a boy with two sisters and that sounded promising, but you know, I didn' ; t hear anymore. And um, Chiyeko was, her name was, I mean, isn' ; t that fascinating to have somebody with that much heart? This letter comes in the mail. AT: 00:12:14 Well, thank you very much for sharing. KS: 00:12:18 Do you want to hold the picture? YL: 00:12:21 Of? KS: 00:12:21 Of you. It' ; s interesting that they saw the photo of you and noticed that you had the same name. YL: 00:12:30 This is the picture you know, and, and one of the newspaper stories, you know, they said, oh, we found the little girl and her name at birth was, you know, Okinaga. But she' ; s been known as Hiyakawa until she got married and she' ; s now a Llewellyn, who knew? I mean there are some college friends where they knew me as Hiyakawa who don' ; t know about this cause I never talked about this when I was in college. Hm. AT: 00:13:05 When, when did you start talking about that photograph or that YL: 00:13:10 Probably not really until I came to the University of Illinois because when I was in grad school, I was in theater. And nothing about historical background of our lives ever. I mean I didn' ; t know the background of my colleagues in the theater department and they didn' ; t know. And at the time, of course my name was still Hiyakawa cause I got married, uh, end of my grad school year. AT: 00:13:44 Um, to go back just a little bit, um, so you, you were with your mom and camp, um, and would, would' ; ve been three years old. Um, can you tell me about what, um, given that you were so young, how were the, how was the information in the stories of yours and your mother' ; s experiences kind of passed down to you? Or do you have memories from camp? YL: 00:14:16 Oh, I would, four or five and six were your twinges of memories. But they' ; re all childhood memories there, there of friends coming to play, me going out to play a, having a sitter come to take me to the mess hall for movies. And that was when I saw that they were Westerns and the bad guys were always people who look like us. The Indians were not, they did not do well in these Westerns. But, um, I did have a, a teenage girl take me to the movies. And one time, I guess I was crying and she was upset that she had to leave the movie, take me outside because I was crying. Not a good babysitting job, I guess. But I had, my mom had pictures of my classroom at Christmas and we had a Japanese Santa Claus. And there are snapshots of Obon Festivals. And I was in a Japanese kimono and I had a dance lessons, Odori lessons, because there were so many Japanese people who were stuck in the United States when the war came and they were thrown into the relocation camps with us. But true to form, you know, it' ; s like, well, you could teach a class, you know, and so we had really good teachers of Odori and Shamisen. And things, I mean I don' ; t know where they got the things to teach with, but, uh, every little girl probably went to the dance class. And, um, and the irony of it is, you know, they were trying to get rid of everything Japanese before we went to camp, but here was a gold mine of talent and they wanted to do something in camp, you know, so teach a course. And I didn' ; t know that they were excellent teachers. I didn' ; t know that they were professional dancers in Japan, but they couldn' ; t get back to Japan. So they taught and I guess the parents were pleased as could be. They couldn' ; t afford to do that in the real world. But, uh, so I have, I have pictures of that. And, um, all the holidays there, there were always, you know, snapshots of that, uh, the making of mochi. And, and it was a great time to be a kid. AT: 00:17:18 Did your mom ever speak with you about it, about, you know, her experiences from her perspective? YL: 00:17:26 Only when it involved me. Oh you were so cute when you had on the kimono and all you did this and oh you did that. But of course, as a kid I never asked her. So what did you do mom during the day? I don' ; t know. She volunteered at the canteen are, I guess it' ; s not the canteen, it' ; s a store. It' ; s the camp store where they sold thread and cloth and she did the, I don' ; t, it was something like a quarter, an hour or something. But she earned money and she, that means she had expendable income and she could afford to hire a teenage girl to come take me to the movies that she didn' ; t want to go to. The movies were free. But the teenage girl was not. And uh, I loved it. I loved being able to go and then meet all the kids. We didn' ; t like the Westerns. But interestingly we found out later that they probably were filmed outside the camp gates cause the mountains looked familiar. Oh look at that. Doesn' ; t that look like the one behind our camp? AT: 00:18:45 But um, and then what, um, how long were you and your mom there at Manzanar? YL: 00:18:51 The entire time til it closed. From opening to close. 42' ; to 45' ; , I think is you, you, there were people there, you know, til 47' ; , I think. And we were among the last to leave because we had to have sponsors. So you couldn' ; t just leave because the camp was closing and if you had family that was reason enough to be able to get out of there. But we had no family. And so um a Buddhist church in Cleveland had a family said, we' ; ll take whoever, especially with a family, you know, who don' ; t have a place to go, we' ; ll bring them to Cleveland, you know, find them a job, put the child, children into school and if it weren' ; t for them, strangers, strangers, uh, we would, I don' ; t know what they would do with people who are still there. When the camp had to close, it said, no place to go. I don' ; t know what we' ; ll do with them. Really, never occurred to me to ask because we had a place to go. AT: 00:20:01 And can you tell me a little bit more about, um, uh, the, the process or what happens to you and your mom after camp? Um, so you all went to, you were sponsored by them? YL: 00:20:14 Yeah, we went to Cleveland. They found us a place to live in a inner city apartment and it was really an inner city hotel. And my mom was like the maid, she, she did, uh, picked up the sheets, the linens from the tenants and then washed them. Um, I don' ; t know. I can' ; t remember if there were washing machines or what, you know, but I' ; m sure there was, cause it was a business. And I was the, you know, person who swept the steps, all the public spaces and um, took the trash out to the back. There were all these um, trash cans, but you had, when you went out there, you, you took a broom and hit the side of the trashcan so the rats would jump out so you could, didn' ; t open the thing and have the rats come out at you. Interesting trick to that. And um, so that was the job they have for my mom. Um, I don' ; t remember getting paid at that either or some people really owe me money. And um, so we did that and I don' ; t know the timeline of that. All I know is that, um, my, my grandmother' ; s brother or some distant relative of my family in Japan, this older man he was like my grandfather' ; s age was in Manzanar and he also moved to, uh, Cleveland. There was some other people he knew, who were Buddhist, and he offered, uh, my mom, an opportunity to buy a house in a better neighborhood than the hotel, someplace where I would be able to go out and play with kids. But the specific reason was that there were so many Japanese American college students coming to Cleveland because there were a lot of institutions that people were looking for boarding houses for the students students want, that' ; s what they wanted there. There weren' ; t any dorms for them. These were like older students and my mom' ; s thought anything to, you know, make life better for us. And it turned out to be quite a good thing. We had a really nice house. It was lot of rooms, you know, a lot of bathrooms because we knew that we wanted to attract tenants. They were like friends. They were like family that you all of a sudden got because they were students at Case Western Reserve. You know, probably other schools too. But do you know what they were? They were the best tutors for me to speak English. They were already college students and I didn' ; t know how much that helped me except that every time I had a paper I had, you know, four or five people say, well that' ; s not good English. He said, How would I know? But it was great. It was great. AT: 00:24:06 And these students, were any of them Japanese American? YL: 00:24:09 They all were. AT: 00:24:10 They all were Japanese American? YL: 00:24:11 But they were outside of camp. None of them were in camp. They lived in Cleveland or around and had a hard time being students or whatever they were doing at the time. But they were all students when I saw them. And so it was wonderful for them to be in a house with other students, different ages. I mean some of them, there were a lot of difference in ages, but they all also spoke Japanese. So of course that was great for my mother because she didn' ; t care about the other stuff. But the fact that she had someone to talk to and someone for me to learn from. I get, I got to be really good in science because a lot of the guys were in science, I didn' ; t know what science was, you know. AT: 00:25:02 Would you happen to remember the address of that building? YL: 00:25:06 No, but I have pictures and I think the house, cause I had a dog and we sat in front. I think that the address and there' ; s got to be something, you know, in, in my box of photography. You know, yeah sure. It, it was on 30 something street and I could find it if I got to Cleveland. You know, cause the house was there a, I saw it when I moved my mom from her apartment cause there was just a few blocks from the apartment that she was in for years. Yeah. Cause we said, Oh let' ; s look at our house. You know, isn' ; t that nice that you call it your house? Yeah, it' ; s still there. It' ; s across the street from a school. I don' ; t know if the school is there, but. AT: 00:25:57 And can you, uh, describe for me what the, what that area where you first went to in Cleveland was like? YL: 00:26:05 It was the inner city. AT: 00:26:08 And so it sounds like there' ; s a number of Japanese Americans already there. YL: 00:26:14 No AT: 00:26:14 No YL: 00:26:15 No, we were the only Japanese American family. The students all came from different places to this house. And then when they got their degree, they left, you know, and quite a few of them went back to California. They were from California. They went to the Midwest during the war. And um, and some of them settled and they got married. You know, started a family in Cleveland. And I have um, one of the former student' ; s, wife' ; s family. The wife became a really good friend of my mom' ; s and their children and I correspond. But they, I don' ; t think the kids realized that their dad was a student in a boarding house that my mom helped to prepare the food, you know? But just the friendship became because of the church. Cause they were all Buddhists. KS: 00:27:25 Was that the church that sponsored you? YL: 00:27:28 Yeah. Yeah. KS: 00:27:29 That was a Japanese American Buddhist Community? YL: 00:27:34 Yeah, kind of, but the Sashihara' ; s were the only ones I ever met. They were the actual sponsors and they were kind of, you' ; d say, upper middle class. The girls were going to college. They were high schoolers at the time, but they were already planning to go to college. I didn' ; t know what college was. I didn' ; t know that everybody got to go to college, you know? But it was that kind of thing there. Their house was so luxurious in my eyes, and my mom confirmed later on, you know, I said, was it really as nice as I thought it was because I was a child? She said no, they had a very nice house in a very nice neighborhood, but they were like the only Japanese living in that area, so there wasn' ; t a Japanese community. I met Japanese people at church and when I went to school, there were Japanese kids already in school and there wasn' ; t a welcome feeling from them. They were not in camp. They were all still in Cleveland. Um, I had a hard time with the Japanese community. My mom didn' ; t, she, she had a better experience with the church. Um, made friends readily. I did not. Most of my friends were kids from school who were not Japanese. They weren' ; t Asian at all. Um, they just were, they lived in the neighborhood. You know, there were people who lived next door to me. Um, there were some racial things from kids, but not a big effort on anybody' ; s part. I was so used to it then as long as they weren' ; t going to hurt me or my family, you know, I didn' ; t care. AT: 00:29:46 Can you tell me a little bit more about the, um, the response of, um, the Japanese American, um, students, young people your age, who were already in Cleveland? YL: 00:29:58 We had a picnic, every year, the Japanese Americans and everybody was invited who was Japanese American, and I got to meet kids who were like lived in the suburbs, didn' ; t live in Cleveland proper. And they look like a different breed of kid. They were very open. They were friendly, they didn' ; t care about camp. You know, that was a stupid question to ask. Only your parents asked, their parents, you know, were you in camp? The kids never asked me if I was in camp. Uh, by then my English was good enough to pass, uh, because I could only speak English to this group from Cleveland, except I knew that they were bilingual because their parents spoke Japanese primarily. When we went to Buddhist Temple, that' ; s all I heard was Japanese. And of course all the movies they showed on the weekends were Japanese movies. And it was strange. I, I didn' ; t see a community except at Obon and that summer picnic every year. And the picnic I think really was because of the teenagers. Kids went to different high schools, then they went to different colleges and that was the only time they could, you know, meet each other. And it was invaluable. There were some good friends I made, but, you know, like one or two families. It wasn' ; t, I didn' ; t go to any of their events. It was the community event that everybody went to. But I know there were other things that happened and there were, you know, things that happened to me that didn' ; t happen to anybody else. But I, I dunno, maybe it was just the, I was, you know, not as understanding of what they were going through. I don' ; t know. I don' ; t know. AT: 00:32:19 Um, could you tell me a little bit about what it was like to, to start school in a, um, a totally new environment and, um, were you involved in any activities outside of school? YL: 00:32:39 Running away, does that count? I didn' ; t speak any English when I got to Cleveland. So when I was taken to Clara Morris Elementary School, they put me in the lowest grade, which was kindergarten. It was the only time I was a large kid in a group was smaller kids that didn' ; t last very long. But you know, there was, and the little kids were fine, you know, when I first got there. But when I couldn' ; t speak English, they, you know, I forget that I can' ; t talk to her. Um, I had trouble with, with language, I had trouble with the lunchtime, you know, trouble understanding what people were trying to ask me to do. It' ; s like I don' ; t speak the language, I don' ; t understand the language. Why are you speaking to me in that language, you know, little sign language would help, you know, a little demonstration, you know, sit here, you know, that would help. Instead of saying, sit in that chair, you know, it was, it was strange. But at once we got to the boarding school, leaps and bounds of understanding what people were saying. Typical things that teachers say. I didn' ; t know that they had typical things that they say. And these were college students, but they were older. They were all probably older than 30, when they lived in the boarding house. So they were grown men and women, you know, had, and in fact, the woman who lived there, Elaine, uh, became a secretary after she graduated and stayed in the boarding house until she got married. And so we were all there at the wedding because we felt like we were her family, you know, although her family from Hawai' ; i did come. And, um, but they, they were so helpful. I don' ; t know what I would have done. I probably would not have been able to go to college in that time where I was supposed to succeed at junior high, high school. And then pass the exams to go to college. Had I not had these hovering grown men and women, say that' ; s wrong, do it over, oh for Pete' ; s sake. It was, it was great. But you know, only in hindsight at the time it' ; s like, oh my god. But when I got the papers back, you know, and my grades kept getting better and better, especially the written stuff, you know, the science thing was really easier because a lot of it was in the lab. And if I understood what was going on, it was easier to do. I can see why people who don' ; t like English like to do science because they, I can do that. I can' ; t write it, but I can do it. Well they made me write it also, you know, this is the experiment, now write it. Well, there' ; s the experiment. What do you need me to write it for? It works. AS: 00:36:18 Talk a little bit about the difference from your, from Clara Morris, uh, Elementary School to when you went to Patrick Henry YL: 00:36:27 Patrick Henry. KS: 00:36:29 Cause you described how different they were and what was that like for you? YL: 00:36:35 It was a reva, revelation when after fourth grade or fifth grade they gave exams to all the students, academic exam. And I passed a test that I didn' ; t know I was even taking, you know, I whatever they gave me, you know, I would fill out, but my mother was sent a letter, I don' ; t know if you got a copy of the letter that said, you know, from, uh, the board of education that Yukiko passed this test. And that she qualifies for special, uh, accelerated program. But it' ; s only held at Patrick Henry Junior high school, which was like an hour and a half streetcar ride from where I lived. Cause this is, don' ; t forget the inner city. And this was almost in the suburbs. And I didn' ; t know what that was. I didn' ; t want to go there cause you know, my friends were going to the local school and my mother knew enough to, showed the letter to somebody in her church who understood English and said, no, no, she has to go to this school and explained, you know what it was. Patrick Henry was almost half Black and half Jewish from the inner city, which is kind of a mixture of the people who lived there. It, these are a mixture of people who lived near Patrick Henry. But I didn' ; t know that. I didn' ; t know the neighborhood' ; s changed so much. So we had holidays on all the Jewish holidays. So I know all the Jewish holiday' ; s and the Black kids loved it. You know, when I first got there, they tried to explain to me, you know, just as a new student, not of my color or anything. And they said, and these are the days that we get off because it' ; s a Jewish holiday. I said, Oh are you Jewish? No, but half the school is, and so on Jewish holiday' ; s, those kids don' ; t come. School closes. Hey, it' ; s all cool. I said, okay. It, it was wonderful, it was wonderful. I learned French with a Japanese accent. Not very well. It' ; s a different, you know, atmosphere. First of all, I had to get up early to get on the streetcar because it was an hour and a half to get there. But it taught me that there' ; s a progression in life. All the things I thought I knew, you know, I didn' ; t know, although my English was so much better that I got to speak it more comfortably. Um, people still said, you know, you speak with what kind of an accent? And I didn' ; t know I still did, but of course if the ear is just used to English, you know, there, there are some words that I didn' ; t do well. I, um, the sesquicentennial of Ohio was celebrated while I was there and we had this huge festival. It was the first one I was part of. It was just that every class had to do something, some dance, something. But it was so much fun. It was so much fun. It was my mom' ; s first experience with the parent teacher meeting. She who does not speak English well. She who smiles all the time is the quiet, docile parent. You don' ; t want me to tell her about her teacher? Well to show you the how, you should not underestimate your parent. She uh, went to the parent teacher' ; s meeting and I told all my teachers that she was coming, but you know that she didn' ; t understand English. And I said, I don' ; t know why she' ; s coming to tell you the truth. But she insisted because she got the letter cause you had to sign the letter and return it. So she was going. So she took the street car, in the evening, of the parent teacher meeting. Came back and I thought, oh this is going to be a breeze. You know how everything was wonderful. She laid into me for every everything I did wrong and every class. I found out later that she didn' ; t say anything. She just went to every meeting, talk to the teacher, not at her head, smiled, didn' ; t even write down anything, but she knew everything I had done wrong. Why was it that I had lipstick on when I got to school, but I didn' ; t have lipstick on when I left home. Well, because I put it on the street car. I see. I don' ; t do that anymore. Everything about Yuki talks too much. They said that, how could that be? She understood everything they said, everything they said. Hurt me a lot. I wish I could, I had the guts to go back to the teachers. How dare you. I didn' ; t, I understood what had happened and I would never underestimate my mother again if she was going to talk to anybody, go let her talk, but I probably should go along and make sure. AT: 00:43:04 Oh, one thing, I wa, I wanted to be sure to ask a, just to get a better sense of, um, kind of what the Japanese American community looked like in Cleveland in those, um, those early days that you all were there. Um, do you remember any, uh, Japanese American owned businesses or, um, did, did people own any kind of restaurants or, or property that, you know of. YL: 00:43:35 Not restaurants, but there was a grocery store, Toguchi' ; s. Um, they tell me that it had been there for a long time and it was the only one we, we went to, but it had everything that we needed, you know, especially tofu cause you can' ; t, couldn' ; t get tofu in the grocery store. Um, it was a while before we got stuff from Japan, you know, foodstuffs from Japan. But, um, actually the, the Japanese community individually did celebration dinners at Chinese restaurants, not, I mean, they never looked for, you know, the Japanese restaurant, cause there weren' ; t any, but they were fine with Chinese restaurants. I always remember going to a Chinese restaurants for weddings and, you know, things like that. And we always had favorite Chinese food. Um, we always made Japanese food at home for holidays and, uh, but I don' ; t recall businesses. I mean, if, if there were like insurance adjusters, I don' ; t know about them. I didn' ; t look in the yellow pages to see if any, you know, uh, companies had Japanese names. Um, most of my friends' ; , parents didn' ; t own businesses. They worked for somebody. Um, I would not call Cleveland while I lived there, an Asian American inspired community. We had a Chinatown, but the Japanese families usually told their teenagers to not mingle with the Chinese students, which of course made us mingle with Chinese students. We had a good time with them. They were our age. You know, we had interests similar to our, they looked like us. Um, we just didn' ; t tell her parents that we went to Chinatown because they had a gym, you know, so we could play in the gym and they were receptive to having us there. There were a lot of romances that sprung up with them. We just didn' ; t tell our parents because there was a taboo on them racially by them. You know, it' ; s just so silly, so silly. But no, I, I, I' ; ve heard a couple things during our visit from people who just came out and talked to us about one person said he was in Cleveland and about the Japanese community and I, I felt like saying what Japanese community? I don' ; t know. Is that something that happened recently? Cause you know, once I left in 1958, I didn' ; t go back, to Cleveland. That' ; s a long time from 58' ; . So if they were active any time from then on, I' ; m not aware of it, but there was nothing like that when I was there. And you know, to tell you the truth, I was looking, I was looking for it and it wasn' ; t there. AT: 00:47:48 As? Go ahead. KS: 00:47:48 I was gonna ask how long did your mother run the boarding house? That was her business? YL: 00:47:56 Yeah, yeah. KS: 00:47:59 Yeah, okay. YL: 00:47:59 Uh, it, it was, uh, my uncle, you know, the older gentleman in the family who financed it. He made it possible, uh, when you wanted to return to Japan himself, he still had family in Japan. You know, no children or anything but, uh, cousins thing and they knew that camps were over. So, you know, they wanted to know where he was. And then he said he was doing this a boarding house. They thought that was a good venture. So, you know, they didn' ; t complain. But, um, he made it possible for my mom to get enough money for the apartment knowing that she still worked as a garment worker. You know, part time. She worked there probably as long as she could, but we lived cheap and it was still in the inner city. It' ; s still, you know, the odd thing was it was a apartment building mostly with Japanese people in it. Uh, and I don' ; t know what, maybe the landlord was Japanese, I don' ; t know. But, um, the neighborhood was white, white, blue collar. My mom got a beagle dog when we were living there, Hiro, everyone thought it was H e r o, it was H i r o for Hiroshi. You know, so when I tell my kid my grandchildren' ; s, you know, we had a dog Hiro. Oh, Hero! Oh no, no, Hiro, little different. But Hiro had to be walked a couple times a day. Mom lived on the third floor, walked down every morning, you know, walked the dog around the block. Good thing beagles are small. And every night. And it got so that the teenagers, the boys in the neighborhood, noticed this woman, Japanese woman from that a corner apartment had a dog. Then they, so they started following her and I got alarmed when I when I, I can' ; t remember the timing of it, but I know I was away at school someplace, when she was living alone. That was why she got the dog cause she was living alone. And when I got home I was so alarmed that these boys were around and she said, oh no, no, no. They make sure I safe. I said yeah, right. I walked the dog one time, cause I didn' ; t believe her, cause ours is going to really get to those guys. And they said, why are you walking Hiro? I said I' ; m her daughter. Oh she' ; s okay. Isn' ; t she? She' ; s not sick or anything? No. Do you know her? Oh Mrs. Hiyakawa? Oh yeah, we' ; ve, we walk with her every morning. Oh my god. How mistaken was I? And she said, I tell you so, you know, what' ; s the matter with you? They took care of Hiro and my mother and called her Mrs. Hiyakawa. So I' ; m sure at some point she said, my name is Mrs. Hiyakawa, cause that' ; s how they addressed her. Wonderful. AT: 00:52:05 Are there any ways, um, you know, as an adult that you see yourself as being shaped by growing up in the Midwest or Cleveland? Are there any particular things about you that you, feel is relevant? YL: 00:52:24 The Cleveland Indians won the world series. My mother let me cut school and go to the ball games. She knew, everything about the Cleveland Indians, the batting averages, the pitching, you know, stats. I was like, why do you know that? Well, she listened, you know, we didn' ; t have a T.V. She listened to the ball games and she heard people talking about the Cleveland Indians and she just got herself fixated with the team, read everything about them, you know. And when she went to church, she found, you know, like people who also follow the Indians. So people say you' ; re from claims go Cleveland Indians. Now the Cleveland Browns are another story. AT: 00:53:30 But um, well, and we have a few more minutes, so I have just a couple more questions, but I want to be sure to ask you. Um, I do want to bring up the, the photograph of course. Um, I' ; m just, uh, one thing that I would like to know in regards to, you know, having your photograph taken, um, at a young age and like you say you did nothing, you know, to warrant. You were just a, a child that the moment captured. Um, in what ways, if any, uh, has that photograph, um, impacted your, your own life or your experiences? YL: 00:54:19 Huge. AT: 00:54:20 Can you talk to me a little about that? YL: 00:54:24 Well, for a long time, of course nobody knew about it, you know, and so I didn' ; t know that other people knew. And then I have, I have friends from college, from grad school, from the U of I who now, you know, and that' ; ll spend the 50 years or so, uh, will drop me a card saying your picture was in such and such, you know, as something I went to see in Vermont. And so that' ; s kind of cool to find out that people are using that photograph for something that would be social issues type thing. Um, I like it because it, it could be anybody, you know, it doesn' ; t say, here' ; s a picture of Yuki Llewellyn. I would hate that if every time the pictures was shown, they identified it, that would not work for me. But to see it and see the people' ; s reaction to it, that there was a child who was incarcerated and that puts a different picture on that whole thing. I like that. I like, later on when when they identified me and I had some calls, it, it was not intrusive. You know, they just want to know who I was. But since you know, I wasn' ; t a big celebrity, they just said, okay, thanks. And went on their way, which is great, which is great. But I enjoy this opportunity when there' ; s a concentrated effort and other people who have similar experiences sharing this with me, their pictures are also shown here at the gallery. And I remember some of those pictures. So I feel like I' ; m with my people. We are all the same on this. We had the experiences, different kinds of experiences, but in the same thing. That' ; s valuable to me and I will do anything to help people understand. Oh, but I think everyone understands, you know, it, my celebrity is just the picture, you know. Um, I haven' ; t a written anything except these speeches that I do for you guys. Um, I meet wonderful people like Karen who are doing other things too. So I like that. And then this film that you' ; re showing here, it doesn' ; t stop if there' ; s going to be a repeat of getting a bunch of people into prison because somebody doesn' ; t like them, we can' ; t let that happen. That is really scary stuff. Scary stuff. AT: 00:57:59 And um, can you elaborate a little bit? Um, um, you mentioned the impact that the film had on you. So could you tell me more about what exactly that was that touched you? YL: 00:58:12 I hadn' ; t realized how far it' ; s come to identifying a body of people who are now in United States who are trying to live their lives the best they can to be targeted similarly to the way the Japanese were. And luckily we have some Japanese people who say, wait a minute, we recognize that we know what it is. Nobody stopped it for us. We' ; re going to try to help, stop it for you. And I' ; d like to join that bandwagon AT: 00:59:14 Given the current, um political climate, um, are there any other ways that you see this particular history as, um, do you see any echoes of this history happening with other, um, communities or people today? YL: 00:59:44 I would like to not see it. Um, I would like people to come here and see what you' ; ve done here because some of the exclamations were strange to my ears when they said I didn' ; t know that' ; s what they did. It' ; s like, oh my god is, are there people still saying that? You' ; re going to be part of something just like it if you didn' ; t know that it happened before. So I don' ; t know how to make that happen. I mean, I was glad to see the crowds that were here yesterday, but I mean, the, those comments were, were really jarring. They said, did that really happen? Ah, hello photographs, you know, documentation. That' ; s the scary part. That' ; s the scary part. And as a people, the, the Japanese people, Japanese American people did not want to talk about camp when they left camp. My mother forbid it in the house. That was her and me. Why can' ; t we talk about it? I don' ; t know anything about what my mom did in camp, she died in 2009. I asked her more questions even to her dying day. Can we just talk about it? No. And you know, I admire her more and more as I learn, you know, the hardships that she went through. I couldn' ; t have been an easy child. I know you can' ; t believe that I could have been a hard child, but I, I mean, think of, think of the, the changes she saw me with, you know. Going into theater. Hello. I mean, you could teach, could go into a science, but I went to theater. She supported it, you know, she was amazing. Uh, compared to the lot of parents I see, you know, with, with students, they say, mom won' ; t let me do history. She wants me to go into engineering. I said, well, have you talked to her about you like history? You don' ; t like engineering? Uh, that was the first thing I said. Said, oh, you' ; ll get used to it. You know, so I, I get a lot of that. And a lot of them are Asian, you know, these are Asian American kids whose parents still want them to be doctors, lawyers, you know, teachers are okay, but it has to be professors. You can' ; t want to teach where they' ; re needed, in elementary school and the men especially where are the men teaching the children? And if you find a guy who be interested in that, you know, mom is pushing them for the Higher Ed, higher pay. I don' ; t know how to fight that. I don' ; t know. AT: 01:03:24 Do you want to ask something? KS: 01:03:24 You said, your, your mom kept a news clipping of the photo of you. YL: 01:03:31 Not the famous one. KS: 01:03:33 Not the famous one. But I know another one. But it meant something to her. Do you, did she say why it was special? YL: 01:03:42 It was me. KS: 01:03:43 It was you. YL: 01:03:43 She wanted to document that somebody took a picture of her kid at a time when she didn' ; t think anybody was going to care and she just kept. I was flabbergasted because it wasn' ; t the famous one. KS: 01:04:01 She knew you started talking about your experiences. Was she okay with you talking to a lot of people? YL: 01:04:12 She never heard me. KS: 01:04:15 Oh. YL: 01:04:15 And I don' ; t, I don' ; t think she ever really knew. She knew I had a lot of books of the, you know, times and, but you know, once you go away to college and don' ; t go back into the home where you shared, she doesn' ; t know anything about what I studied. And I mean she didn' ; t even know about theater until I said, you know, we' ; re going to New Orleans because I got a scholarship. Oh good. In what? Theater. What, theater? Although she likes movies, you know, but I didn' ; t make movies so. So much there. AT: 01:05:09 One, one thing I like to, to ask folks, um, especially in wrapping up, Uh, so you, you have children. YL: 01:05:20 One. AT: 01:05:21 You have a child. Um, if you could pass on any kind of legacy or, or message that your, your child' ; s and maybe grandchildren or future generations, um, something that they would just understand and have learned from you, what would you want that to be? YL: 01:05:47 Well, my son has three children. My son is half Japanese. His children are one quarter Japanese. They all get comments. Well, the little one is only five, but they get comments about who, what kind of person are they? They look different. I don' ; t think you' ; re white. And there wasn' ; t, no, we' ; re not white, but we' ; re American. That still happens, you know, in this day and age, my granddaughter' ; s 13, she, she only faults me for being so short because she wants to be taller and blames me for the fact that she' ; s not going to be six feet tall, which is what she thinks she has to be to be a good volleyball player. Said sorry, can' ; t do anything about that. And um, it' ; s interesting that that' ; s what, that' ; s what concerns is my height. You know, she likes being part Japanese. She likes it when she' ; s in the sun a lot in the summer and she turns bronze when her friends turn red and she said, must be by Japanese blood. You know, I thought, well that was never said, you know, 30 years ago. But, um, I would like them and I think they' ; re learning because their father is very good about it. To be kind to everyone and not be phased by appearances, good or bad, good or bad. And that if somebody reacts to them superficially, find out why, you know, don' ; t react to the fact that they' ; ve insulted you. You know? Why would you say that? And it' ; s hard to do that in the face of somebody yelling at you or calling you names. Just say, well, why? Why would you say that? What have I done to you? I don' ; t know if they' ; ll do that. I know my granddaughter 13, my grandson 9, and my other grandson 5. But if we keep saying the same thing for the same interactions, maybe they' ; ll learn that. But if they' ; re just kind to everyone, I think that' ; ll help in the long run. AT: 01:08:40 Well, thank you so much. YL: 01:08:41 Oh, you' ; re absolutely welcome. AT: 01:08:43 For taking the time. YL: 01:08:43 You' ; re absolutely welcome. AT: 01:08:45 Um, is, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you' ; d like to add or that we might have missed or maybe Karen, that there' ; s something else that you wanted to? YL: 01:08:54 Well, you' ; re only going til November 19. The marvelous exhibit. Marvelous. I learned so much and I wanted to come. How do you attract people who don' ; t want to come, to come? Thank you for everything you do. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LlewellynYukiko20171105.xml LlewellynYukiko20171105.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Okinaga Hayakawa
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https://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=LlewellynYukiko20171105.xml
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Llewellyn, Yukiko (11/5/2017)
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2017-11-05
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video
Series: Then They Came for Me
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186ce7d71470944842e03e7bcf306263
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
Description
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material is based upon work assisted by a grant from the U.S. Department of the
Interior, National Park Service. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations
expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views
of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
Under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973,
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge.
Interviewer
The person(s) performing the interview
Takada, Anna
Matsushita, Elaine
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Matsushita, Fumiko
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/24/2017 Matsushita, Fumiko (9/24/2017) 1:01:02 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Matsushita, Fumiko Takada, Anna Matsushita, Elaine video 0 https://vimeo.com/300675997 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/300675997?h=2772683bab" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 This is an interview with Fumiko Matsushita, as part of Alphawood Gallery Chicago Nikkei oral history project. The oral history project is being conducted in line with the current exhibition. Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II and the Demise of Civil Liberties. Today is September 24th, at, about 2:35 PM and we' ; re recording at the Alphawood Gallery Oral History Studio. Fumiko Matsushita is being interviewed by Anna Takada of Alphawood Gallery. So to get started, can we, can you start by just stating your full name? Fumiko M: 00:00:42 Fumiko Matsushita. AT: 00:00:42 And can you tell me a little bit about your hometown and where you grew up? FM: 00:00:48 Well, I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, and just a normal childhood. AT: 00:00:58 Um, did you grow up, do you have siblings? FM: 00:01:02 Yes, I had, uh, three older brothers and an older sister and I was the youngest in the family. AT: 00:01:12 And what did your parents do for a living? FM: 00:01:15 Uh, when my father first came, he worked for the railroad, then he worked on a farm and later in life he became a gardener. And my mother did some sewing and then she also helped plant some seedlings and sell those to the nursery. Daughter: 00:01:45 When they were in Los Angeles, did they manage a motel? FM: 00:01:48 Oh, they did have a run a hotel for a while. And it' ; s where the city hall in Los Angeles now stands. And I don' ; t know the name of it or anything, but they gave that up when they, when my father went into gardening. AT: 00:02:10 Ah, you said when he came to LA, so did he come to LA from Japan? FM: 00:02:15 Oh, I' ; m not too sure about that. Uh, I know he was in Wyoming for a while, but I don' ; t know for how long. So. AT: 00:02:26 And where did he and your mom meet? FM: 00:02:28 In Hiroshima, Japan. And it was an arranged marriage, but, uh, uh, I' ; m not sure of the dates or anything like that, but, uh, he did go back after he came to California he went back to Japan to, uh, and they were married there and then they came back together. AT: 00:02:54 Are they both from Hiroshima? FM: 00:02:56 Yes. Uh huh. AT: 00:02:59 And, um, so what was that like growing up in LA? What kind of town was it like then when you were growing up? FM: 00:03:09 Well, it was just normal, you know, like for a child. Uh, I was 14 when the war broke out and so I was going to school. And just went to school and had my friends and it was very nice. AT: 00:03:30 Did you do any activities outside of school? FM: 00:03:33 Well, we went to Japanese school and uh, I took piano lessons for just a little while. I was not a very good student. AT: 00:03:48 And uh in your neighborhood, where were there other Japanese American families? FM: 00:03:53 Yes, quite a few. And then on the corner of the block where we lived was a candy store run by Japanese man. And uh, that we usually was our stop after public school. We stopped there to pick up snacks and ice cream and then we went on to Japanese school, which was a couple of blocks from there New Speaker: 00:04:21 And so, at home, were you speaking Japanese? FM: 00:04:24 Yes, with our parents. And then with our siblings. It was English course. AT: 00:04:34 So you were 14, uh, when the war broke out. Do you remember the, the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked? FM: 00:04:44 Not really. Uh, I just felt why did my parents' ; , you know, country have to attack our country? You know, other than that, I don' ; t remember too much. AT: 00:05:04 Do you remember, um, how your family or people around you are reacting to it? Was it a big deal or just you didn' ; t? FM: 00:05:16 Well, it was a shocking situation. Um, but I don' ; t remember too much how everybody was reacting, they were all shocked and surprised, you know. AT: 00:05:35 Um hmm. And so you were, you were in school and then, um, when did the Evacuation orders come out or how did you hear about the FM: 00:05:52 Well, they had these signs posted on the telephone poles and everyone was talking about it of course. And uh, it was a very confusing situation for us because my brother had just been drafted into the US army, so it was something I just couldn' ; t understand why he had to go into the army and we were being sent somewhere else, you know. AT: 00:06:26 So would that mean he was drafted in ' ; 42? Does that sound? FM: 00:06:31 Uh, yes, I believe so. AT: 00:06:34 Was this your oldest brother? FM: 00:06:35 Yes, AT: 00:06:36 What was his name? FM: 00:06:37 Hiroshi AT: 00:06:37 Hiroshi Daughter: 00:06:43 After Pearl Harbor was attacked. What was it like going to school? You' ; re your friends and classmates? What did they say? FM: 00:06:52 You know, I don' ; t remember too much about that. Daughter: 00:06:56 Do you remember? Sister: 00:06:58 It sounds weird, but we didn' ; t talk about it. It' ; s something you don' ; t talk about. Things going on. FM: 00:07:10 Yeah. It' ; s strange. No one you know. AT: 00:07:23 And uh, Hiroshi was he drafted before you heard of the Evacuation Orders? So do you remember? FM: 00:07:31 I think it was before, right before, so it was really puzzling to me why he had to go into the army and, you know, we were being sent elsewhere. Sister: 00:07:49 Because we were shocked that he did go AT: 00:07:49 Why were they, why were people shocked that he was drafted? FM: 00:08:01 Well, it just seems so strange. The, you know, he would be going into the army when the United States was sending us elsewhere. AT: 00:08:20 Did you know of other Japanese, young Japanese American men who had FM: 00:08:23 No I didn' ; t. AT: 00:08:27 And, um, so where, where did your family, wherever you sent first? FM: 00:08:34 We were sent to the Santa Anita Racetracks and, uh, we were fortunately to be in barracks, but some friends of ours were put into these horse stalls and so they had horse hair coming out of the woodwork and things like, and very uncomfortable for them, you know. AT: 00:09:00 Can you describe, um, the timeline or the process of, um, you know, from your family finding out you had to leave to actually ending up at Santa Anita? FM: 00:09:15 Well, I don' ; t remember the timeline, but I know we had to help my father sell things like refrigerator and a piano and things like that. And a lot of the things that they had gotten from Japan, they burned because they didn' ; t want to have anything that, you know, signified that they would be closely connected to Japan. And so a lot of the things they asked our neighbor to keep in the garage for them, but I think that was a total loss because I don' ; t never remember that they got any of that back even after the war. So, uh, and then a lot of the things, the large items they would, they had sold to people in the neighborhood. So they did lose a lot of things. AT: 00:10:28 How did that feel as a 14 year old? FM: 00:10:32 Well, it just seems so unfair and I just felt sorry for my parents, you know, because they came to this country thinking that they would establish a new life. And, uh, they worked hard all the time and they were just being discriminated against you to know. So I really felt sorry for them. AT: 00:11:03 And at the time, um, cause you had mentioned that they had a couple of different lines of work. What were they doing at the time that the Evacuation Orders came out? FM: 00:11:15 Well, my father was doing gardening. AT: 00:11:18 Was he gardening? FM: 00:11:18 Uh huh AT: 00:11:18 And um, so after you were, your family was selling some of your belongings, um, where did you go from there? Did you have to report somewhere? FM: 00:11:37 We all had to meet that, the Methodist Church. And as I recall, we went on army convoy trucks to the camp. And so it was a long ride because we went from Santa Anita to, um, oh, trying to think of the name of the town. I don' ; t remember now. Uh, it started with an a, but I can' ; t remember. Uh, but it was way on the outskirts of Los Angeles and that' ; s where the Santa Anita race tracks was. AT: 00:12:21 So do you remember how long that trip would have been? FM: 00:12:27 No, not really. No. I don' ; t. AT: 00:12:32 And was your whole family together? FM: 00:12:35 Uh, yes. Except our middle brother. He was doing some kind of work that he did not go into the assembly center. And so it was our, the third son and my sister and I that went with our parents. Daughter: 00:13:04 Was Uncle Mas in Chicago already when you were? FM: 00:13:08 No, he was working in, in California. I' ; m not sure exactly what he was doing. Yeah. But, uh, no. So he was not in the camp with us. AT: 00:13:26 And, um, so when you got to Santa Anita, what were some of your first impressions of it? What was it like? FM: 00:13:35 Well, we were in a corner barrack of the whole camp. And right in front of us was this huge guard tower with soldiers, with guns, you know. And so it was rather frightening. And um, we had to all go to mess halls for our meals. And there was one main building where we went to the laundry room and the washrooms and showers. And, um, uh, for us, a group of us, we used to sit in the grandstand and we have a teacher who sort of taught us, but you couldn' ; t really concentrate, you know, you' ; re sitting in the grandstands trying to study. And it was really hard. AT: 00:14:39 So that' ; s where classes would take place? The classes? FM: 00:14:44 Yeah. So I mean they were really, I mean they were called classes, but they really weren' ; t know. AT: 00:14:53 And at that point, um, were you in high school or? FM: 00:14:58 I had just started and um, so, you know, it' ; s, I had really just barely started. AT: 00:15:11 And, um, do you remember what time of year that would have been that you went to Santa Anita or when you arrived? FM: 00:15:18 I think it was April. Was it April? Sister: 00:15:21 What? FM: 00:15:21 Was it April that we went? AT: 00:15:21 To Santa Anita? Sister: 00:15:21 I think April, it was around then. AT: 00:15:21 And so did you have to finish out the school year or? FM: 00:15:38 No, I didn' ; t finish it. AT: 00:15:45 And how long was your family in Santa Anita? FM: 00:15:51 About six months, eight months. Sister: 00:15:58 Eight months. FM: 00:16:01 Roughly eight months, I guess. AT: 00:16:05 And did you know anyone who was also sent to Santa Anita from back home in LA? FM: 00:16:10 We had a few friends. And uh, they were in, well, as I said, some of my friends were in the stables, the horse stables. And uh, we had some friends but not real close by. They were in other barracks. AT: 00:16:34 And was it a very large, was it a very large? FM: 00:16:38 It was good size. I can' ; t remember how many units, but uh, yeah, I don' ; t remember the Daughter: 00:16:46 What' ; s your living space? Smaller or bigger than when you got to Amache? FM: 00:16:57 You know, I can' ; t even remember what the rooms were like in a Santa Anita. Yeah, no, I don' ; t remember that at all. AT: 00:17:12 So if it was around eight months, it was probably winter time when you left Santa Anita? FM: 00:17:23 It wasn' ; t winter was it? No, it wasn' ; t winter cause when we got to Amache it was so dusty. Yeah. Yeah. So maybe it wasn' ; t eight months. AT: 00:17:47 And how did, did you say earlier that if that was the army truck that you took from the Santa Anita to Amache? FM: 00:17:56 Santa Anita to Amache we went on the train. AT: 00:18:03 And, um, can you describe what, what that trip was like, how long it was? FM: 00:18:09 Well, it was very long. And one thing that I remember, I cut my finger on something that was sticking out of the train and that was really my first train ride. And, uh, it just was a long trip and we couldn' ; t see out. So, you know, we didn' ; t know who you are going. AT: 00:18:37 Were their stops and people use the restroom? FM: 00:18:39 I don' ; t remember. Stops. Do you? No, I don' ; t think so. AT: 00:18:55 Um, when you arrived to Amache, um, besides being very dusty, what else did you notice or what FM: 00:19:06 I think other than that, that was a whole thing. It was just so dusty and windy. AT: 00:19:22 Can you describe what that' ; s like? And I, I' ; m asking really out of ignorance because being from Chicago, I had never experienced, you know, a very dusty place. Does that mean you, I mean, could you see, or FM: 00:19:34 You could see, and we were assigned barracks and uh, when we walked in the room had these mattresses and they were just covered with dust, you know, sandy, sand that had blown in and it was not very pleasant. AT: 00:20:01 So it was your family was still together and you were all staying in this? FM: 00:20:06 Yes. AT: 00:20:08 But you don' ; t remember the rooms that well? FM: 00:20:11 Remember what? AT: 00:20:12 The room' ; s like, what the actual barracks. FM: 00:20:14 It was a very one to one building had two small units on the end and then, uh, too full, two, two more, the middle size. And then there was one in the center I recall. And so we had the, the one on the end was just was very small family. So it was maybe somebody, a couple or one child. And then like our unit was the next one. And we went back to Amache this past year, uh, on a pilgrimage. And I was very interested because they had reconstructed of barrack, which was standing right on the block that we lived in. So it really, uh, brought back memories and I said to my daughter, I don' ; t know where I studied because the room was not that big. And, uh, with the beds in there, uh, I just don' ; t know where I studied. I guess I must have studied on the bed, you know, so. AT: 00:21:44 So do you remember your, your block and your address at camp? FM: 00:21:49 Mhm. My block was 12H and the barrack was six and the unit was B. And we were on the end, very end of the camp. So right behind us was the barbed wire and then the guard tower was there. And then beyond that was all sage brush. AT: 00:22:14 And what was the, what was the weather like in Amache? FM: 00:22:18 Well, it was hot and dusty and winter was cold. And I guess that was the first time we saw snow because being from California, you know, I just never did. AT: 00:22:36 Did you have the, the right clothes in the winter time? FM: 00:22:41 Well, they had a store, I don' ; t know what they called it. They had some kind of store that you could buy things, you know, or you could order through Montgomery Ward. So, so you did have, you know, clothing. Yeah. AT: 00:23:05 During this time, were you in communication with your eldest brother at all? FM: 00:23:11 He came to actually, he came to visit us in camp one time. And, um, so, you know, we really didn' ; t correspond that much. I think my parents must have, but I didn' ; t. AT: 00:23:29 And how about the rest of your family and camp? Did your parents work or your older siblings? FM: 00:23:38 My father worked in the mess hall. I think he was stoking the coal burners and then, uh, our mother, what was she doing? I can' ; t, yeah, I' ; m not sure what, whether she was in the kitchen. Yeah. So Daughter: 00:24:07 They both worked at camp? FM: 00:24:10 Well, I went to school and then when I graduated I worked as the secretary to the sanitation officer and his office was in the hospital and then my sister worked for the pioneer press, which was the newspaper there. So we were both employed. Was a $16 a month? Sister: 00:24:36 Yeah. FM: 00:24:38 Yeah. The professional doctors where I think getting 19 a month. AT: 00:24:44 And, um, what, what was school like in Amache? How did that compare to either Santa Anita or your school? FM: 00:24:57 Well, Santa Anita, you really couldn' ; t say it was school because we were sitting in the grandstand where the horses normally would' ; ve been running. Um, so I mean, it was, you know, we had good teachers. We had some, uh, Nisei teachers, but some Caucasian teachers from the outside. And so we had good schooling there. AT: 00:25:27 And did you do anything, any activities outside of school and work? FM: 00:25:34 The only thing I remember, I, I did play on the basketball team for awhile, but that was about it. AT: 00:25:41 So they had teams? FM: 00:25:44 They did. AT: 00:25:44 And how long was your family at Amache? FM: 00:25:55 Well, I was there actually almost four years because I stayed until my parents were able to leave because my brother had already gone and my sister had gone. And so I stayed with my parents. AT: 00:26:12 And where did your sister go? FM: 00:26:15 She moved to Chicago because my brother had moved to Chicago. AT: 00:26:18 And what was in Chicago for them? FM: 00:26:24 Well, our middle brother had been working there and uh, so then of course my younger brother moved to Chicago and then my sister followed. And so that' ; s where we all ended up. AT: 00:26:42 And what they, what were they doing for work? FM: 00:26:46 You know, my, the middle brother, he was doing insurance. Was he selling insurance? Yeah. And then our, um, the brother below him, uh, was working as a supervisor in a bindery. A job that he held for many years. Yeah. So he did very well there and he had a lot of Nisei' ; s working for him. So it was very good. AT: 00:27:28 And do you recall, was that some kind of like work leave that they were able to leave camp early to move to Chicago? FM: 00:27:39 Um, well, actually when my brother first came, I don' ; t think he had a job from things I' ; ve heard from other people. They said he was walking along the sidewalk and someone yelled from above, do you need a job? And my brother said yes. So there' ; s a person said, well, come on up. And uh, he started working there right away. And uh, he became the sup, one of the supervisors there and he was there for many years. Daughter: 00:28:19 Why was he able to leave Amache before you? FM: 00:28:23 Why was he able to? Well, people just started relocating, you know, and uh, he came to Chicago because our second brother was already out here. AT: 00:28:40 Had you heard of other people and other families in Amache going to Chicago? FM: 00:28:47 Not really. A lot of people who are going to Cleveland. Uh, but we didn' ; t know too many in Chicago. AT: 00:28:59 Would you happen to remember the years that your siblings left camp for Chicago? New Speaker: 00:29:07 Think the year 1943. 43' ; Cause I left 45' ; . Uh huh. So our brother must' ; ve left more like 42' ; . He also, uh, from camp went out to Greeley, Colorado to do farm work. So AT: 00:29:50 Do you know what kind of farm he was on? FM: 00:29:53 Sugar beets. I don' ; t know what he was doing, but a group of them had been hired to go out there. AT: 00:30:05 And um, do you remember where your family ended up coming to in Chicago? Which neighborhoods or? FM: 00:30:16 We lived on Wrightwood uh, we were right near Clark Street. And we lived there for many years. And then we, from there we moved across the street to a building on the Clark Street. And then from there I guess we moved to a LaSalle Street, I think LaSalle Street on. Yeah. AT: 00:30:45 And so were, were all of the siblings living together? FM: 00:30:48 Pretty much. Yeah. AT: 00:30:54 And it sounds like it was kind of one at a time. People, your siblings were FM: 00:31:00 Right. And I, our parents, were here at all. So, but they stayed about a year, but my father couldn' ; t take the cold so they finally moved back to California. AT: 00:31:18 Do you know which year that was when they came out to join everyone in Chicago? FM: 00:31:22 It was 1945. That' ; s when, when I came out. AT: 00:31:31 And you said, um, was it both your parents? They were here for a year? FM: 00:31:37 Yes. AT: 00:31:37 And where did they move back to? FM: 00:31:39 To Los Angeles. AT: 00:31:43 And when you first, well first of all, how did you get end up? How did you end up in Chicago? How did you get here? FM: 00:31:51 I think we came by train, if I remember right. I think so. AT: 00:31:58 And how was that trip? Do you remember though? FM: 00:32:00 I don' ; t remember that at all. AT: 00:32:05 What about your, your first impressions of the city? I imagine that it was probably your first time in Chicago? FM: 00:32:11 Well, I just remember it was big and dirty. AT: 00:32:17 Um, and what, what were you, uh, did you find a job when you? FM: 00:32:22 My sister was already working for the Methodist Church and so I just went and applied and got a job there. So I worked there full time for about a year and then I decided that I wanted to go to school. Um, and I, so I started going to the Evanston Collegiate Institute in Evanston, which is now Kendall College. And, um, I still work part time at the church building and I ended up in various offices in the church building. Um, they were located at 740 Rush Street in Chicago for awhile. And I can' ; t remember the year, but they built a building in Evanston, so they moved up there. So in total I worked for the Methodist Church in various offices for a total of 42 years. AT: 00:33:30 What was the name of the church? FM: 00:33:33 It was Methodist Church and then it became the United Methodist Church. It was headquarters offices. So I first worked for the central treasury, then I moved to what was called the board of the laity, which was an office that dealt with all the lay people in the United States. And uh, from there I went to what was called the United Methodist Communications and worked there. I was going to continue working there until I retired, but they, uh, the church decided to move our offices to Nashville and my family didn' ; t want to go there. Um, they, the church took us down to Nashville so we could look around and see if we wanted to take up residence there. But my family didn' ; t want to go and I considered commuting for awhile, but then decided that would be a little too hard. So I took early retirement and then after awhile I found another job in Evanston. Um working for a wholesale jewelry company and I was with them for about 27 years. AT: 00:35:16 So were you commuting from um, well, not too far from where we are now, to Evanston? FM: 00:35:23 Chicago, Evanston AT: 00:35:27 And would you travel by train or? FM: 00:35:28 Yes, I went by L train. AT: 00:35:33 And when you first came here, were there a lot of other Japanese American families in the neighborhood? In the neighborhoods? FM: 00:35:47 In the neighborhood? Um, not really. Um, we moved from LaSalle Street, well, and then well I got married and so then I was living on Wrightwood for awhile. And then from there I moved to where I' ; m living now, um, on the Northwest side. AT: 00:36:19 Which neighborhood is long? FM: 00:36:23 I think it' ; s called the Lawndale, the Lawndale neighborhood, I think. Daughter: 00:36:33 It' ; s between Lawndale and Lincoln Park. FM: 00:36:33 It' ; s um, about seven miles west of Wrigley Field near the expressway so. AT: 00:36:46 Where did you meet, where and when did you meet your husband? FM: 00:36:49 Um, they used to have a basketball games at Olivet Institute, the Nisei League and he was coaching one of the teams there. And I was helping out as cashier for people coming to watch the game. And so we gradually met there. AT: 00:37:12 Were there a lot of activities like that where Nisei FM: 00:37:15 We used to have a bowling league and we used to bowl. Both, both of us used to bowl in that. Um, and then they had Nisei leagues, where they had basketball for the boys and girls and they had basket, baseball teams. And so they had quite a few activities. AT: 00:37:40 How about the, um, the social dances? Were you around that age? FM: 00:37:46 I was, but I wasn' ; t that interested in it, so never went. Um, AT: 00:37:53 And I imagine the same goes for the, the social clubs, the FM: 00:37:57 Right AT: 00:37:58 [The Ting-a-Lings Things and the Devonairs?] FM: 00:37:58 Yeah and um, I' ; ve been along to one of the church clubs, but other than that AT: 00:38:10 What was the name of that club? FM: 00:38:12 They called it the [Maya Devies?] At that time, but it didn' ; t last too long. Yeah. We also did have, uh, I' ; m trying to think if this was before the war, if it was here, but we, I did belong to a group, the Tri Delts. But, uh, we did have a group that we used to have as a club here in Chicago too, for a while, not too long. AT: 00:38:53 And the folks who were in those, I guess social networks if you could call it that, um, where those folks mostly coming from camp? FM: 00:39:03 Oh yes, yeah uh huh. New Speaker: 00:39:04 And was that something that people would talk about, like where they were coming from or because I imagine it was people from all over. New Speaker: 00:39:19 You know, not really. People just didn' ; t talk about things about camp. And you know, I don' ; t know why that was, AT: 00:39:31 But I also wanted to ask, um, when you were, before the war and in LA, was your family religious? Did you go to church? FM: 00:39:47 We went to church, but we weren' ; t really what you call religious, but we did go to the church. AT: 00:39:55 Was it a Methodist? FM: 00:39:57 No. Buddhist church. AT: 00:40:02 Buddhist church. FM: 00:40:02 Uh huh AT: 00:40:02 And when you were working for the Methodist Church, were you attending? FM: 00:40:08 No, I and you know, one thing, uh, I thought it was pretty nice. No one ever tried to convince me that I should become a Methodist, you know. Uh, so it was perfectly all right. And I used to do a lot of traveling for, uh, for awhile I was in charge of the, what' ; s called the transportation office. So whenever we had conferences in various parts of the States, I would go to set up an office to help the ministers with their travel plans. And so I did do a lot of traveling at that time, you know. AT: 00:41:00 And um, what year did you get married? FM: 00:41:03 Uh, 1950. New Speaker: 00:41:07 And um, did do I have it right, did you move once you got married to? FM: 00:41:17 We were on, um, Wrightwood for a while and then, uh, we moved to, uh, where we are now in 1955. No, 57' ; cause she was two years old. AT: 00:41:44 And how many children do you have? FM: 00:41:46 I have two. I have a son, I have a daughter and I have a son who is 11 years younger than her. AT: 00:41:57 And in your own households, um, were you, uh, were you speaking Japanese with them or keeping anything really? FM: 00:42:10 Not really. They did go to Japanese school for little while, but, uh, we didn' ; t speak it at home except when my father in- law stayed with this awhile. We did speak a little bit then, but uh. And it' ; s, it' ; s really too bad because after he was gone and my parents were gone, you know, we used to correspond with my parents in Japanese and uh, uh, after they' ; ve been gone, we just don' ; t have the opportunities. So I' ; m slowly forgetting how to write it and how to speak it, you know, which is unfortunate. AT: 00:43:01 Do you have any questions? Daughter: 00:43:01 I always wondered when you were on the train going to a Amache and the shades were pulled, you didn' ; t really know where you were going. Is that correct? FM: 00:43:27 We didn' ; t know where we were going, no. Daughter: 00:43:29 Did you know what the situation was going to be when you got there? FM: 00:43:34 Not really. Daughter: 00:43:34 It was total uncertainty for four days on this train and when you got there, who explained to you what this life was going to be like for you there? FM: 00:43:47 Well nobody really explained anything just Daughter: 00:43:53 And while you were there, did you know what the end was going to be? Did you know you had to wait until this happened? It was just total uncertainty. FM: 00:44:07 No, you just, it was, you just live your life each day. Daughter: 00:44:11 While you were there, did you ever hear rumblings of discontent? FM: 00:44:20 Not really, which is a little surprising when I looking back, you know, but uh, as they say, it' ; s our parents who are the one who really, I felt so badly for them because here they thought there have establishing a new life here and they' ; re going through all this. They lost everything that they had and, but they even, they just rallied around and started a new life again Daughter: 00:45:04 After the war, after they were settled in Los Angeles, did they ever talk about camp? FM: 00:45:11 No, not really. People just never really did. I think it' ; s just now when the younger people are getting to be adults, they' ; re the ones who have started to raise the questions, which is I think very good. And uh, in our age people just really never talked too much about it. Daughter: 00:45:50 Do you feel any bitterness? FM: 00:45:55 No. Um, you just sort of wondered why they had to go to such extremes as to move everybody and put them in these confined areas with guards you know, overlooking, but, uh, uh, I don' ; t think people really were feeling bitterness, you know? AT: 00:46:29 Yeah. When you had children, did you share with them what happened to your family? FM: 00:46:39 You know, not really. I don' ; t know why that is, but we really didn' ; t talk about it. Daughter: 00:46:51 I also wondered in camp, the guards, did you have any interactions with them and if so, how did they treat you? FM: 00:47:02 Not really. Daughter: 00:47:04 Never spoke? FM: 00:47:04 They were there with their guns. And you just saw what were sort of scared you know. Daughter: 00:47:12 So, and then people from the Granada Community who would come and work inside the camp, how did they, how did they treat you or? FM: 00:47:23 They were all very, um, well, I don' ; t know how to put it, but they were all very nice to us and even to this day, they are just wonderful people. Uh, and you know, they refer to the camp as Granada a lot of times, but to us it was Amache Relocation Center and which is located near the town of Granada. And the people in Granada, we' ; re really just wonderful people and to this day they continue to be very good to the Japanese. And uh, they, um, uh, Mr. Hopper, who at that time was the principal of the high school has gotten the high school students and they come and clean the area in ah, Amache and they continue to work to keep the place up. And, um, as I say, I went on this pilgrimage this past year and he was there to show us around too. And, uh, he' ; s just a wonderful man that, uh, really has done so much for the Japanese Americans. AT: 00:48:57 And why, why is that something that' ; s important to you? You know, people are doing that kind of work? FM: 00:49:04 Well, I think it' ; s important that they do that because they, well, they' ; re keeping up the feeling of friendship. And I don' ; t know how to explain it, but, uh, there' ; s really a deep sense of appreciation for them. And I know a lot of the Nisei' ; s feel the same way and, uh, I don' ; t know about other camps, but the, the, um, uh, Amache' ; s fortunate that in Denver also there' ; s a group that has the pilgrimage every year and they go down to the camp site and they have a memorial service for people who have passed away. And, um, and usually the, uh, they open up the Granada high school, uh, to have a luncheon for us there. Uh, it' ; s just really a wonderful feeling to know that there are people who care about us and they continue to do that. AT: 00:50:40 Was that last pilgrimage, was that the first time you had returned to Amache? FM: 00:50:45 No, I had been there once. Let' ; s see. I had been there once before, I think it was back in 98' ; or so. Um, we stayed in Colorado Springs and took a bus to Amache. And, uh, at that time, the grounds were not as kept up as it is now. And now they' ; ve got markers, signs showing where things were and things like that. And uh, uh, but it was, you know, very nice that we were able to see where we lived and things like that. AT: 00:51:32 That first time that you went back, who did you go with? FM: 00:51:39 I went with my husband and, uh, I met some of my girlfriends there who had come from Los Angeles. Um, I was the only one that moved to Chicago. All my girlfriends went back to Los Angeles. And, uh, and we continued to, uh, meet each other every year. And I think this is the third year that we haven' ; t because we' ; re all getting older. AT: 00:52:15 And that first time that you went back, what was that like going back to that site? FM: 00:52:24 Well it, uh, I guess it sort of felt like home, although, I, my parents were living in a different place. Uh, but I was able to see all my girlfriends and uh, so it was very nice. Yeah. AT: 00:52:45 Were you able to try to figure out where your actual Barrick had been? Like, did you find the FM: 00:52:53 When I went to visit the camp? Oh yes. Because as I said, they reconstructed the barrack and it' ; s located right where my barrack was standing. But the first time it wasn' ; t there, of course. AT: 00:53:09 The first time you were able to travel? FM: 00:53:11 When I went to visit uh huh. AT: 00:53:16 And then so the second time you went was on this recent pilgrimage, is that right? FM: 00:53:22 I' ; m trying to remember if I went another time, but I think was the, when I went this past year, I went with my, my daughter and my, one of my grandsons and my nephew and uh, so it was a very good trip. AT: 00:53:41 What was that like taking your family to, to Amache? FM: 00:53:46 Well, I was really happy that they were able to see where I was living for four years. And um, you know, they couldn' ; t see some of the things like what the washrooms looked like and things like that. But at least I felt that they got a feel of where we lived in the, um, summertime' ; s, it would be hot and dusty. They used to call it the dust bowl and then in the wintertime was the snow. And uh, actually that was the first time I had ever seen snow when I first went into camp. Yeah. Daughter: 00:54:38 When you were in camp, I think I thought in the film downstairs that people could go out for different reasons. Did you, did auntie leave the boundaries of the camp during the time you lived there? FM: 00:54:53 You could get permits to go to the dentist. Daughter: 00:54:57 So did you, did you leave? FM: 00:54:59 No, I was going to and I never did. Um, and then we used to get permits to go, uh, I think it was called the Arkansas River. We used to go for weenie bakes. Sister: 00:55:14 Oh that' ; s right FM: 00:55:14 So bunch of us would go out, somebody would get a permit and a bunch of us would go out and have a weenie bake. AT: 00:55:24 Was that in town or? FM: 00:55:27 Um, not right in town, but not too far. Yeah, I' ; m actually, Granada was not too far from Amache so. Daughter: 00:55:39 So you were in camp, did you ever feel like I need to get out of here? FM: 00:55:47 Not really, no. Yeah. AT: 00:55:49 And what was that like when you actually did leave camp and go to Chicago? How did that feel? FM: 00:56:09 I guess it just felt like I was starting a new life. AT: 00:56:13 Did you experience any kind of discrimination or, or other challenges when you got to Chicago? FM: 00:56:23 Not really. The only thing like at the grocery store, things where being rationed because you know, that was everybody. Um, but I didn' ; t feel anything, you know, other than that. Daughter: 00:56:44 You didn' ; t have a hard time finding a place to live or a job? FM: 00:56:45 Well, I think the place to live, I think our brother had already gotten the place. And then the job, my sister was working there, so I went and applied and I got the job right away. And as I say, I started there in 1945 and I was still there 42 years later. And in different capacities. Daughter: 00:57:17 How were you able to connect with other Japanese Americans once you settled in Chicago? FM: 00:57:24 Well, we wanted the Buddhist church. Um Daughter: 00:57:28 And was it important to connect? FM: 00:57:31 Oh yes. And we also, you know, to the bowling leagues and the basketball leagues, um, things like that we were able to connect to, you know, so that was good. AT: 00:57:48 When you had children, was that still important to you to find community for them? FM: 00:57:57 Oh yes. New Speaker: 00:57:57 And how did you, how did you, how did that play out for your children? FM: 00:58:04 Well, we took them to church and, uh, they had Japanese school, so we got them started in that for awhile. Uh, and uh, but you know, that was, we tried to do things in the Japanese community. AT: 00:58:27 And how about today? Are you still involved in church or, FM: 00:58:34 Well, I go on occasion. I' ; m not that actively involved anymore. Um, because of my age, I don' ; t move that fast anymore and, but I still think it' ; s very important that we all tried to stay in touch with the Japanese community. We, um, uh, my husband had belonged to golf groups and um, bowling groups uh and, you know, Japanese groups and uh, and he was active in Boy Scouts and judo. And so we continued to stay in touch that way. AT: 00:59:28 And it' ; s, as we wrap up here, um, one question I like to ask is if you could leave some kind of message or, or legacy with your children and your grandchildren and the generations to come, what, what would you want that to be? FM: 00:59:54 Well, I want them to respect one another, love one another, be kind to each other and take care of each other. AT: 01:00:14 And is there, is there anything else that you would like to add or that I might' ; ve missed in the conversation? FM: 01:00:21 No. I guess another word that I would put in there would be for them to honor the family. So that would be about it, I think. Daughter: 01:00:40 Anything else you want to add? Sister: 01:00:44 No. Speaker 1: 01:00:51 Well, thank you so much again for coming to speak. FM: 01:00:57 That' ; s okay, I hope I did all right. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=MatsushitaFumiko20170924.xml MatsushitaFumiko20170924.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Matsushita, Fumiko (9/24/2017)
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2017-09-24
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Interviewer
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Takada, Anna
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Mizuta, Junko
OHMS Object Text
5.4 10/4/2017 Mizuta, Junko (10/4/2017) 1:31:27 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Mizuta, Junko Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/300751603 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/300751603?h=0a28f85c09" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 Can you start by stating your name? Junko Mizuta: 00:00:03 Yeah, I' ; m Junko Mizuta. And... AT: 00:00:08 I won' ; t leave you hanging. Can you tell me about where you were born and-- JM: 00:00:15 Yeah, I was born in Portland, Oregon, way back when. [Laughs.] AT: 00:00:21 And when were you born? JM: 00:00:23 I was born 1925. Is that which? Yup. Okay. AT: 00:00:30 And um, can you tell me a little bit about your parents and how they ended up in Portland' ; s? JM: 00:00:39 Well, my Dad came from Japan is the teacher leader and he had a concession in Long Beach I think originally. And then he went back some place along the line and married my Mom, married my Mom in Japan and then he came back, but then this time he was in Portland, Oregon and he had a tea house in at Console Crest in uh, Portland. And from what my Mom said, I think he was supposed to go back, you know, after his two or three year contract. But he liked him back to Japan, I guess he worked for the company because he' ; s so young. She' ; s so gone. They' ; re known for the tea. So anyway, um, he liked it here. So he decided to stay over there. My Mom wasn' ; t here now, but anyway, they decided to stay in. Um, um, then the Depression came in, my Dad lost his job, so it' ; s tough. So at the time in Japan things are good. So my Mom went back to Japan and my Dad stayed here while he tried to find something to support us and then we came back when things got better. So we were in Japan a couple of years and got to know my grandmother where she was. Great. AT: 00:02:28 You' ; re staying with your Mom' ; s family? JM: 00:02:32 Yeah, in Hiroshima. And then I came back couldn' ; t speak a word of English and then I was six so then I started grade school speaking to everybody in Japanese and not understanding. No one could understand me. AT: 00:02:54 And would you happen to know roughly the dates or the years, but your family was traveling during this time? JM: 00:03:03 In the late twenties and we came back when I was six, so must have been 1931. AT: 00:03:16 And so you were very young when you left for Japan? JM: 00:03:21 Yeah, I was four. I came back when I was six and then by then my Dad had found this apartment that he was leasing you on the east side of Portland, on the east of the river and I grew up there until we were forced from our homes. But it was a street of a lot of businesses and I was like, when I was like seven or eight, I go to all these businesses and could I interview everybody and I come back with all this news about everybody and my Mom would always say to me, I don' ; t know how you get all that news about these people, but you know, being seven, you' ; re curious and you ask all kinds of questions. AT: 00:04:15 So you must have picked up English pretty quickly then? JM: 00:04:18 Well, my sister knew. I have an older sister. She remembered English. So you pick it up. That. How much older is your? My sister' ; s four, was four years older then I. AT: 00:04:34 I' ; m sorry, what was her name? JM: 00:04:38 Her name was Haruhi. AT: 00:04:40 And what were your parents' ; names? JM: 00:04:42 My Mom' ; s name was Saiei in my Dad' ; s name was Kaiji AT: 00:04:50 And those early years of Portland' ; s. Do you have, do you have any actual memories of it? JM: 00:05:01 Yeah yeah, it was nice. You know, we, you, well the neighbors are pretty nice. I don' ; t really remember anything, you know, bad or anything, but um, I was young and you don' ; t know about those things. AT: 00:05:21 So when you and your Mom and your sister went back to Japan, were you going to school? JM: 00:05:28 No. No, it' ; s too young. My sister did, she went to a, well she went to a Japanese school like and they had her take their shoes off and she didn' ; t like that. So, um, my Mom transferred her to a mission school where they spoke English and you could keep your shoes on. AT: 00:06:00 And so what would you spend time with your Mom when you were in Japan or JM: 00:06:07 No, I spend more of my time with my grandmother and my uncle. That was fun. AT: 00:06:15 Hmm. So when you came back to the states that was around 31, can you tell me more about, um, I guess what, what life was like in Portland for, for your family at that time? JM: 00:06:37 I don' ; t really remember too much. Even the, AT: 00:06:43 Your Dad had the apartments? JM: 00:06:44 Yeah. AT: 00:06:48 Were you going to school by then, when you came back? JM: 00:06:51 Yeah, I went to Buckman grade school. And, it was nice. I don' ; t, only thing was I couldn' ; t speak English the first years I think. And that was kind of bad, but once that was gone I was fine. AT: 00:07:11 Were there other Japanese American families where you lived? JM: 00:07:15 Not that I know of. There were a couple where there was one family later on, another family moved in, but they were kind of far, you know, like, not like next door maybe they were, what? Portland six walk seven blocks away. AT: 00:07:34 And did you and your sister, did you have to go to Japanese school? JM: 00:07:38 Well, not really. I don' ; t think that was in the plan, but my, um, these two other gals, they were going and I was around 12 I think and then I found out they were going to Japanese school and so I came home and I asked my Mom if I go to Japanese school because they were going to school and she said, well Dad and I all discuss it and we' ; ll let you know. So a couple of days later my Mom said, yeah, well we decided you could go. So that' ; s how I went to Japanese school. My sister never went. AT: 00:08:25 Hmm. And were you speaking Japanese at home? JM: 00:08:28 Yeah, with my parents, not with my sister. AT: 00:08:34 Hmm. How long were you going to Japanese school? JM: 00:08:38 No, too long because I started late around 11, 12 and then the war started when I was 16. So maybe four or five years at the most. AT: 00:08:52 Did you, how were you as a student? JM: 00:08:56 I don' ; t know, I guess it was interesting, you know, we have to write composition and read and of course I was the oldest in the class because most of the kids start when they' ; re probably a lot younger, but it was an interesting experience. I mean like today I can look at a character kind of looks familiar, which I wouldn' ; t have had if I hadn' ; t gone. AT: 00:09:27 Hmm. Was Your family religious at all? New Speaker: 00:09:30 I' ; m sorry. New Speaker: 00:09:31 Was Your family religious at all? JM: 00:09:33 My Dad was, my Mom too. I guess it must have rubbed off on her, but I was reading the, um, the, well, the DOJ report, it said that my Dad was a Christian from Japan. I don' ; t know how that happened. I wish he were living in and I had known, I would have asked him. But yeah, I was raised a Methodist. My Mom was, of course my Dad was like a deacon at the church. Very active in the church. AT: 00:10:11 And you said that you wish that you asked your Dad, was that, that he was religious in Japan? JM: 00:10:19 You, yeah. Well, how he became a Christian in Japan, but I didn' ; t know this until I read the report. AT: 00:10:29 Hmm. Speaking about about your parents, um, can you describe them? What, what were they like when they were raising you and these, JM: 00:10:46 I don' ; t know, my Dad was fun. You know, I didn' ; t know, can' ; t really recall. You know, we used to do things together as a family. So, but my Dad was always busy, you know, who is always going to meetings and stuff like that. And uh, my Mom was, I guess she was busy with her business when she opened it, but, uh, she was a home, you know, home person, until then. AT: 00:11:33 What was her business the one she JM: 00:11:35 She opened the laundries in store, so she had her own business and my Dad had his. AT: 00:11:45 Was your Dad' ; s just being the, the apartments? JM: 00:11:50 Yeah, he had the apartment. And when she first opened the business was about a block away, but then there was a vacancy on the first floor storefront. So she moved your business to the first floor of the apartment. So it was convenient. Yeah. AT: 00:12:13 And then uh, can you tell me about, uh, your experiences? Um, the day that Pearl Harbor was? JM: 00:12:27 Yeah, usually on Sunday we went out as a family. Yeah, well Sunday ride or we' ; d go someplace near the Columbia Gorge or Mount Hood or someplace. And so this was a regular Sunday and we were all planning to go out. And then on the radio we heard that, you know, Pearl Harbor was attacked. We couldn' ; t believe it, but we thought, well, we' ; ll just continue our daily or weekly thing. So we went out for a ride and we must have, come back about 4 and then we had supper and then, around, then my Mom went to take a bath. And around 6, my Dad answered the door. I don' ; t know where my sister and I were, maybe we were in our rooms? And the next thing I know these two guys are taking my Dad away and my Dad said, well, they were taking down just to ask a few questions. And we said, well, Mom' ; s in the bathroom so bathed up, so should we go tell her? And they said no, you can' ; t do that. So, uh, yeah, I could still see him at the top of the steps, you know, going down with these two men on one, on either side of him. And so when my Mom came out of the tub, you know, we told her what happened and I didn' ; t know what happened after that. I, I do remember we waited you late waiting for him to come home and he didn' ; t come home. But then at that time I was in school. My sister was out of high school, so she, um, she knew what happened. But you know, I' ; ll always really too dumb to even ask what was going on at the time. AT: 00:14:47 How old? How old were you then? JM: 00:14:50 I had just turned 16. I was a junior in high school. AT: 00:15:01 That must have been really hard. JM: 00:15:01 Yeah, because then I went to school and the next day and these two gals that were Japanese, I asked one, gee what, you know, did they come and pick up your Dad? And she didn' ; t even know what I was talking about. And so I was kinda shocked because I kinda assume everybody' ; s Dad was picked up, you know, but she wasn' ; t. And then the other gal, hers, father wasn' ; t picked up either and I couldn' ; t understand what was going on. So, uh, yeah, that' ; s the way it was. AT: 00:15:41 Do you remember the, the conversations with your Mom after he left? JM: 00:15:49 No, I don' ; t remember anything at all. One thing I remember is we didn' ; t know where he was and we used to talk about that in one week went by and two weeks went by, three weeks went by and then my Mom said she found out that they were in the county jail. So uh about a month, you know, we found out where he was, you know, I guess my Mom and sister must have gone to visit him because I was in school so I don' ; t know what was going on and we didn' ; t, I don' ; t remember talking about it, but my Mom said, you know, Dad was at the jail so you better go visit him. And I did. I remember going down to visit him when he was in jail. I' ; ve visited him. You know behind bars and I don' ; t remember what we talked about except when I was leaving he said to me, well we may never see each other again so take good care of yourself. And I remember leaving crying. But other than that I don' ; t remember, you know much. AT: 00:17:33 That must have been really, really hard. JM: 00:17:33 Yeah. AT: 00:17:39 So do you think it was about a month after he was gone? That you went to visit him? JM: 00:17:43 Yeah, must have been a good month. AT: 00:17:50 And JM: 00:17:50 Well, the sad part of that was what he told me that I may never see him again. Is he died and I never did see him again. So. AT: 00:18:09 And ah, so following that, it must' ; ve been the Executive Order was signed. JM: 00:18:28 In February. AT: 00:18:29 Shortly. JM: 00:18:29 So then I didn' ; t know how my Mom manage, I think about it now and think, you know, of course my sister was there, but I remember we had her piano. I remember going back, going to the piano store that we bought it, we bought it at and he was right next door to my Mom' ; s laundry store and he bought that back and then there was a secondhand store on the other side of my Mom. I remember selling some stuff to him, but I think everything else she just left, you know, because I don' ; t think she could handle all that. Although some of her good pieces that she brought back from Japan. She had packed and taken it to the church and to have a stored during the war. But I don' ; t know, I think she just left it. Cause we could only carry, take what we could carry. I don' ; t even remember that. I know my sister and I, we used to say, how did we get to the assembly center? You know, I don' ; t know how we got there. AT: 00:20:05 Do you remember first hearing about it or hearing the news that you would have to leave? JM: 00:20:14 Yeah, I remember. And then the signs that went up on the telephone poles, but it' ; s very vague. AT: 00:20:23 The instructions? JM: 00:20:25 Yeah. Well, the whole incident' ; s kind of vague to me. AT: 00:20:32 Hmm. JM: 00:20:34 You know, not like not remembering how we got there. It sounds crazy but know I don' ; t remember. AT: 00:20:47 Hmm. Were there any other like what after Pearl Harbor was attacked, what else changed in your life? Obviously the absence of your father must have been huge, JM: 00:21:13 Yeah. AT: 00:21:13 But in your, like in your daily life or interactions at school did anything? JM: 00:21:18 No, I don' ; t think there was much different in school if there was. I don' ; t remember. You know how the kids treat each and stuff like that. I don' ; t remember. AT: 00:21:37 And then so when your family got the orders to leave, do you remember having to figure out what to do with all of your belongings? JM: 00:21:48 Yeah, and as I say, I think my Mom left everything. We had no relatives here and so it was just my Mom, my sister and I, we didn' ; t have cousins or uncles or any, anybody like that, so she did everything and depending on trends, but I' ; m sure they were busy with their own packing and whatever they had to do. AT: 00:22:16 Do you know if your Mom was in touch with them, her family in Japan or was there any like? JM: 00:22:27 She was, yeah, during that time and before the war too. Yeah. She used to write to her sister and her sister used to tell her, you know, things that are kind of suspicious. Things are great, but she felt there was gonna be a war AT: 00:22:56 In saying that from Japan? JM: 00:23:11 Yeah. AT: 00:23:11 So. So then where was your family assigned to go from Portland? JM: 00:23:18 Well, we went to the assembly center first and, well we lived in cubicles. No, no ceiling. And ah, since there were only three of us, we weren' ; t allowed one cubicle to ourselves. So we had to share with another family was a mother and a daughter. I think her father was a FBI pick up too. And uh, we didn' ; t know them. All I remember as I slept in one corner and she slept diagonally from me, but it must have been close quarters, I don' ; t remember. AT: 00:24:02 And this was Portland Assembly Center? JM: 00:24:06 Hmmh, Portland Assembly Center, where it used to be a livestock exposition ground and, you know, it was pretty bad. The smell and the flies--millions of flies and so they hung up a sticky flypaper we were just packed with flies and I got sick from the fly. I had upset stomach and threw up and everything from the fly and uh, didn' ; t really do too much there, you know, I hung around with a couple of girls and we used to just go out in the lawn and sit and just, you know, teenagers just kinda sit and gab. Except this one time we were out there and um, this cook came out of the kitchen and um, you went to the fence and he put his, move his fingers through the fence and just hung his arm down. You know, like some always say stick from behind. And then the next minute we heard the shot and this cook got shot. By, I think a guard. And he was Japanese because I saw his black hair, he just fell backwards and it hit him in the stomach and blood was oozing out of there and the other two girls and I, we ran as fast as we could and yelling, they' ; re shooting, they' ; re shooting us. And then we didn' ; t know why he got shot and we said, oh, we' ; ll find out when we get inside because people will be talking about it. Not a soul was talking about, it was just hush hush. But I later found out it was because he went near the fence, you know, he was just hanging there looking out into space. Probably having a lot of thoughts you know. But he, he got shot by this guard, you know, it was terrible. AT: 00:26:38 And this was all, you were not far from him? JM: 00:26:41 No, we weren' ; t far because we could see, you know, I think I even saw the gun in his hand, as he came down. No one seems to know what happened to this cook. You know, I' ; ve been curious ever since. And you know, I' ; ve been trying to find out, but no one seems to know. AT: 00:27:02 Did you see the guard who shot him? JM: 00:27:06 Yeah, well, he came down and he was coming down, but by then we just ran, you know, I don' ; t know what happened after that. AT: 00:27:16 Do you think he was um, like in one of the JM: 00:27:20 I think he was in the guard house. Yeah, because I think there was a guard house near there. AT: 00:27:33 Wow. Do you know about how old the cook was? JM: 00:27:37 I don' ; t know. He had his chef hat on, couldn' ; t tell. He was kind of heavy set person. Well, you know, he had all white on, so you could see the blood coming, oozing out from his stomach. AT: 00:27:58 And did you think because as you were saying that your friends were yelling, they' ; re shooting us. Did you see that they were going to be. JM: 00:28:06 Well we didn' ; t know we were near there, so we just, all three of us just yelled out, you know, they' ; re shooting. And we ran. AT: 00:28:19 Hmm. And after there was no, JM: 00:28:22 Nothing. It wasn' ; t in the paper. No one talked about it. In fact, about 10 years ago, I was talking to somebody who was also at the assembly center and she said, I never heard about it, so I guess it was a hush hush. AT: 00:28:42 Hmm. Do you. Should you try talking about it with your family? JM: 00:28:48 Yeah, they AT: 00:28:48 Did you tell them about what happened? JM: 00:28:48 Yeah, they know because I talk about it for 75 years, what happened to that cook. I hope he didn' ; t die, you know, his, his crime was going to the fence. I didn' ; t even know that until about 30 years ago and um, this other gal I met out here, she said when she was 5, she went to the fence to get a ball because she was playing with her ball. And um, a guard came up to her and told her and balled her out for coming to the fence. And she said to me, gee, at that time I was only 5 years old. I didn' ; t know any better. So. AT: 00:29:40 So is that what month in 42 is JM: 00:29:52 That was in May, end of May, I guess. We, we went there beginning of May. AT: 00:30:04 And I know you said you don' ; t really remember how you got there. Was it close to your hometown? JM: 00:30:12 I don' ; t know. I don' ; t. I think it was, I think was on the Northeast corner maybe. And we were on the East side. I don' ; t know. AT: 00:30:25 And how long has your family that JM: 00:30:28 In the assembly center? I don' ; t know. I think we must have moved down in September or August or something. AT: 00:30:40 And there, there wasn' ; t school there? JM: 00:30:42 No, not that, this was like summer vacation, you know. So...no, we just kind of, you know, enjoyed ourselves. I was a waitress who waited on tables and they had dancing there. I used to go dancing on weekends, you know, ballroom dancing. But other than that I don' ; t really remember anything else we did there. AT: 00:31:15 Can you tell me more about being a waitress? Was it like mess hall style or JM: 00:31:19 Yeah, we had the long bench like tables and we just served people, I just, you know, I don' ; t really remember too much. AT: 00:31:34 Did you get paid for that? JM: 00:31:37 I don' ; t know. Maybe we did, but I don' ; t know, I don' ; t re, maybe $7 a month. We got paid. AT: 00:31:51 And do you remember your first impressions when you first arrived to the assembly center? JM: 00:31:57 No, no, I don' ; t remember anything. I just remember having to live with another family. AT: 00:32:11 And getting sick. Was there ah, was there a hospital or treatment? JM: 00:32:16 I have no idea. I don' ; t remember. There was a post office, but I don' ; t remember anything else. AT: 00:32:28 It seems like your, your most vivid memory was the but the shooting, JM: 00:32:34 Yeah, the shooting and the flies and getting sick and living with another family AT: 00:32:46 And then it so September, your family was sent to Minidoka? JM: 00:33:00 I don' ; t even remember leaving camp. Just, all I remember is going on this train with the shades pulled down and then I don' ; t know how long it took or anything. But, once we got to Minidoka we were greeted with a huge dust storm and we, I think we had to wait outside for food, you know, food was just covered in sand. It was even not edible, but um, but other than that, I don' ; t really remember the beginning part of Minidoka, but I do remember being greeted by a sandstorm or dust storm. AT: 00:33:53 That must have been very different climate then-- JM: 00:33:57 Yeah, it was hot. Three figures in the summer, cold and rainy, and the mud was so bad. When you stepped in the mud, it would go up, you' ; d walk in, it would go up to your ankles. I mean your foot was sinking into the mud in. Eventually they put planks down so we didn' ; t have to walk up it. You' ; d walk in the mud and your shoe back there, you know, it was pretty bad. AT: 00:34:30 Were you prepared in terms of clothing and--? JM: 00:34:34 I don' ; t remember, but I know people used to order from Montgomery Ward. And I think that' ; s probably what we did. AT: 00:34:48 And when you were in Minidoka, did you start going to school again? JM: 00:34:53 Yeah, because I had my senior year there. Which, school is really not much of a school. AT: 00:35:04 In terms of-- JM: 00:35:06 Well I didn' ; t learn anything, it was just kind of a waste of time. AT: 00:35:13 Was that because of quality of teaching or lack of resources? JM: 00:35:17 I don' ; t know, it' ; s just maybe, you know, maybe it was me, me, maybe I didn' ; t apply myself, but I didn' ; t learn anything. They had this core curriculum but I just didn' ; t learn anything. I can' ; t take away anything from my senior year. So...it was kind of, I took Home Ec. I took bookkeeping. I learned credit and debit there, but other than that I don' ; t remember anything. AT: 00:36:03 When you were in camp, were you still speaking Japanese with your Mom? JM: 00:36:08 Yeah, I think so. Hmmh AT: 00:36:11 Would you ever speak with other kids your age or was it JM: 00:36:14 No, it was all English. Just my Mom. AT: 00:36:18 Hmm. And what was the um, the living arrangements? JM: 00:36:23 Well, we had only three in the family, so we had the end room of this barrack. There was 6 apartments, so to speak, depending on the size of your family, you got whatever size. And we had the end there, which is small. We didn' ; t stay in there too much. It' ; s crowded. We had canvas cots, I think and a little potbelly stove. And I think we had a card table. AT: 00:37:05 And one thing I wanted to ask, when you are going from place to place, to, so say from Portland to the assembly center and then the assembly center to Minidoka, ah each of these moves, were you moving with people you knew or were you ending up? JM: 00:37:25 I don' ; t remember. I have no idea. AT: 00:37:31 So you JM: 00:37:33 I' ; m sorry. I don' ; t remember anything like that. AT: 00:37:37 No, it' ; s fine. Um, so you didn' ; t stay in touch with people you met in the camp? JM: 00:37:44 No, I don' ; t. No, I made new friends. My allergies. AT: 00:37:53 Me too [laugh] I' ; m actually feeling that. Um, so by now. And then how long were you in Minidoka? JM: 00:38:09 Oh, after I finish my senior year I lived in, that was 1943. I lived in August or September. I kind of decided I wanted to go to school. I didn' ; t have any money. My parents had, had a college fund for me, but they couldn' ; t pay the premiums, you know, since they were in camp. So that lapsed. So, um, I, I just decided to go out. And my Mom, she was in a state of shock I think. So she just said, you know, go ahead. Oh, I was only 18 and didn' ; t know anybody but, uh, outside, but um, she said you want to go, go. And then in camp my sister almost died. So, uh, she, um, she was still recuperating and so she stayed behind with my Mom AT: 00:39:25 And and she, so she didn' ; t end up going to school? JM: 00:39:30 No, well, she was that age I think when you just graduated high school and everything was in turmoil, you know, and you weren' ; t applying to school, you were packing up your baggage, you know, so she never went. AT: 00:39:52 And so where did you ended up going with your? JM: 00:39:56 Oh, I went to Milwaukee is a domestic, and this woman had another Japanese girl before me and she had a family that lived there in Milwaukee. So weekends on her day off she' ; d go back home and I had nobody. I didn' ; t know anybody. I never did domestic work and she and I, we didn' ; t get along. AT: 00:40:30 Did not get along? JM: 00:40:30 No, uh, I got along great with the grandmother. But the young mother who was working for, she didn' ; t like me in, I probably didn' ; t like her. So one day she said, we' ; re no longer want your service. And she asked this other girl that I took the place of to come back until she found somebody, but then I was homesick and you know, I kinda wish I hadn' ; t left home and uh, and so anyway, I did know this one, couple young couple from back home, this was the son and the parents were good friends of my parents, so I called them and I asked him if I could stay with them for a few days until I find something new. And of course, WRA was great, I think was the WRA and anyway, they found me another job in uh, you know, three or four days. So then I went to this family and it was a young couple. She was 26 and he was 30 and we got along great. She had two kids and I was supposed to take care of the kids and then help her in the kitchen. So that worked out well and I was happy there. And so I was there. And then in the meantime, my Dad got released from the DOJ camps, so my sister was stronger. So she came out and she had a domestic job, so you know we communicate with each other. So it wasn' ; t bad. And once a week on my day off I' ; d go to business school so then I wouldn' ; t have to be domestic job for the rest of my life in. So things were going pretty good. AT: 00:42:49 Which school were you taking classes at? JM: 00:42:53 I don' ; t know, I can' ; t remember AT: 00:42:54 Was it? JM: 00:42:54 In Milwaukee. AT: 00:42:55 And your family friends, who you had contacted? JM: 00:43:03 Yeah AT: 00:43:04 About staying with them, were they Japanese American? JM: 00:43:06 Yeah. They were Nisei' ; s AT: 00:43:10 Living in Milwaukee? JM: 00:43:12 Hmmh AT: 00:43:12 So had they left camp? To find a job? JM: 00:43:15 I think so, yeah. He was an engineer. Yeah, because I don' ; t think before the war engineers, you know, found work on the West Coast. AT: 00:43:31 And I wanted to ask you because of course we have the letter from your father requesting to join you. Can you, can you tell me more about what you know of, of that process and exactly what happened? JM: 00:43:53 Well, I think that was the second or third attempt in asking for release. And each time he asked for a release, it would say, well that one, it said he' ; s intelligent, he' ; s a great leader, I can' ; t remember what the third was. But the big but, you were in all these organizations and you took, you were chair of the charity group of maybe other Japanese Association, I don' ; t know. But anyway, and because of that you cannot be released. That' ; s what it says in his record. And so, but he was not well. And so, uh, well he went from Missoula to Fort Sill to Fort Livingston and then Santa Fe and I think he was in the hospital at Fort Missoula for a week. And then in Livingston, he was in the hospital for 6 months. And when he wrote that letter he said he was not well. And I don' ; t know whether that made a difference. But anyway, he came home because his prognosis was not good. AT: 00:45:36 And so while of course when your sister and your Mom were in camp, you didn' ; t know, you still didn' ; t know where he was? JM: 00:45:45 No, we knew because we would get these letters from him full of holes. And I remember my Mom saying there was really no sense in writing to Dad because all his letters and nothing but cut outs and, you know, being censored, and she said probably ours is too. So I know she, she said, well, the only thing I can say is how are you? We' ; re doing okay in um, so he used to write to us, but, you know, wherever, after I read that book, I guess paper was scarce. So I guess he knew he wrote whatever he could get hold of, a writing, you know, paper. AT: 00:46:38 So that was, um, I actually wasn' ; t familiar with that. That writing, that paper was scarce. JM: 00:46:45 Oh, I' ; m sorry? AT: 00:46:46 I, I haven' ; t, I haven' ; t heard about that. JM: 00:46:48 Oh yeah, well that' ; s what it said in that book I read yeah, that it was scarce, but you know, they all helped each other. You got the paper to write on. AT: 00:47:01 Well, and that' ; s, that must' ; ve been pretty big then that he had a little notepad. It seems like. JM: 00:47:08 Yeah, I don' ; t kn, that' ; s why I wondered where he got the notepad, you know, after I read that I wondered, where did he get that notepad? They hit a canteen, I think. I' ; m not sure. But then according to that book, some families I think, were sending money, but I don' ; t remember whether my Mom sent money or not. You know, these guys are, their assets are all frozen. So when he was taken then you know, we couldn' ; t touch anything but my Dad had an account with me or I had an account with him at a bank. So I used to go every weekend or every month and sneak so much money on until the balance was zero. AT: 00:48:04 When, at what point were you doing that? JM: 00:48:10 That was after he was taken. So that was in ' ; 41. AT: 00:48:17 And um, so from the reports that you read after this has happened, um, there were claims that his involvement with the charity work JM: 00:48:35 Yeah AT: 00:48:35 Ah, and a couple of other organizations JM: 00:48:37 Yeah AT: 00:48:38 Where the reason why he called you at least JM: 00:48:39 Yeah, he belonged to about five organizations like the hotel organizations, the laundry organizations, the Japanese Association. This charity thing was bad because uh, this group got money to send to Japan, to the soldiers' ; families, and I guess government felt that was being unpatriotic. You know, he donated more than the rest of the people they claim. But then he was the head of it, s o maybe he did that just to show, you know, we should all donate money to the families. But those were the things that were against him. AT: 00:49:38 Were you familiar with that work that he was doing before the war? JM: 00:49:41 Well, I knew he was in a lot of organization and um, the Japanese Association. I know he started the Boy Scouts in Portland and my Mom was real happy about that because she used to tell me, you know, they finally got a Boy Scouts for the Japanese kids. AT: 00:50:00 Hmm. And ah, when he was writing, did you have any idea where he was writing from or where he was? JM: 00:50:14 Well, yeah, because it would say the camp he was from, you know. AT: 00:50:19 So that part wasn' ; t censored? JM: 00:50:21 No. So we knew where were he was. AT: 00:50:30 To go back a little bit. JM: 00:50:31 Yeah AT: 00:50:31 You were in Milwaukee? JM: 00:50:35 Yeah AT: 00:50:35 Uh JM: 00:50:35 And then my Dad died. So then I went back to camp and it was strange because, uh, my sister called that day and she said, you know, I want to come over and you know, we never got together except on our day off and this was not our day off. So she came over and she was with me because it wasn' ; t my deal. So she stayed with me. And then that night we got a phone call and from camp and it said, you need to come home, because Dad isn' ; t feeling well. And so the couple that I was staying at was wondering how urgent it was because I had to get a plane fare and all this stuff. So we called again to find out how urgent it was and they told us that he had died. So then we decided it was urgent, so we went back when my sister and I feel bad, I think I left my stuff there at this house. I was thinking about it the other day I wonder what happened to. I think she wrote me and asked me what should we do with your things and I think I just told her just throw it away. AT: 00:52:05 Hmm. JM: 00:52:06 But I never really kept up with them. They were, you know, good to me compared to what happened with the first family. AT: 00:52:21 And um, when your, when your father was released, and came to Minidoka was he just staying with your Mom? Had your older sister left already? JM: 00:52:33 Yeah, yeah, because from Milwaukee, I went back to camp for the funeral and then I left again in August, I think. And I went to Iowa, and I went to a Methodist college, Simpson College. I went there one year. I worked in the kitchen, to make, so I could have room and board free and I had made enough money for the tuition. So then when the school year ended, in the meantime, my Mom had left camp and she didn' ; t want to go back to the West Coast. So she said she wanted to start new out East, so she came out here to Detroit and so after my first year as Simpson, I went to Detroit and I was there in Michigan for about three months and I worked, I didn' ; t like working, so I thought, well there must be a better way of doing things and working. And I thought, well I' ; m going to go back to school again. So in those days, it' ; s not like today. And I went up to Michigan, University of Michigan, I talked to the administrative person, gave him my story and he said you can start this semester, which was like next week. And uh, but in the meantime he had to get my transcripts and stuff. So he got my transcripts and Michigan would not accept my high school credits from camp. So that meant what that meant, the one year that I did at Simpson, they took those credits and put it down to my high school credits. So that because of that then I was accepted. But then in the meantime I lost so many hours. So I went a couple of summers to make up for the hours that I lost in, but um, it worked, you know, it worked out fine. AT: 00:55:01 When you were at Simpson, what were you, were you on any kind of track or what were you studying? JM: 00:55:06 Oh I wasn' ; t. I was just, you know, it was small. It was during the war. There were only 394 kids, it was smaller than my high school. I guess that' ; s what I didn' ; t like about it. It was like high school. I did live in a dorm, which was a good experience, but I don' ; t know, I just, I didn' ; t care for it. I mean you know, I guess I thought it was his college, you know, it' ; s small. So then I went the opposite and went to Michigan with about 35,000 students, you know, but. AT: 00:55:56 Do you know any, anything more about your mother' ; s decision to move East? JM: 00:56:02 No, because I really wasn' ; t there. Just what my sister said. She just said Mom just didn' ; t want to go back because there was nothing to go back to. She lost her business. My Dad lost his business. He wasn' ; t around anymore, so she said there was no use going back. So she said it' ; s going to start new. She wanted to go out East. AT: 00:56:38 And um, as far as the rest of your schooling, um, did you finish at University of Michigan? JM: 00:56:46 Yeah I finished at University of Michigan in ' ; 48. AT: 00:56:50 Hmm. And hat was your degree in? JM: 00:56:53 I had a BS degree, I don' ; t know what it was. It was a long time ago. Yeah. AT: 00:57:03 And, and where did you go from there? JM: 00:57:05 Oh, then in the meantime, my Mom, uh, moved to Chicago because she really couldn' ; t find a good job in Detroit. She was doing domestic and then she, what was she doing? She was working in a nursing home and she had her room and board there, but she, um, but had friends here and the friends said come to Chicago, you' ; ll find a better job. My Mom was a good seamstress so she said, come to Chicago. So that' ; s what she did. And when I finished I came here. AT: 00:57:51 Was your sister still in Detroit? JM: 00:57:53 My sister was here, but then she moved back to Detroit. AT: 00:58:00 And um, where did your Mom end up in Chicago? Do you know which neighborhood or... JM: 00:58:06 Well, she was on the South Side know, but eventually we moved North. AT: 00:58:15 Hmm. On the South Side, would that have been Hyde Park area? JM: 00:58:18 No. Further South. AT: 00:58:22 Do you know the, what the area is called? JM: 00:58:25 Well, it was, it was on Cottage Grove. She lived in this apartment owned by a Japanese where this friend that she was corresponding with in Detroit also lived in the same place. Yeah. It was in the Black neighborhood. AT: 00:58:45 And when you arrived, what, what were you doing? Where did you JM: 00:58:50 Well I stayed with her for. Yeah. And then then we moved North, so I had my own room and stayed with her. And where, where was that? That was on Grace street. On Broadway. There off of the drive. AT: 00:59:14 Lakeview Area? JM: 00:59:15 Lakeview, I think. AT: 00:59:18 And were you doing anything for work? JM: 00:59:21 I' ; m sorry? AT: 00:59:22 For work? JM: 00:59:22 Yeah, I, in the meantime then I found a job at Northwestern and always doing a research work. AT: 00:59:32 Can you tell me more about that position? So you were commuting from? JM: 00:59:38 Yeah, from there, on Grace to Northwestern and just doing kind of lab work, you know. AT: 00:59:54 And so that' ; s something that I' ; ve probably your degree helped you? JM: 01:00:04 Yeah, yeah. AT: 01:00:04 And what do you, what do you remember about that neighborhood at the time that you were living there? What was it like? JM: 01:00:12 Do you mean on Grace? AT: 01:00:14 Yeah JM: 01:00:15 It was nice. You know, it was, I don' ; t know how it is now, but it was nice then. I just remembered being safe and I used to go down to Lincoln Park and take a, what do you call it? Polishing stones, lapidary is it? I think. Yeah. And did enameling. I used to go to two or three times a week. It was convenient. The bus was right there on the corner and it was safe to come home late. And so it was a good neighborhood. AT: 01:01:04 And so when you were commuting places, were you traveling mostly by bus? JM: 01:01:10 Yeah. Those days it was pretty frequent. The buses came one right after another and it was cheap. AT: 01:01:24 And what were the, at the time, what were the general demographics and living like you were there other Japanese Americans?? JM: 01:01:36 I don' ; t remember. I don' ; t think so. Not unl, well, I think this building had Japanese. Yeah. Yeah, they did. It was owned by Japanese person. AT: 01:01:58 And so this, um, this was around the time where there were a few activities for young Japanese American folks in the city. Were you involved at all with JM: 01:02:14 No, I wasn' ; t, I just went to the church. I don' ; t know what it was called. I think it' ; s called Ravenswood now. But I wasn' ; t involved in any of that. AT: 01:02:27 And then did you know anyone else besides your family in Chicago? JM: 01:02:38 Did I know? AT: 01:02:39 Anyone else? Did you have any friends or JM: 01:02:42 Not really. Well, I used to go the Resettlers, you know, you know make friends there. Well, yeah, I guess I did. Yeah. Yeah. AT: 01:02:57 And what, what brought you to the Resettlers Committee? JM: 01:03:02 I think just to get to know more people, you know, we were all kind of...didn' ; t know anybody. Remember when we first came out here. First thing you' ; d ask would be which camp were you in? [laughs] AT: 01:03:30 And do you remember how you found out about Resettlers Committee? Is that just something that people knew about or--? JM: 01:03:37 I don' ; t know. I had no idea. AT: 01:03:41 And when you were going, where was it located? JM: 01:03:43 I don' ; t remember. I' ; m not much, not very helpful. I don' ; t remember. AT: 01:03:49 But did JM: 01:03:49 Yeah AT: 01:03:49 Go ahead. JM: 01:03:53 No, I think Dan Kuzahara was a head of that. I don' ; t know. Maybe we knew him or something. I don' ; t know. I, I, I can' ; t say, AT: 01:04:10 But it, it helped you meet other JM: 01:04:12 Other people. AT: 01:04:16 And where did you meet your husband? JM: 01:04:17 I met him at church. AT: 01:04:20 And when, when did you get married or how long JM: 01:04:27 We got married in ' ; 58. AT: 01:04:34 And did you meet him when you first arrived in Chicago from going to church or? JM: 01:04:47 I don' ; t know when I met him (laughs), love at first sight. I don' ; t remember anything. AT: 01:04:51 And ah, when you got married did you move from Grace Street? JM: 01:04:55 Yeah. No, what happened was when we got married, we were looking for some place to live and there was prejudice there. So we would go to these places that had " ; For Rent" ; signs and they would come to the door and just say, oh, we just rented the place. Well, we knew that they hadn' ; t. I' ; d go by there a month later, the " ; For Rent" ; sign is still there. And we had, you know, several of those experiences. One time I called an ad in the paper and this guy answered. He is such a heavy accent. I could hardly understand him. And I asked him if he would rent to Japanese Americans and in his heavy accent he would say I' ; d like to, but if I did, my tenants would complain so I can' ; t. So that was that. But then we saw another for rent sign on Grace Street, about a block from my Mom and we went there and it was a German lady. She had an accent and she was very willing to rent to us. So we had a third floor, three or four bedroom apartment, which was nice. AT: 01:06:19 And has your work changed? JM: 01:06:25 No, I was still down at Northwestern. AT: 01:06:28 How long were you at Northwestern? JM: 01:06:30 Oh no, I guess I had gone to work for a doctor and I was doing some of her lab work. I don' ; t know, do you know of a Dr. Farnsworth? AT: 01:06:45 Sorry? JM: 01:06:45 Farnsworth. She had that Mies van der Rohe house. It' ; s on the Fox River. It gets flooded. It' ; s an all glass house. AT: 01:07:01 I don' ; t know. JM: 01:07:01 Well, anyway, that was her house and she was going to a, a battle with him. She was suing him and he was well known architect and um, so she used to tell me the latest, uh, what was going on with her and the legal battles she was having. Now, I worked for her for about three years I think, but I didn' ; t particularly care for the office environment, so I went back to Northwestern and got another research job and I stayed there until I got pregnant and then I left there. AT: 01:07:54 And so have you been on the...Were you on the North Side through most of your marriage or? JM: 01:08:02 Yeah, I consider myself a North sider even though we live on the South Side. AT: 01:08:07 When did you make that move? JM: 01:08:08 Well then my husband got a job in park force, which is pretty far. This was before Dan Ryan, so he did that for two years and by then our daughter was 2, so we decided to move up to the South Suburbs and that' ; s how we ended up there. But my heart is always on the North Side. Yeah. AT: 01:08:41 And do you just have one? JM: 01:08:43 No, I have a son and a daughter. She, she lives in Downers. She has her own business. AT: 01:08:54 And um, do you remember where they were going to school? JM: 01:09:00 Yeah, yeah. When she got to be a, well we moved out to Harvey first. It was a real nice town. I loved the place, but the schools were not that good, and Homewood-Flossmoor had great schools. So we moved to Homewood cause my husband' ; s friends or coworkers, told him to move there. But um we were kind of hesitant because we had heard there was an incident with a Japanese family there. Who lived there and they were not welcomed. But anyway, I' ; m the executive director where am I was my work and said there' ; s a house rent for rent next door to him. So she want to look at it, you know, so it was kind of a or year old house, but it was better than living in Harvey and having our daughter go to a school that we didn' ; t really think was that great. So we moved to, also, then I called the owner of the house and I gave her the same spiel. We' ; re Japanese Americans and would you rent to us? And she says, oh, by all means, you know, you' ; re welcome to rent the house. So, um, with those words we were, you know, we moved in and, well, my husband did a lot of work on the house because it was really in bad shape and uh, we moved there. And I made friends. Well, the neighbors are really nice to me. They were around the same age and when you have kids the same age and you know, your mother, the mothers, the parents that get together. And um, but uh, there was this one gal I was quite friendly with and later on she told me that there were some neighbors that were unhappy that you move in, but I figured, well we' ; re renting so why would they feel bad? But actually, you know, openly, we didn' ; t have any problems. AT: 01:11:19 Hmm. Would you say that? Um, that was one of, that was the biggest challenge of life in Chicago was? JM: 01:11:29 No, not really. I didn' ; t really feel any prejudice except for the apartment hunting. Yeah, AT: 01:11:37 So that, that kind of prejudice, it wasn' ; t really. You didn' ; t experience it sounds like you didn' ; t experience that before your. JM: 01:11:46 Yeah. No really, especially when we moved to Homewood, there were some people that are really happy to see us and they wanted to know about, about us and everything. So, and you know, my kids, they participated in the, what little league and my daughter was in girl scouts and they were well accepted so I don' ; t think I didn' ; t, I don' ; t remember any really bad experience probably behind my back yeah, but yeah you know. AT: 01:12:27 And in this area was there like, I know closer in the, in the city, like on the North Side. And also the South Side that there were things like, uh, the, that you' ; ve backed the basketball league, um, or a different baseball teams or bowling leagues or you know, things for, for young people of Japanese descent. Was there anything like that in Homewood or nearby? JM: 01:13:07 No, I think we were the only Japanese in town, probably. You know, because they went to HF and there weren' ; t any, maybe there were a couple of Chinese people, you know, kids, but I think they were basically the only Japanese students. AT: 01:13:27 Hmm. And when your kids were growing up, did you ever. JM: 01:13:32 Well, yeah. You mean the, the prejudice? No. AT: 01:13:36 Oh, I was gonna ask if, um, you ever spoke to them about, um, your experiences during the war? JM: 01:13:44 Oh, no, not really. Yeah. No, I never said. Maybe, you know, little touch here and there. I think when they were in high school we asked them if it was in their social studies book or history book and she showed us one little paragraph with maybe two sentences that mentioned evacuation. But other than that, I don' ; t think so. I don' ; t really remember talking about it. I may have, but I don' ; t remember AT: 01:14:25 At any point did they, do you remember them asking you about it or like maybe later in their life were they JM: 01:14:32 Not really. AT: 01:14:36 And then before I interrupted you, it' ; s, you' ; re going to say something about your kids experiencing prejudice. JM: 01:14:48 Oh yeah in school. Yeah, there were some kids. I think my daughter, she came home one day when she was in second grade I think or third grade and she said she didn' ; t want to go out in the playground and play and anymore. I think it was because people were calling her names and she didn' ; t like that so she didn' ; t want to go out. And I remember I went to the school, talked to the teacher, she was Jewish. She understood exactly what I was saying. So she said she would resolve it in some way. And then my son, I don' ; t know what grade he was but similar kept calling him, you know chink, or you know what they used to do and he said he had had it. So he was taking judo at the time. So he took this kid and threw him over his shoulder and he said he' ; s never said anything after that. So they uh, he solved his own problem. But those are the only two incidents that I can remember. Is basically I, I just feel, you know, things were okay, I think. AT: 01:16:30 And uh, as we start wrapping up, I know you had mentioned that you took some notes for the things that you wanted to be sure to talk about. One of them was the incident at the assembly center. Was there anything, anything else? Well, and one thing I wanted to be sure to ask you about was about your research. Um, both what happened to your father and also his incident. Can you tell me more about what that process has been like for you when you started looking into these cases? JM: 01:17:11 My Dad' ; s stuff. Um well actually it' ; s been behind my mind or in my mind for years. I uh, Portland had an FBI exhibit in 2010 or something and I, and at the time I found out I could get the reports on my Dad. So, um, I wrote and they sent me like 100 pages of this stuff and I just kinda let it sit in the closet. Well, since I can' ; t move around too much anymore in June I thought well, and I found a note books in the house, archival, archival notebook. I thought oh this will be good for my Dad. So that' ; s when I started in June and I, uh, I had the WRA report I sent for that, but there' ; s nothing in there. He was only there 6 months and it was mostly about his disability insurance and there' ; s nothing there. But in the DOJ report it told what happened to him and uh, you know, it helped me a lot because I' ; ve always wondered what went on and then I got to reading these books again and you know, I understood them, or I understood more what was going on and what happened. And this last book I read it was written by a Hawaiian guy and it' ; s mostly about his Hawaiian friends in the camp, but still it tells about, you know, what happened to them and the abuses and you know, I didn' ; t really know there was that much abuse, but I guess there was. AT: 01:19:22 And what has that been like to kind of go back and dig into the details of JM: 01:19:31 Well, it' ; s been sad. AT: 01:19:34 Hmm. JM: 01:19:36 I um, someone asked me were you, are you bitter about it? And I thought, well, I might have been at one time, but I was more sad, you know, that something like this happened. That all of these things happened to these men. They were, they were held, held for no reason than being a leader in the government wanted them out of the community so the Japanese people that were left behind wouldn' ; t know what to do, and uh, you know. And then some of the guys that got killed in these camps because they went to near the fence, like the cook. And uh, it' ; s just, you know, I, I kinda feel satisfied after all these years. AT: 01:20:34 Hmm. JM: 01:20:35 That I finally found out. Right now I' ; m the, um, I wrote to the FBI and trying to get their, uh, FBI files. But you have to go through the Freedom of Information Act. So I' ; m trying, well, I' ; m waiting for them to give me a number so I can follow up on that. I don' ; t know if there' ; s anything there, but when I' ; ve written they tell me, well, I guess there are four files you can get. The DOJ the WRA, the FBI and Immigration and Naturalization, interested in the Immigration and Naturalization. I don' ; t know what would be in there? But the other three I am, interested in. I got the two so. AT: 01:21:31 And I, I think. Oh yeah. Because that the immigration, they were overseeing Crystal City, which he never went to a different department of Justice Camp. JM: 01:21:46 I' ; m sorry? AT: 01:21:49 I was just, um, we can talk about. Okay. And that that' ; s been a very recent process it sounds like that you started. JM: 01:22:07 Yeah, the DOJ files, you know, or not because I started that in 2016 and the WRA files probably around the same time, but actually going through the whole thing I' ; m making the scrapbook is since June and it seems every time I' ; m finished there' ; s always something new. Now, I got the FBI files I' ; m working on, but then, you know, I got the translation of my Dad' ; s memo. So like I have that in the script or, and, and the, the journal. Yeah, the job letter. AT: 01:22:46 Where did you find that? JM: 01:22:48 My Mom carried it around in, you know, we lost everything. We had some stuff in the apartment in the locker and someone broke in and took it and so there was nothing. We had nothing but my Mom did, you know, hang onto that and memo, so. But it was interesting because on one of the notes he wrote the Spanish Council was here today and I thought, " ; Oh that' ; s strange." ; But then as I read the book, they were called, they depended on the Spanish Council to iron out things and I guess they had all this abuse. So in Missoula or I guess other camps, but he was in Missoula I think at the time. Either there or Fort Sill and he wrote Spanish Council and I thought, oh they must have come to see what the abuses were. Yeah. AT: 01:23:59 And how does it feel to see, because you have a sweater that your Mom knitted you and also that book. Oh, how does that feel to see those in an exhibition is setting? JM: 01:24:15 Well, I' ; m kinda happy because now people know. I mean it should be brought out. There should be a conversation on it. You know, I, I even myself, I never talked about it because I just felt uncomfortable telling people my Dad was picked up by the FBI because he was an enemy alien. Well, now with that exhibit from Portland and all this stuff, yeah, it' ; s, I' ; m glad it' ; s out I can talk about it. So. AT: 01:24:53 And to you, why is that something that' ; s important to share or that for people to know about? JM: 01:25:04 I' ; m sorry? AT: 01:25:04 Why, why is it important to you for people to know about it? JM: 01:25:10 Well, it' ; s a history and people should know what happened to the Japanese people, you know, people of color. It' ; s a racist thing, you know. Yeah, like my Dad, he really didn' ; t do anything. He was trying to help the community by being in all of this organization. He wasn' ; t an enemy alien. He was going to say, I mean he stayed here when you were supposed to go back to Japan because he liked it here. You know. And we were raised to, you know, think American and be proud of our country and everything so people should know that, where even the shooting people should know what happened. AT: 01:26:14 Um, as we wrap up here, one question I like to ask is, um, what are your, well, I guess first, what if you could leave some kind of legacy or message for your children and grandchildren? What would you want that to be? JM: 01:26:39 I don' ; t know. It will be a personal thing. Yeah. So like, you know, is that do to your grandfather. It shouldn' ; t happen again. AT: 01:26:55 And what kind of hopes do you have for, for your kids and grandkids? JM: 01:27:01 Well, my kids, you know, they' ; re doing pretty well, but I don' ; t know, the climate that it is today. I kind of wonder. I hope that people care for each other more. You know, we' ; re different, but we' ; re the same. Yeah. I have a very good Black American. Yeah. What is it? African American friend. You know, we get into these discussions and she feels the same way. Yeah. Because I don' ; t know too much about Black history, but I just finished reading the book The Other Half That Hasn' ; t Been Told. Have you heard? Yeah. It gives a history of the Blacks, they were even treated rotten. I mean we were treated rotten but they were also treated rotten. You know, sad. So. AT: 01:28:21 Is um, there anything else that you' ; d like to add or that I might' ; ve missed? JM: 01:28:26 No, not really. I don' ; t know. Just that one book that really didn' ; t tell the true story of the shooting. That kind of upset me, but you know what, I wrote to uh Densho. They sent me an oral history of somebody I knew and he said the same thing that I saw. So I felt better about that, that I wasn' ; t the only one who saw this. AT: 01:29:08 Hmm. And what, what' ; s the book that you' ; re referring to that didn' ; t have the JM: 01:29:13 Well, I don' ; t know whether I should say. So you can cut it out. AT: 01:29:20 Okay (laughs) JM: 01:29:22 It' ; s called The Gift and it' ; s a story that this grandfather told this Sansei in, on this one page, he says that it was a white cook. And that really upset me because it wasn' ; t a white cook, you know. But then on the other hand when I was reading the Interment Odyssey Furuya, says that he, he lists a number of people that helped him, you know, like doctors and there was this one doctor, he was very appreciative of because of uh, here were two detainees that were shot in Lordsburg and um, he was in the government demanded that he put a different reason for their death and he didn' ; t, he wouldn' ; t do it. So I thought, well maybe that' ; s what happened with this. What happened at that time? They were not supposed to say it was a Japanese cook. AT: 01:30:44 Hmm. JM: 01:30:47 You know, it was a hush hush. I could still see the guy with his in his white chef uniform with blood oozing out of his stomach. It was a horrible sight. Then at 16, you know? AT: 01:31:06 Hmm. JM: 01:31:08 But I' ; m glad that was, you know, cleared up now. I feel better about that. AT: 01:31:18 Hmm. Anything else? JM: 01:31:19 No, nothing really. AT: 01:31:22 Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. JM: 01:31:25 Oh, yeah. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=MizutaJunko20171004.xml MizutaJunko20171004.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Mizuta, Junko (10/4/2017)
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2017-10-04
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Series: Then They Came for Me
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Takada, Anna
Interviewee
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Mukushina, Susumu
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/14/2017 Mukushina, Susumu (9/14/2017) 1:00:44 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Mukushina, Susumu Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/306096279 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/306096279?h=83e4ee8532" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 So if you could just start by stating your name and your hometown. Susumu M.: 00:00:06 My name is Susumu Mukushina and I' ; m currently living in Chicago, Illinois. AT: 00:00:14 And where, and when were you born? SM: 00:00:17 I was born on October 8, 1942. I was born in Los Angeles County Hospital. Um, even though that was not an internment hospital, my mother was about to be bordered on a train to Heart Mountain, but she had me in her belly and that was a few days overdue. So the doctors a forbade, forbade the authorities to have my mother on the train. So I was born in Los Angeles officially. AT: 00:00:53 So did she have to go to an assembly center or did or was she just in LA? SM: 00:01:00 Well, all Japanese had to go to a pre-detention center. Um, my, my parents went to the Santa Anita Race Track and they occupied one of the stalls, it was not very pleasant, but they made the best out of it. AT: 00:01:18 And so did she leave Santa Anita to go to LA? To have you in the hospital? SM: 00:01:26 I don' ; t know the exact circumstances, but the trains are about to leave. And um, um, my father and mother were taken to the Los Angeles County Hospital and on October 8th I was born. AT: 00:01:44 And what did your, what did your parents do? SM: 00:01:47 Well, um, my father was a Buddhist minister and uh, he came to this country in 1936 originally to Hawai' ; i as a missionary, but not in a missionary in the Christian sense, not to evangelize people, but to uh, bring comfort to the Japanese who were working in Hawai' ; i. At that time, he was a young man, he was born in 1911. So he, um, just a lot of energy to see the world. So his first trip to Japan was a 19, from Japan, was in 1936. He went back in 1938. He came back with a wife, my mother and a back to Hawai' ; i and I don' ; t know the exact dates, but they migrated from Hawai' ; i to Los Angeles. AT: 00:02:48 Where, where was he from in Japan? SM: 00:02:50 My father had a temple in Tokyo. And um, my mother was a born near Tokyo. My father was born in Taipei when it was a Japanese occupied. So it was like a State. And um, I didn' ; t know the circumstances, but he came back to Japan before he was a, the age of five and I' ; m, from what I gather, his mother had, had emotional problems, uh, so she couldn' ; t help my father bring him up. So he was taken to a monastery and he was there until he went to college. AT: 00:03:44 And do you have any siblings? SM: 00:03:47 Yes, I have one. His name is Masao. His American name is Warren. AT: 00:03:53 Warren? SM: 00:03:56 Hmh AT: 00:03:56 And is he older or younger? SM: 00:03:57 Younger. AT: 00:04:00 And so when was Masao born? SM: 00:04:02 1947 AT: 00:04:05 So after the war? SM: 00:04:06 After the war, mhm. AT: 00:04:08 And so your, your parents went to Santa Anita? They had you. And then did they go back to Heart Mountain? SM: 00:04:17 They had no choice. Okay. Yeah. So at the next available train, um, what they went, they were taken to Heart Mountain. Um on a side note, which I didn' ; t know until a couple of years ago was that, um, I, I talked to Gene Yashima and Gene was surprised that my father was at the hospital where I was born and um, I thought it was normal for a husband to be with his wife, but Japan, but priests were separated from their families before, uh, the camp. And so, uh, he shouldn' ; t have been there when I was born and um, uh, that, I think he slipped through the paperwork somehow, but that' ; s another story, but we could go onto that later on. Okay. AT: 00:05:14 Yeah, I mean, do you even have any, any details about how he was able to go to the hospital? SM: 00:05:18 No, um, well my mother and father said that, uh, um, um, when they we' ; re living in Japantown in Los Angeles. One Sunday, two FBI agents knocked on the door and my father answered. And, and the agent said are you Zaishin Mukushina, my father. He says, yes. So why, why are you hiding from us? And he says, well, I' ; m not hiding. He says my name is on the mailbox, you know, that' ; s how you found me. And he did a lot of social work with the local Buddhist temple and, uh, he was very popular amongst the merchants, uh, in the, in the area. Um, so, um, um, I think the agents were convinced that he wasn' ; t trying to hide from them. So naturally, they uh, they checked out a story of, yeah, he did a lot of social work at the local temple, you know. Uh, and um, uh, and for some reason he was not asked to be separated from my mother, which was a good thing because she will be by a, by herself. Because we had no job, no family here in America. And had she, had my father had been separated, she would' ; ve been alone. AT: 00:06:39 So nothing came of that exchange with the FBI? SM: 00:06:43 Um, later on we were sent to Heart Mountain, a determent determined camping in Wyoming. And we were there for 18 months. And my father, uh, uh, was the authorities found out that my father was a Buddhist priest and he said, you don' ; t belong here. You belong to a maximum security internment camp called Tule Lake in California. So about 18 months later, after we lived at Heart Mountain, we were transferred from Heart Mountain to Tule Lake and we were in Tule Lake until the war ended. AT: 00:07:27 So that would have been, um, New Speaker: 00:07:31 1945, something like that. New Speaker: 00:07:34 But when you left Heart Mountain, that would have been ' ; 43? New Speaker: 00:07:36 Yeah around there. New Speaker: 00:07:39 Um, and then what, what about after the war? Where did your, where did you all go? SM: 00:07:48 Well, um, that was interesting because as I stated earlier, we didn' ; t have family in America and normally if you didn' ; t have family in America after the war, you were shipped back to Japan because our visa expired, you see. And so, um, uh, the interesting story that my mother told me the last six months before she passed away was that, um, when the war ended, the commandant of Tule Lake called on my father and, I said, well, my father, so he was the only person there and the commandant, was saying that, um, I' ; ve been observing you from afar and you, you have very good way of with people to calm down the hotheads. Now, I don' ; t know if you know this or not, but Tule Lake was maximum security, a lot of draft dodgers so-called draft dodgers, and people who are pro-Japanese were there. There was a lot of dissension, people don' ; t like to be incarcerated and they want to go back to Japan or they didn' ; t want to be drafted unless their parents are freed from internment camps and that kind of stuff. So my father was a peacemaker. That' ; s what I was told. And so the commandant told my father or we need people like you. And so he offered them three tickets for him, my mother, and me on a ship back to Japan or a, or to go to Seabrook Farms in New Jersey? Uh, and so, um, at that time my mom said we didn' ; t know anything about Japan. All we knew that was bombed out country. We didn' ; t know if there were enough food for people to eat, yeah. So, um, my father says we' ; re staying in America and since it will Seabrook Farms, he knew that at least that we' ; ll eat something. So we, uh, so we took a train from Tule Lake to Seabrook Farms, New Jersey. AT: 00:09:56 Did your parents, did they, were they in communication with family back in Japan? SM: 00:10:02 It was very hard to know because of the mail system was almost nonexistent at that time. There was a war going on, so it put a stamp on an envelope and send something to Japan. You don' ; t know if it got there and the other way around, you know, I don' ; t think that people, my parents, his relatives knew where we were. AT: 00:10:29 And so you were, you were very young. Of course, during the war where, where were your earliest memories? AT: 00:10:40 Well, my earliest memories was when I was about four or five years old, you know, and uh, um, things were kind of foggy back then. But I was speaking, um speaking Japanese to friends. Now mind you, even though I was born in America, my first language was Japanese. My parents didn' ; t speak any English. So in camp, when people came to talk to my parents, they spoke in Japanese. And of course we had no television, no radio, and the only English spoken was I, I' ; m just supposing imagining we' ; re, um, Nisei' ; s, second generation Japanese on the outside. But my parents spoke to me in Japanese and everything was in Japanese. So when I was in, in Seabrook Farms are first non-Japanese contacts where Estonians. They spoke German. So I think I knew more German than English at that time. It was kind of um, uh, I wasn' ; t all that clear, but I didn' ; t speak English until I was eight years old. AT: 00:11:55 And so what are those early memories? That was in New Jersey? SM: 00:12:00 Yeah, New Jersey, yeah uh, my father was a priest there. He established the Buddhist temple there and I remember giving him a lot of sermons and he will be quite creative. He' ; ll have puppets, you know, actual puppets and um, he had people engaged and um, um, he gave pretty good sermons. Yeah. His, I remember, it was all in Japanese though. AT: 00:12:21 Okay it wasn' ; t. Uh, do you recall the name of that temple? SM: 00:12:27 Yeah. It' ; s called Seabrook Farms Buddhist Church, it' ; s still there. AT: 00:12:37 And, so it sounds like there is a, a bit of a Japanese American community in Seabrook Farms? SM: 00:12:43 I don' ; t know currently, but uh, but there was a Buddhist temple there AT: 00:12:49 Well, and because I know there were a number of Japanese Americans who went there as well. And if he was doing the ceremonies in Japanese. How long was your family there in New Jersey? SM: 00:13:06 Up to about to about 1951, ' ; 52. Now, my father wanted to do more than farming. I think, uh my father was very pragmatic and he knew that the family could be fed, you know, so even though the Japanese who were field hands, many of them--most of them--had education and advanced degrees, you know, but it was a job, it was a way to feed your family. So my father, uh, heard through the grapevine that, uh, a place called Chicago was a place of opportunity where you can make more money and, and provide for better living standard. So, um, I can remember coming on a train from East Coast to Chicago and I remember I remember train rights, you know, I was a little kid so let' ; s just, you know, happy seeing the mountains of Pennsylvania and the train, like I' ; m rumbling along. And so I had very pleasant thoughts. I' ; d never experienced anything negative and I think my parents sheltered me from that. So I never felt anger from them. I never felt anger from my parents' ; friends, you know, but it was a, it was a happy childhood even though I was in camp. AT: 00:14:36 Were you, were you in school in camp or SM: 00:14:39 No AT: 00:14:39 Oh, and what about in Seabrook Farm? SM: 00:14:44 Yeah, um, I started, um, back then the semester started in September, uh, and there was the midterm, so I started a year late because I didn' ; t know any English. So, um, so there' ; s, well maybe you ought to start next year. So in a sense I failed kindergarten, you know, so that was the beginning of academia. AT: 00:15:12 So, you took the train ride to Chicago in ' ; 51? SM: 00:15:15 ' ; 51. AT: 00:15:16 ' ; 51. And then where did your family settle in the city? SM: 00:15:20 Well, we lived in--I know the address--it' ; s at 4450 South Oakenwald Avenue in Chicago. That place no longer exists, you know, something else is there, but it was a roach infested ghetto building. Our neighbors are mostly cockroaches, you know...But there were some Japanese living there, but back back in ' ; 51, ' ; 52, people could reject your application to rent based on race. So they' ; ll say we don' ; t rent to people, your type, that kind of thing. And there was no legal recourse. AT: 00:16:06 And which neighborhood? SM: 00:16:11 It was on South Side. There was a little Japanese community from the lakefront. Oakenwald Avenue was on the eastern part of Chicago, probably about a block block and a half or two blocks away from Lake Shore Drive. And there was a Japanese store on 43rd street called Star Market and Star Market, it looked big to me as a child, but it' ; s probably maybe one half or two thirds the size of a 711 today. But that' ; s the only place in Chicago, that I knew of, that a person could buy Japanese food, you know, like, uh, like sukiyaki meat and fish and rice, you know. I don' ; t think Jewel food store was around back then, but there were some other food stores and, and one thing that always stuck in my head was we were um, we were not rich, you know, my mother was very good in saving money and, and I knew that she could go to a American food store and get milk and products at a cheaper price. And my mother always said that, well, we have to support each other because if Japanese don' ; t support each other, who will? Long before food stamps, long before welfare, no medicaid. So we had to support ourselves. And so a Japanese community in 19 in the early 1950s supported each other. And um, is there, I remember even as a kid growing up age seven, eight, nine, I had pretty happy memories. AT: 00:17:54 Where were you going to school? SM: 00:17:56 We went to a school called Shakespeare Grammar School. Shakespeare, is no lon, the building is still there, but the school has, it' ; s not a school anymore, it' ; s something else. And I was, I was there in a very overcrowded rooms, were, um, I think there was like 45 or 50 in a room. AT: 00:18:19 And what did your father end up doing in Chicago? SM: 00:18:23 He worked in a factory first it was called a Paul Paul revere. They made pots and pans and then, um, uh, uh, they made cameras, Revere now, Revere camera, and then it became Woolen Stock. Woolen Stock was a German company that, that made tape recorders. And so, so he was on the assembly line. Uh, uh, that' ; s how he supported the family. Interesting, was uh, maybe, well, it' ; s interesting, that has a bonus he got a turkey for Thanksgiving and he didn' ; t know what a turkey was. He brought home a turkey and my mother thought it was a big chicken, you know, so, um, so, um, uh, she had to ask our neighbors, how do you cook this bird? You know. And um, so we had our first Thanksgiving dinner. Um, my mother was really worried about that. It wasn' ; t not overcooked or undercooked. And those are some fond memories I have of my or dinners with my family. AT: 00:19:40 What else do you remember about those early days in Chicago, were there a lot of other Japanese Americans SM: 00:19:50 Yeah AT: 00:19:51 At your school? SM: 00:19:51 No, there are some in our school, but I' ; m, uh, I belonged to the Cub Scouts. It was all Japanese American Cub Scouts. Then, um, I was in the Boy Scouts that Boy Scouts. It was troop 515, I think still around and that' ; s where all my friends were Japanese, you know, uh, um, uh, or the rest were African Americans and it was kind of hard to it. It was just hard to know each other culturally. So, um, um, when I was in the Boy Scouts, um, um, um, interesting thing was that every one of the Boy Scouts I knew went to college. We were talking about college, even in grade school. Where are you going to, people were talking about various schools and um, some of the, uh, the thoughts that came out of that was when I moved to another, when we moved to another neighborhood on the North Side, um, I had my first non-Japanese, Caucasian friends. They were Irish Catholic, must of them. And, and, um, so I remember asking some of my friends, which college are you going to? None of them had college plans and I remember being totally shocked because every one of my Japanese friends went to college as though it was, you went to grammar school, high school, college. Of course, we all go to college and, and I am, and that was my, my introduction to a, uh, a non-Japanese culture. And I remember one instance, um, his name was Ken and it bothered me so much that I still remembered it, you know. And I said, uh, he went to St. Gregory' ; s Catholic Grammar School, St. George. And I said uh you' ; re smart, why don' ; t you go to college? And I remember him saying this, my old man will kill me. I says, I thought he was kidding. He said, college is for pencil pushers, you make, you' ; re a man, by doing things with your hands. And I said, your father would punish you for going to college? And that was my first surprise coming from an all Japanese background. And, and I found out that was a fairly common, you know, so I quit talking about college to my non-Japanese friends and um, and they thought it was weird because I was going to, I was thinking of going to college, you know, so, uh, that was my cultural shock, you know, uh, as a, as a kid because we are playing baseball, football things that kids play, you know, and getting into trouble playing tags, that kind of stuff. So we all knew each other. But, uh, um, uh, another thing was that this one boy had a birthday and he came to me, he says, I can' ; t invite you to my birthday party, I said because why not? Because my mom says no, Japanese. Now, if right now it doesn' ; t bother me, but if you' ; re 12, 13, 14 it bothers you. And that' ; s when I first became kind of aware of my Japanese identity. AT: 00:23:17 From other kids? SM: 00:23:20 Yeah. Peers, who' ; d love to have me at their party. You know. Because he came to me and says, I can' ; t invite you to my party. He says, I want you to come. You know, that kind of stuff. And I remember this one lady, uh, our neighbor, um, when my mom and I will walk to the store, she' ; ll just turn it back, you know, and my mother was a, I will say, why is she doing that? That' ; s just, in Japanese, it doesn' ; t matter, it doesn' ; t matter. We went away. And these, I think that was the awakening on my Japanese identity. And um, another moment was um, when my mom and I were at the corner of Clark Street and Balmoral on North Side. There was a cigar store. Now it' ; s, uh, uh, uh, I think it' ; s a hamburgers there now, you know, but we were there and my mother speak, spoke Japanese and, and the, we were just talking about, I don' ; t remember, we' ; re talking about this one day he came to us and says, speak English. I don' ; t understand you. That was a shock. So I think when you' ; re like a preteen or teen, you become very sensitive to your, uh, you know, I caught that, like your awakening, you know. So, um, so that was my first, uh, um, uh, um, you, you could call my first baptism into a non-Japanese culture. AT: 00:24:50 And when your family was in Chicago. Um, you had mentioned that you were in the boy scouts. Were there other, um, activities that you would, um, that you were involved in that work within the Japanese American community. Like any church or temple? SM: 00:25:10 I went to Japanese school on Saturday. We all, we all with the Japanese school, you know, with them whether or not, you know, parents just took us there. And that was at a, a, um, a Protestant church about two blocks from where I lived. And, um, and my father, even though he was a Buddhist priest, he was, he was very good friends with the minister there. His name was Nakamura. I remember that. And, uh, uh, he loaned us for free the rooms of the church so that, uh, uh, the Japanese language could be taught to the other children at least to keep some identity of who we were. And we hated that because we wanted to play baseball and football this. But we were forced to learn Kanji and Katakana and Hiragana, that kind of stuff. But uh, in retrospect, I' ; m glad that I went there. But if you' ; re a kid, no one, no one wants to go to school on Saturday. AT: 00:26:03 Can you still speak and read and write pretty well? SM: 00:26:07 No, I think speaking is uh language skill, that has to be kept up. My, my mother passed away in 2004 and so when she was in a nursing home and so whenever I saw her, we spoke in Japanese, I encouraged her to speak Japanese, you know, so we also probably hear Japanese language for a three, four, or five hours a week and then she' ; d just speak to me and tell me what' ; s going on in her life. And she was making crochets and things like that. I didn' ; t mind what she was talking about, but I' ; m, I' ; m in in earlier, my father passed away in 1990 when I visited my parents. They all spoke Japanese. So, uh, it came into my mind, my brain. But since 2004, um, none of my close friends speak Japanese. And so, uh, I lost the ability to speak even though that was my first language. What was interesting was when I first visited Japan, uh, my Japanese was getting very, very rusty even at that point. When we were AT: 00:27:18 When was it? SM: 00:27:18 A back in, the first time was 1978, you know. And um, I remember being in Tokyo and people are speaking so fast. I, I had a headache, but on third day everything fell in place. I understood language, I understood the characters I learned in Japanese school. So I didn' ; t get lost, you know, in, in subways. But that' ; s what I meant. I meant, uh, I, I was so glad that I learned that uh a Japanese language, at the Japanese school because somehow I think all of that, all of that education is buried in your brain someplace it' ; s gray matter someplace. Maybe in, in, uh, uh, our version of a hard drive, brain drive. AT: 00:28:00 At what age did you stop going to Japanese school? SM: 00:28:04 About 14 time high school started at that time. We moved and we moved from South Side to the North Side. New Speaker: 00:28:13 Where on the North Side? New Speaker: 00:28:15 We lived on Rascher Avenue in Rogers, now called Rogers Park and um, uh, we live about, we lived about a quarter of mile from Foster and Ashland Avenue Northwe, Northwest. And what was interesting was that we were, we moved there because the landlord was the first Japanese person to buy property there. The last name was Boji. And um, I guess my father has some prominence so they invited my family to a better neighborhood, better education and so forth. And so we moved there and there was only one other Japanese family probably within jeez, a mile, half a mile and they were called Watanabe. And they were on Balmoral Avenue, just near Balmoral and Ashland Avenue. And, um, uh, they had a little girl about my age, her name was Lynne and that was my association with the Japanese community at that time, you know. AT: 00:29:26 You said that your, your father had some prominence. Do you know why or how he would have SM: 00:29:39 Well, in Japanese culture they don' ; t like to talk about their accomplishments. They just don' ; t, you know. Um, uh, I remember growing up as a, as a child, as a kid, I knew a lot of people who serve on in 442nd, Go for Broke Regiment. And they were pretty, they were pretty humble guy, Hawaiian non-Hawaiian, you know. And, and I would say things like, well, did you have to shoot someone, you know, how kids talk, they will never talk about it. Naw, I was war and things were kind of messy. And they' ; ll change topics, right away--hey how are the Cubs doing? Something like that, you know. Um, the plaque that I donated to the society there, um, it was given. Oh, um, the back of the uh, the, uh, the plaque, is the name of the person who donated it, you know, AT: 00:30:34 Can you, before we go on, just, can you describe the plaque you' ; re talking about? SM: 00:30:37 Yeah, it' ; s, it' ; s a one plaque, I' ; ll say it' ; s about two, two and a half feet like this, and maybe about eight, 10 inches solid wood software, balsa wood and some personal skills have made a picture of a the camp and Heart Mountain in the background. And he gave it to my father as a gift. He said thank you very much for what you did. And my father would never tell me. I said, what, what did you do? You know how kids are, you know. And my father would say, it was really nothing. It was nothing. Nothing. But it was nothing. If you' ; ve seen the plaque it' ; s more than a nothing, more than a nothing. And so, um, uh, so on, back of the, uh, of the plaque, you see the exact date on there and the person who, uh, who donated that, and one days I' ; s like to photograph the back of that plaque when this exhibit is over. But uh in camp. There was no, I don' ; t think, I don' ; t think money was allowed. So everything was kind of bartered and he was, my father was given that the plaque in Heart Mountain and it hung on our home for years. So we just took for granted, you know, until later in life I saw the problem and solve that and I saw the wood, began to see cracks in the wood and I was not ah, I wanted the wood to be preserved so that it wouldn' ; t fall apart. Then I, that' ; s when I called Jean, Jean Yashima and um, uh, with great sorrow, I gave it to her, but I knew that she would take care of it. AT: 00:32:34 When your family moved to the North Side, that was probably, that was the mid fifties? SM: 00:32:44 Mhm. AT: 00:32:44 Which high school did you attend? SM: 00:32:45 I went to grammar school first, in fifth grade, it was Trumbull Grammar School. Trumbull is no longer in existence, but the building is still at Ash, uh, Ashland and Foster. I went to Amundsen High School at Damen and Foster. AT: 00:33:02 And how did the, how did living on the North Side compared to living on the South Side? SM: 00:33:08 World of difference. Um, I, I knew that when I transferred to the, we transferred, um, in March and I was in fifth grade and for a while my mother told me, you know, have the Trumbull School was about two years ahead of the, uh, of the ghetto school, Shakespeare I was at. So my mother was very good to mathematics and geography, so, uh, so she kept me up, you know, even though she couldn' ; t read a word of English, she was a very encouraging person too, well, I' ; m glad she was there. AT: 00:33:53 She would help you? SM: 00:33:54 Help you, with my homework and um not sure what she was saying, I' ; m speaking, the other school was really slow, you know. So, um, so I was way behind academically when I went to my Mount Trumbull School and I was academically behind for the next four or five years, I think I had to catch up. AT: 00:34:23 How did that work exactly? Were do you, did you have to do any repeat a grade or anything or. SM: 00:34:30 No, well, back in 1957 I graduated, we all had to take IQ tests .and I can, we don' ; t do that now, but that was the latest thing in psychology. We' ; re, uh, we' ; re, uh, we' ; re all the children in the world in the country could be measured, by IQ, you know, not knowing that there' ; s not a bias in IQ. But if you' ; re 12, 13 years old, what do you know, you know? And, and, um, this is again, stuck in my head. Earlier I stated that we, all, all the kids were thinking about going to college, you know, going to college and when, um, when I was talking with Mrs. Mann, my eighth grade counselor, she said, I don' ; t think you' ; re going to make it through high school. I said, what? You know, so well, because here' ; s the rational, here' ; s, here' ; s why, you' ; re reading grade is 5.2, you know, fifth grade average when I was in eighth grade. So I was three years behind. My IQ was 92, average is 100, you need 120 to go to college. She said, she said, forget about college, you know, and um, I, I, those words stuck, not personally, but I was very ashamed because I' ; d be the only Japanese kid not going to college, you know, that was my thought. You know, my best friend, you know, he was going to Lane Tech and, and um, uh, we' ; re talking about going to Northwestern or you know, all these good schools, all these good schools because at the University of Illinois and that kind of stuff. And um, I didn' ; t tell my parents that, you know, Oh yeah, my parents also said, listen to your teachers. They' ; re always right. You know, so uh, so whenever I complained about my teacher being mean to me, my mother would say, no she' ; s a teacher, you outta know better. So here I am, an authority, authority figure telling me I was not smart enough to go to high school, you know. AT: 00:36:40 Was it, you weren' ; t smart enough to go to high school? SM: 00:36:40 No, no, I could go to college. Excuse me. So um, and um, and when I went to Amundsen, my first year I was in a remedial class, they called that the slowpoke class, you know. So everyone there had low reading scores. And, and again, again you know, this is my fate, you know, and my counselors there, they' ; re telling me to take something you can do with your hands be a mechanic or, or do something with your hands because you don' ; t have the brains, the smarts, the intelligence to finish high school. So they were actually kind of encouraging me to not to do something else in high school. But what happened was that my, um, uh, I started school September, first year was in June, my Marines were coming in was 5.2. So they wanted to have at least one year advantage I have a 5.0, 6.2 and some people 4.8, you know, it was that range. And um, um, I remember that a teacher, her name was Mrs. Baxter was saying when test results came in on the second tour, she was saying, Oh, you said Mary, you went for 4.8 to a 6.4. Great. And she' ; ll come back and forth. Oh, Steve you didn' ; t do very well you remain about the same. Then she says Susumu, you know, you went from 5.2 to 10.8. They thought I cheated and I said how could I cheat on a test, you know, especially if it was written out. So I was supposed to be in honors English, but they didn' ; t want to do that. No one went from, from the remedial class to honors. So I just stayed in the same level throughout the level. So that was my, my exposure to high school. AT: 00:39:10 So you said most of your classmates were Irish Catholic? SM: 00:39:16 It was interesting. Yeah. I lived on ah Rascher Avenue. Families north of Balmoral were Irish Catholic, there was a divide. And south of Balmoral were Protestants, you know. So, um, uh, so when I played, um, the Catholics back then didn' ; t play much with the Protestants, you know, I didn' ; t understand why, you know, but uh, uh, but I got on well with everybody. So, uh, um, so, um, I found that out as I lived there, you know, because I noticed that everybody on my street block, all my friends went to St. George' ; s or St. Gregory' ; s and everyone, uh, uh, living south of Balmoral went to Trumbull, Trumbull Grammar School. So that' ; s when I got curious about, about why people do that, you know, religion and that kind of thing. AT: 00:40:19 And I' ; m sorry if you mentioned this. SM: 00:40:19 Go ahead. AT: 00:40:19 Did you say that your family was in involved in any temples or churches? SM: 00:40:24 Yeah, my father had a Buddhist temple in the apartment. Um, we call it the Chicago, Chicago Buddhist Church. And most of the parishioners were people from camp, you know, and so it was more like a social gathering. My dad would preach and so forth. But what was fun was after the service, we never went home, you know, people brought, maybe it' ; s Japanese tradition, but they brought their food along. We had fabulous Japanese food, you know, and they' ; ll stay to watch baseball and football and whatever. And it was not unusual for services to start at 1:00 PM when the Cubs are playing, w:e started at 1230, you know, watched the game. It was not unusual for people to stay until 7:00, 8:00 in the evening. Just to socialize because that' ; s the only time to, uh, to let off steam, I suppose, if they had bad time at work, you know. So, um, so my father, uh, uh, um, so I found that the temple and perhaps even some Christian churches today are a, it' ; s more than just to hear a sermon go home. It was the effort to be like a big family affair. And I was talking to some of my friends who like Japanese food, I took Japanese food back then for granted because it was so great, you know, and, and Japanese ladies would come to my home, you know, early in the morning and my mother and these will be talking about but don' ; t make some sushi and some all kinds of Japanese food, you know. It was a feast, you know. And uh, of course, uh, as a kid, I didn' ; t appreciate that, you know, I just ate and ate the food and the, um, uh, I, I had a very good memories, you know, it was a very warm, warm gathering. And um, um, I think my father wants said, uh, the service, we had service once a month. It wasn' ; t every month. Service was just for gathering people together. So, but sermons, it just an excuse for people to come together. So that' ; s how my father thought about things. He never thought of himself as a, as a great orator or, or, or a great leader, you know, he just, um, he was just a very humble person, naturally humble. And so he said, oh, I' ; d like to provide a service. We' ; re all friends can meet together. And oen informal setting, casual setting would talk about politics, talk about baseball. Could talk about lots of things, work, you know, a kid' ; s education. It was a, I really cherished those days. AT: 00:43:07 What was, so you were, I mean, of course you were very young in camp. How did you, was that experience something that your family talked about? How, like where did you, how would you describe your own um like, development of those family memories? SM: 00:43:33 Well, the Japanese families community never talked about the camp. Oh, they' ; ll say, but the only mention of camp was: Where were you at? I was at this camp. Or I was at Heart Mountain. That was about the extent of it. I never heard a bad thing about America, you know, even though that we were forced into the camps and I never heard about that FDR was a rotten guy or anything, nothing like that. And people, people who fought in the 442nd regiment, you know, they talk about, they talk about their loss of their friends. They, a lot of people died in 442. But it was never out of bitterness, it was out of sadness, but it was out of duty and obligation. They were great Americans. They, I try to imagine a soldier being drafted out, internment camp and, and, um, the mother and her father and her siblings are behind camp, they said, what are we fighting for? You know, and yet they fought for the country. And, and the 442nd was the most decorated unit in history, uh, uh, of warfare. More people died. And, and, uh, I think that' ; s the tribute to the Japanese, uh, thinking I think, you know, um. Going back to Japanese history, you know, um, people in Japan were not angry at the 442 because in feudal Japan, you fought for daimyo. For various warlords, you know, and you were loyal to that uh, lord. If you' ; re not loyal, you were considered a spy, you were considered a lower, a lower person. So they, so the Japanese mentality is that you' ; re, you' ; re Japanese face, speak Japanese, if you' ; re in America, if that' ; s your home, you fight for your home. So there was never a backlash from the Japanese people I knew who lived in Japan about a Japanese serving in the US army in America. And these are some of the things that, uh, that seeped into my, uh, my soul, you know, as the years go by, you know. People I never heard of, I talked to relatives, never said, how could you fight for America when you in camp and all, you know, we can do this kind of stuff, I never heard that. And I' ; m being very sincere about that. It was just the, uh, the Japanese culture. Uh, my father says, war is crazy. Crazy things happen. Let' ; s go, just move on. Craziness happened on both sides. So I learned a lot from my father. To this day, I don' ; t like to look back, you know, I like to look forward. Life is not perfect, you know, so I just like to move forward and I' ; d like, I don' ; t like to dwell on the past too much even though they may be very hurtful. AT: 00:46:49 How would you, how would you describe your experience in learning about what happened to your family? You know, piecing together these stories of, hearing about the FBI coming to your house, for example, or you know, your mother getting to leave to go to LA to have you. Um, how, how would you describe the journey of, of piecing those stories together? SM: 00:47:26 I was a little surprised because it didn' ; t come at once. It came over the years, you know? And um, if you, as my mother and father, they weren' ; t just give you a direct answer. They' ; ll say, oh, that' ; s ah, I don' ; t think about it. But as I grew older, like my mother, uh, telling me six months before her death, how we stayed in America. She just said she just stated out of nowhere, we were just having coffee and just talking: Oh, by the way, we' ; re lucky to be in America. I said oh? You know. And then she started speaking and that was news to that, that was news to me. She' ; d never stated that before. And I was in my sixties at the time, you know, fifties I think, I was pretty old guy. A lot older than you are, you know. And so, uh, it came out in bits and pieces. But, uh, my mother and father never said that in bitterness. I can seriously say that. And even my father' ; s parents' ; friends, you know, they were uh, they were frustrated. But then are they never, um, uh, they were extremely kind people, you know. AT: 00:48:41 When did you learn about the camps? SM: 00:48:45 Well, I was brought up in one, so I still had memories of it, you know. Uh, so, uh, so it is, like it was revealed to me, but my father always pressed forward. And so he never talked about the camp, he' ; d talk about good things in camp, you know? Um, okay. Here are some things that, I don' ; t remember this, but he said that, uh, I think that public best, at Heart Mountain, you know, were people just, it' ; d be Japanese style. And he said that when I was about one year old, he' ; d put me on his shoulders and I would be squealing like a pig. He says, you know, so there were some of the friendly, um fond memories. Again, the memories of my stay in camp were very positive, very positive. And it came to the surface years afterwards when it was becoming and became an adult. AT: 00:49:49 What was coming to the surface? SM: 00:49:51 Our experiences, experience, uh, of, of camp. I think you speak to a lot of Japanese people who were from the gener, they would not, I, it' ; d be very rare for someone to just speak about the camp, you know, you have to kind of draw them out of it. AT: 00:50:11 And how, how does it feel coming to an exhibition like this and seeing the narrative right now and seeing your family' ; s piece in the show? SM: 00:50:23 Well, um, I saw them, I saw some of those pictures before, some of the photographs before I saw new ones. It just brought back memories of where was. But not, it was, it was, um, it was peaceful, you know, um, I didn' ; t like to see little children in trucks either with a face sticking up between bars, so that shouldn' ; t have happened. But it did happen. And um, it' ; s something for people to always remember, you know, that though you can' ; t just ah round up a group of people because they look different, you know. And, and put them in a camp. It doesn' ; t solve any problems, you know. Um, one thing I learned, I learned about the camp was some of my friends think what Japanese had to, uh, be interned for their safety or because of alleged terrorist. That' ; s the corporate propaganda. But the story, but the comment I will throw out, we' ; ll say if Japanese we' ; re so endangered, dangers of causing terrorism. Why weren' ; t Hawaiian Japanese interned? Remember Pearl Harbor happened in Japan, in Japanese, we' ; re still working on the naval yard, you know, working as cooks or janitors or someone you know, and they say what it says Hawaiian Japanese were not interned? And I said no, you know, and uh, um, I think that the, uh, the internment, one was economics. Um, I saw an exhibit down there or down there, saying that about 40 percent of all the crops, crops, um, came out of Japanese hands before WWII. I did some research many, many years ago about that and I saw the titles, ah the land titles, and uh, um, a land titles of the 1930s in that area were all Japanese, were mostly Japanese. And um, I looked at titles in the, in the, in the forties, late forties. They' ; re all American names. And, and if, if one group of people controlled 40 percent of an industry, that' ; s a lot of money and I think that was a, that was not stated to Roosevelt, but I think that was the reason why Japanese were interned, they wanted the properties, not all of their properties, but those farmlands. And those farmlands today are extremely valuable and I think they' ; re owned by Japanese people, but the Japanese people started those farms. And, uh, and then, uh, uh, my, uh, my understanding of history back then was I said to my father for the, why didn' ; t Japanese go to a lawyer to fight all these kinds of things. And then I read later on, this my own saying that the assumption assumption, some American, Caucasian, uh, lawyers try to help them, but their clients will say, if you help those families, I' ; m withdrawing my business. So that' ; s why I didn' ; t have any legal representation. The only legal group that helped the Japanese were, the, uh, the um, uh, the, uh, American Civil Liberty, the American Civil Liberties Union, ACLU. And they' ; re mostly Jewish and, and the Jews were rounded up in Europe, so they didn' ; t care, if they saw injustice. So they' ; re the ones who have argued a case of some of the case, uh, for the, uh, the Japanese. One thing was um, 1930, early 1930s to late 1930s, the California passed a law stating that if you' ; re a Japanese ancestry, ancestry, ancestry, you cannot own land, you know, I think you know about that. And what happened was that, uh, they found a loophole and that the babies were American citizens. So the baby' ; s own the land, but they need legal help for that. They came from the ACLU. But no one else will help them. AT: 00:54:53 That' ; s SM: 00:54:53 That' ; s my understanding. Maybe some people would dispute this. But, uh, that' ; s what I learned on my own. AT: 00:55:06 As a Japanese American who was in camp. What is your response to some of the rhetoric and the actions of the government today that are targeting specific groups of people? SM: 00:55:24 Yeah, stupid, it' ; s one word. It doesn' ; t. I mean, it doesn' ; t work. You know, in a Japanese camp, a camp, you' ; ll say that if you were married to a non Japanese, you know, if you' ; re married to a Caucasian, that person was considered to be dangerous. They were interned. How dumb is that? You know, and, and, uh, uh, it, it' ; s assimilation because of the Japanese were a, um, um, I read some, the newspapers, you know, um, I will call them like the Fox News of 19 thirties, you know, and I, I actually would News Reports but saying that: Those, goddamn Japs, you know, they' ; re not human. They can work 23 hours a day, not sleep, no white man could keep up with them. And then there' ; s, you know, that' ; s, that' ; s, that' ; s a, I would call it Fox News hysteria kind of thing, you know. Uh, um, uh, yeah. Another thing I read was saying is that the, uh, they' ; re unAmerican not one of them is American citizen. You know, not, not knowing that the Japanese people, when they apply for citizenship, couldn' ; t get citizenship but didn' ; t care. And so they demonized that, they says they' ; re all pro Tojo, pro emperor. We got to kick these guys out. So when the camps came, it was a natural progression. We, we don' ; t want these, these unpatriotic, you know, Japanese people, uh, around us, they' ; ll kill us in our sleep, all that stuff. These are articles I actually read when I was doing my research, you know, uh so a, back then I did a lot of research. AT: 00:57:08 And why is this history, why is it important to, to remember and? SM: 00:57:20 Well, for me personally, I don' ; t want the current situation to get out of hand. You know, it' ; s very easy to demonize a person. Very easy to demonize a religion, you know, my father was supposed to be at all surprised was supposed to be separated from my mother and a mother before I was born because she was considered to be a terrorist. That' ; s crazy, you know, so they make assumptions, assumptions, and they always have some, uh, some, uh, a message, person say that yeah, I heard him say something. Yeah, I read that he' ; s doing these terrible things, you know. And so, um, uh, I think, um, uh, American, Americans, can assimilate a lot of people, you know, I think every ethnic group from, from Germans to the Polish, to the Irish to the Jews to the, you know, all of all the others, the first generation, they always had a bad, you know, I read reports saying in New York: Irish not wanted. Why? Because you know how they are--they' ; ll say. All they do is beat their wives and get drunk all the time, you know. And that' ; s very easy to demonize people. That' ; s a lazy man' ; s thinking, lazy man' ; s thinking. And so, uh, uh, uh, you have to see each, each person as they are. There' ; s always exception to the rule, you know, that it' ; d be, it' ; d be a thing in every group, but the people are demonized. We' ; re always got the get the exception and make them try to make that the rule. And, and on a personal level, I try not to think that there' ; s always exceptions. AT: 00:59:09 If you could leave any kind of message or our legacy for the future generations, what kind of message would you want to leave? SM: 00:59:21 Well, I think that America is the only nation in the world that can assimilate people from other cultures. You know, we had Barack Obama as president, the only African American president. In Japan, I can' ; t imagine having a prime minister from, who' ; s Chinese or Korean. I can' ; t, it won' ; t happen there, you know, and I can' ; t imagine a, a, not a country having a person from India having a person from Pakistan being a, being a prime minister or people towards, in America it happens. It did happen. And so this is, um, I like to keep that legacy, uh, this, uh, this dream about and even if we have an group, a lot of policies with Donald Trump, you know, but he' ; s not permanent and he' ; s going to be passed on in history, uh, as well we don' ; t know yet, you know. AT: 01:00:22 As we wrap up, is there anything that you' ; d like to add or anything I missed? SM: 01:00:28 No, I think we covered everything. Um, I' ; m proud to be Japanese, I' ; m proud to be an American and I' ; m proud to have a fantastic friends. AT: 01:00:38 Thank you so much for recording. SM: 01:00:40 Oh sure. You' ; re welcome. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=MukushinaSusumu20170914.xml MukushinaSusumu20170914.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Mukushina, Susumu (9/14/2017)
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
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This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Takada, Anna
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Nakamura, Anna Marie
OHMS Object Text
5.4 10/22/2017 Nakamura, Anna Marie (10/22/2017) 1:15:41 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Nakamura, Anna Marie Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/303229564 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/303229564?h=78f921b5cd" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 This is an interview with Anna Marie Nakamura as part of Alphawood Galleries Chicago Resettlement Experience Oral History Project. The oral history project is being conducted in line with the current exhibition, Then They Came for Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Demise of Civil Liberties. Today is October 22nd, 2017 at about 1:20 PM and we are recording at the Alphawood Gallery Oral History Studio. Anna Marie Nakamura is being interviewed by Anna Takada of Alphawood Gallery. Um, so to start, can you just state your full name? Anna M Nakamura: 00:00:40 It' ; s Anna Marie Aiko Nakamura. AT: 00:00:44 And um, can you tell me a little bit about where and when you were born? AMN: 00:00:51 Ah, I was born May 1st, 1924 in Los Angeles, California, um, delivered by a midwife. AT: 00:01:01 And, um, what was L.A. like at the time when you were growing up? Can you describe it a little bit? AMN: 00:01:08 Oh, well, um, it was a regular city as I recall. We lived in Boyle Heights, which is East L.A., I believe. And I kind of recall, it was a small bungalow type house. My father passed away when I was four years old and left my mom with three small children. My younger brother was two, I was four and my older brother was seven. So after he passed away, um, my dad ran a farmer supply store and upstairs there was like a, um, rooming house and my mom decided to make a living working, you know, uh, running the place. So we moved to, uh, I think it was 727 East 1st Street in Los Angeles, which was at that time like, um, they call it Little Tokyo because there were a lot of Japanese American, you know, Japanese people that lived there. And so I grew up until, I think I was 11 or 12, and I went to a, um, mission school run by the Maryknoll Nuns until ninth grade. AT: 00:02:55 So, uh, it sounds like the area where you grew up there were, you knew other Japanese American families. AMN: 00:03:06 Um, there, it was called Little Tokyo. Um, all Japanese stores, shoe stores, hotels, restaurants, dry goods, and um, I, it' ; s basically downtown Los Angeles where I grew up. And then when I was about 11 or 12, we moved to area called Boyle Heights, and it was all, it was another Japanese community, you know, and I went to, um, after Maryknoll was up to ninth grade and then I went to a Sacred Heart Academy, which is a Catholic girls high school. Um, I can' ; t remember the location, but uh, I, just when I was a senior and ready to graduate, Pearl Harbor, you know, happened and we went into camp in May and my graduation would have been in June. So I didn' ; t get to graduate with my class, we were in camp by then. And. AT: 00:04:22 Can you tell me a little bit about, um, your, your family and how they ended up in L.A. in the first place? AMN: 00:04:32 You know, my dad came from Japan with his cousin, 190--, I' ; m not sure on date. I think it was 1903 or 5, somewhere in there. Um, I don' ; t know why they moved to Los Angeles, but they both came to Los Angeles and o--, like I said, open up a farmer' ; s supply store. And, um, it' ; s my dad, my mom said my dad, uh, died from a ruptured appendix and she, you know, left her with three little children. So, uh, she ran a, like a little, a small hotel, transient hotel and over the store that my dad, you know, ran with, um, his cousin. AT: 00:05:35 So was, did his cousin continue the business? AMN: 00:05:37 He ran the store after my dad died and my mom took in boarders upstairs. Though, it was very small, I can' ; t remember how many rooms, but probably not more than 10, 12 rooms. Um, and I went to, like I said, a Catholic school run by the Maryknoll Nuns. And when I was about 11 or 12, we moved to Boyle Heights and we moved in with my uncle and his wife and they had a little boy, I think two, and a big house. And I don' ; t remember, we didn' ; t live there very long. AT: 00:06:30 At home did you, did you speak Japanese with your family? AMN: 00:06:34 Oh, to my mom, yes. But, uh, to the, uh, first generation, although my uncle spoke English. Both my uncles spoke English. And, uh, his wife was born in Hawai' ; i, so of course she spoke English. Yeah, I spoke Japanese to the, what we call, Issei, the first generation Japanese, but the rest of the, always English. AT: 00:07:02 Hmm. And what about activities outside of school? Did you go to church? AMN: 00:07:07 Belonged to the Girl Scouts. We used to play handball. Um, this school was bordered by factories and they had nice, clear walls. So we would play handball, uh, badminton. Uh, after church on Sunday, the young people always stayed after church and, uh, played badminton or, yeah, no games or socialized. AT: 00:07:36 What kind of church did your family belong to? AMN: 00:07:39 Uh, Catholic, uh, went... My cousin' ; s children were going to Catholic school and when my dad died, he told my mom, the nuns were very strict and you know, since you don' ; t have a husband anymore, and I had two brothers, uh, it would be good for the boys to have strict nuns to keep in check. And so that' ; s how I went to Maryknoll, which was in downtown, uh, near where we lived. And. AT: 00:08:18 Did you, uh, go to Japanese school? AMN: 00:08:22 After school, uh, English school, we did have Japanese classes. Um, they had, um, Japanese Catholic nuns. Um, but I hated classes, so I was not a very good student. AT: 00:08:42 Why, why did you hate classes? AMN: 00:08:44 Hm? AT: 00:08:44 Why did you hate classes? AMN: 00:08:48 I thought it was a waste of time to learn Japanese, I guess. And you know, you have enough of a school day, you want to be out playing with your friends, but it took up another hour of your day to go stay in class. So, um, I didn' ; t learn a lot. AT: 00:09:10 And um, can you tell me, uh, a little more about, um, your experience in the high school and what happened when, after the attack on Pearl Harbor? Do you remember where you were that day? AMN: 00:09:27 Oh yes. Um, we had gone to church and we were playing in the auditorium, um, when somebody came in and said that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and I remember thinking, what' ; s going to happen now? And we all scattered to go home. I lived in Boyle Heights. I had to take a bus from where I was and I remember going on the bus and feeling self conscious because I knew, I looked, oriental, ya know. And when we got home we all discussed about what was going to happen and uh, it was, and then going to school the next day, I remember they had an assembly and there were five of us, Japanese Americans. It was a small Catholic high school, girls high school and the principal saying she didn' ; t want any problems with any of the students and um, but it was kind of uncomfortable for a couple of days. But after that, you know, it was okay. AT: 00:10:58 And so you had, you were a senior in high school, which would mean that um, one of your brothers was also in high school. AMN: 00:11:07 My brother, um, went to the local high school. My two, two brothers went to the local high school in our neighborhood and he by then had graduated. He was working for a, uh, he went to school to study auto body fender work. So he had found a job in a garage and he was working in a garage. And of course my younger brother was still in school. AT: 00:11:42 Do you know, um, what their experiences were like? AMN: 00:11:48 Um, my brother was not in camp very long. Um, my uncle had friends that, uh, Idaho had some, uh, Japanese farmers and they were looking for workers. So my uncle asked my brother if he would like to go to work on one of the farms. And of course my brother wanted to get out of camp, so he went to work until, um, he was drafted for the army. And, AT: 00:12:22 And what about, um, Pearl Harbor? Um. AMN: 00:12:27 I' ; m trying to remember. I don' ; t remember any of, um, aside from, you know, we wondered what, what was going to happen. Um, like I said, I don' ; t have that many memories. All I know is they started, um, eventually, you know, they were talking about they were going to move us to a camp. And, um, like I said, my brother, younger brother was sophomore in high school, freshman or sophomore. Um, my older brother, uh, he was working in the garage then. So, um. AT: 00:13:19 You said that your, your family, the day of the attack of Pearl Harbor, you had a conversation... AMN: 00:13:26 You know, I, I don' ; t remember, um, anything during that time whether we talked about camp, you know, lot of rumors I suppose, but I don' ; t remember as a family. It' ; s too long ago whether we had any conversation of what was going to happen. AT: 00:13:52 And then, um, what about when the evacuation orders went out? Um. AMN: 00:13:59 Well, um, they gave us such a short time that, uh, well my, um, we didn' ; t have a father to, you know, direct us or anything. I remember my mom trying to get rid of the furniture and I think, the funny thing I remember she sold our dining room set to somebody for $5. And I remember my mom complaining that my older brother should be home helping us pack and he was out helping somebody else. But you know, outside from that, uh, all I remember is we got rid of all our furniture. And, um, our friend, my mom had a friend who owned a hotel and, uh, they said, come on, stay at the hotel until we have to evacuate. So we moved to the hotel, oh, probably two weeks before we were sent to camp. And so from this hotel, uh, they told us to gather at the Catholic Church where there were buses waiting and we went to Manzanar, because my brother had volunteered to go up and help build the camp and he liked what he saw. So, um, he was able to sign us up for Manzanar, so that' ; s how we ended up in Manzanar. AT: 00:15:49 And your older brother, was he living at home at this point or was he? AMN: 00:15:55 Um, he was living at home, but, uh, during the farming season, he lived up in Idaho. I think it was Idaho Falls. And so, um, he wasn' ; t around. And then, you know, when he was back in L.A., he worked at the garage. So. AT: 00:16:22 Um, do you remember the, the buses and how you actually got to camp? AMN: 00:16:30 Well, I remember we had to meet at the Catholic church and then we, you know, um, there were just buses. We just got on the bus. Um. AT: 00:16:45 Do you remember how long that trip was? AMN: 00:16:52 Oh, from L.A. to Manzanar, I don' ; t remember how long from L.A. to San Francisco. I think by train it was six hours. Manzanar was toward Nevada, probably six hours or so to camp, maybe longer. AT: 00:17:24 Um, I mean, given that you were a senior in high school, um, you know, with, with graduation kind of on, on the horizon, um, given that it was, you know, around the spring time, um, as a teenager, how did you feel having to make these trips? AMN: 00:17:48 Well, I was upset because I would have been graduating in June and here we were leaving in May and I miss, I was going to miss every, you know, my graduation and I' ; m scared of what was going to happen to us mostly. Um, but, you know, um, looking back, I don' ; t think, my mom, the, I, I think our parents had a rougher time than, you know, when you' ; re 17 years old, you don' ; t worry about the family, like, you know, your parents would. So, uh, like I said, it' ; s too long ago. I really, all I remember when we got to camp, it was so desolate, uh, and it, it was, you know, we didn' ; t know what was going to happen, so that' ; s about all I remember when we first saw the camp. AT: 00:19:01 Just that it was, it was desolate? AMN: 00:19:04 Oh yes. My, a desert, you know, it' ; s, it' ; s all desert and right in the middle of the desert, you see the army barracks, you know, which became our camp. But, um. AT: 00:19:19 What was the weather like? AMN: 00:19:24 Oh, um, California, dry, hot, uh, though, when we were there amazingly one winter when it snowed, I couldn' ; t believe, you know. But by midday it melted. But most of the time as hot, windy, dusty, um. The dust storms are incredible. And once they paved the street, you know, made streets and paved, uh, and uh, people planted gardens, uh, it improved a lot. It made a big difference. And then we started, uh, farming, you know, they grew tom-, well we, the camp grew their own vegetables. So it was a pretty big farm. When you have, I think there are 10,000 people in our camp. AT: 00:20:24 Did you know anyone in camp that you knew from back home? AMN: 00:20:27 Well, my cousin and his family. Um, aside from that, I don' ; t remember anybody else. My other relatives all went to Heart Mountain. So basically it was my cousin' ; s family and our, our, you know, our, four of us, my mom and my two brothers and myself. When you' ; re young, you know, you adapt a lot easier, I think than they older people did. AT: 00:21:10 And so, um, what did you do in camp? Did you return to school? AMN: 00:21:16 Oh, um, they assign jobs and so I was assigned as a nurse' ; s aid at the camp hospital in the children' ; s ward. And I don' ; t remember how long I was there. I caught German Measles from one of the patients and I was so sick, you know, when an adult catches measles. So after I recovered, they made me a receptionist at the hospital. So I took the, that was my job until I left camp. AT: 00:21:55 Um, what' ; d you, do you remember how long you were sick? Did you stay at home in the barracks or did you stay at the hospital? AMN: 00:22:05 Oh, I was in the hospital. Um, no, I don' ; t know. Uh, I don' ; t know how long I stayed in the hospital, but, um, I was in the children' ; s ward because it' ; s a children' ; s disease, you know, the, uh, they had a separate part of the, uh, barracks for the contagious disease ward, they call it. And I was there until I got over my measles. AT: 00:22:36 Do you remember how you got that job? Did you have to apply or did you know someone? AMN: 00:22:41 I don' ; t remember. Um, I think they assigned us to different jobs, but I' ; m not quite sure. AT: 00:22:57 And how long was your family in, in Manzanar? AMN: 00:23:02 Two and a half years. ' ; 42, ' ; 43, I think came back, I think it was two and a half years I was in camp. I got married in camp and... AT: 00:23:28 Tell me more about that? Can you tell me more about getting married in camp? AMN: 00:23:31 Well, when we were, um, we closed up our house and moved to the hotel, my husband was a night clerk there, going to college and that' ; s how we met. He asked me out on a date and I remember my mom was very unhappy because I was only 17 and he was 24 or something, so he would, we couldn' ; t go out unless my brother came along as a chaperone. AT: 00:24:13 Your older brother? AMN: 00:24:14 My younger brother, which he hated. So we never went out on a date by ourselves. And, and then, um, we got married in camp. AT: 00:24:27 So he was also at Manzanar? AMN: 00:24:30 Yes. Um, luckily, yeah, he was assigned to Manzanar. So we were in the same camp. AT: 00:24:41 And at what point did you get, at what point did you decide to get married? AMN: 00:24:47 Oh, gosh. I don' ; t know. We never, um. AT: 00:24:53 Or when did you get married? AMN: 00:24:57 February 28, 1944? Yeah, it was, I remember it was a leap year, so I don' ; t know whether it was the 28th or the 29th. AT: 00:25:16 And um, was there some kind of process? Did you have to fill out paperwork or how did that work to get married in camp? AMN: 00:25:25 Uh, yeah, we had to go get it from the County C Bishop. Uh, I don' ; t remember. All I remember is that the certificate was the county of Inyo County, Bishop, California, because I had to get a copy and I had to write to the county to get a copy. Um, I really don' ; t know who made the arrangements. Uh, probably the priest at the church guided us because, you know, he hadn' ; t, they had a lot of weddings. But like I said, it' ; s too long ago. I really don' ; t remember. AT: 00:26:20 Do you remember other folks getting married in camp? Was that pretty common or? AMN: 00:26:26 What? AT: 00:26:26 Do you remember other people getting married in camp? Was that common? AMN: 00:26:30 Oh yeah, there, they had a Buddhist church, a Christian church, Catholic church. Um, it' ; s uh, you know, 10,000, lot a people. It' ; s a lot of marriages, I' ; m sure. AT: 00:26:52 Um, yeah, getting requested to stop [filming stops]. AMN: 00:26:57 And, um, because in Japan you don' ; t marry for love, a family, they go into your family background to see if there' ; s anybody that had mental problems because they won' ; t let you. And there were certain, uh, cast, um, type of people. Uh, there was one who are butchers. They won' ; t let you marry into a family that are butchers because it' ; s really low class. So when you want to get married, they get, they call it a baishakuni. It was just a go-between. And their job is to go into the backgrounds of both families to make sure it' ; s the right arrangement, you know: both family have the same background and there' ; s nothing bad in the background. So that' ; s how we had a baishakuni. Um, it was not, in the first, uh, what we call the first generation Japanese, our parents, uh, never married for love. It was always an arranged marriage and that was the baishakuni, the go-between. AT: 00:28:08 And so who, that was, uh, an individual doing that? And they did that for? AMN: 00:28:14 Uh, it was, just a token thing. You know, uh, we didn' ; t think it was necessary, but, uh, um, my mom said it was the proper thing to have a go-between. So at the wedding, you know, um, my husband' ; s family was in Japan. He was here with his brother. So, um, uh, we had another couple friend who, uh, took his parents' ; place and then we had the go-between. And so in the wedding picture, there' ; s the whole group. AT: 00:28:56 So you were able to have a, a photograph of the, the wedding. AMN: 00:29:02 Oh, we had a regular church wedding. And like I said, we had two cakes. The camp made us a wedding cake. And, uh, I don' ; t know who had ordered a cake from Los Angeles. They shipped it and arrived the day before the wedding. So we had two wedding cakes, which was very nice. Everybody had a lot of a cake. AT: 00:29:30 Do you know who ordered that? AMN: 00:29:32 I have, it' ; s too long ago. I don' ; t remember who ordered it. And of course, no honeymoon. There was, we just got a new, uh, they assigned us a new room in one of the barracks and so we just moved in there and um, during I think the next fall when my husband went out to Utah to work on the farms, um, I went to work in a tomato cannery canning tomatoes just to go see him out there. And that was our honeymoon I think in Salt Lake City for two days that we got together. But that was fun. AT: 00:30:32 What kind of farm was he working on? Do you know? AMN: 00:30:34 Potatoes, picking potatoes, Idaho, you know Idaho potatoes? [Laughs] And, uh, Utah had a big tomato, uh, farms and they can lots of tomatoes. I didn' ; t want to eat tomatoes for a while after I got back to camp [chuckles]. AT: 00:30:55 How long were you out of camp? AMN: 00:30:58 Ah, two weeks. I think it was two weeks to Kenalog [Kenalog?] at that particular cannery. It' ; s seasonal, well, you know, tomato, do you have to do it really fast because it doesn' ; t keep, and so, but it was fun. It was great to get out of camp and, uh, be outside like we used to say. AT: 00:31:27 And your husband, um, was he, uh, working on the potato farm for longer than? AMN: 00:31:33 Oh yeah. Um, gosh, I don' ; t know how many weeks they would work out there, but they would go work different farms. They' ; d, once they' ; d finish one farm, so they, he worked at several farms in Idaho. AT: 00:31:52 And then can you tell me about, um, so you said your family was in Manzanar for probably about two and a half years. Um, what, what happened then after two and a half years? AMN: 00:32:09 Oh. Um, my husband had a friend who had gone to Chicago and he wrote and said that there were jobs available in Chicago, so why don' ; t we come and he would find a place for us to live. So then we decided we' ; ll go to Chicago because you don' ; t know how long the war is gonna last. And we didn' ; t want to be staying in camp, you know, so that' ; s how we got to Chicago. AT: 00:32:37 So it was just you and your husband? AMN: 00:32:41 Mhm. And then, um, when they were ready, getting ready to close the camp, uh, we told my mom and my younger brother who was still in camp to come and join us. So they came to Chicago and joined us in Chicago. In the meantime, my brother had been drafted, so he was in Europe. AT: 00:33:07 This was your older brother? AMN: 00:33:13 Mhm. AT: 00:33:13 And um, so you and your husband came to Chicago first. Um, where did you end up living in the city? AMN: 00:33:23 Oh, when we first came to Chicago. Oh, this room, my husband' ; s friend found us this room on the North Side. Oh, Gosh. Lawrence, Lawrence Avenue. Anyway, we walked into that room and it was full of bed bugs, so we couldn' ; t stay there. So I think we probably stayed at some hotel the first night. I don' ; t remember how long until we found another apartment and I think it was on the North Side to Winthrop. I remember the street, I don' ; t remember the address. And we lived there, oh gosh. Can' ; t remember how long we lived there. And then we moved down to... [turns to another person in the room] Hey Gayle, do you remember when, when we lived in Hampden Court, was it, how old were you? Gayle: 00:34:43 I think I was still a baby. You didn' ; t live on Winthrop that long. I' ; m sorry. AT: 00:34:53 No, please. AMN: 00:34:54 No, [speaker thinking aloud] G: 00:34:54 You didn' ; t live on Winthrop that long. AMN: 00:34:56 I think right after you were born, G: 00:34:57 Right. AMN: 00:34:58 we moved to Chi-- to, uh, Hampden Court. That was, G: 00:35:05 That would be early 1946. AMN: 00:35:10 Yeah, because you were born in 45. G: 00:35:12 Yeah. AT: 00:35:15 Sorry. G: 00:35:16 That would have been bad. [laughter about potential accident out of camera view] AT: 00:35:20 Um, so, sorry. Just to clarify, so Gail was born in ' ; 46. AMN: 00:35:26 ' ; 45. AT: 00:35:26 ' ; 45. Um, and you said that was when you moved, um, to Hampden Court, is that right? G: 00:35:38 Um, I was born in August of ' ; 45 and then they moved in ' ; 46, maybe beginning of ' ; 46 you think? AMN: 00:35:47 Oh, to Hampden Court. Yeah. And I' ; m trying to remember when we moved to Diversey. G: 00:35:57 Oh, I was 10 years old. AMN: 00:35:58 Oh, so, uh, ' ; 55. G: 00:36:02 Yeah. But you should describe Hampton Court ' ; cause that was a fairly, um, that was a Japanese... AMN: 00:36:11 Oh, it was, uh, quite a, how many room apartment do you think that were there? Two, four, six, eight, ten. G: 00:36:20 Well it was almost the whole block was Japanese. AMN: 00:36:21 12. G: 00:36:23 Well, you mean in Hampton Court? AMN: 00:36:29 Two on each floor. Apartment two, four, six, eight, two, four, six, eight, ten. G: 00:36:36 So maybe 16 to 20 apartments. AMN: 00:36:39 Not 20. G: 00:36:40 There weren' ; t any in the middle? AMN: 00:36:41 No. There was one apartment at the end of the hall there. G: 00:36:46 Yeah. AMN: 00:36:47 So two, four, six, eight, ten... G: 00:36:50 Describe them to Anna. AMN: 00:36:50 13, maybe 13 apartments. Understand it was a Jewish, something for the Jewish community, and they had made into apartments, I guess used to be an office or something. But anyway, my mom' ; s friend bought that building and asked my mom if we' ; d like to move there. So that' ; s when we moved to, uh, Hampden Court in Chicago. AT: 00:37:22 This was an Issei friend, had bought it? AMN: 00:37:26 So it was right after Gail was born. G: 00:37:30 Oh, she couldn' ; t hear you. Mom? AMN: 00:37:33 Mm. G: 00:37:33 She said it was, so it was an Issei? AMN: 00:37:35 Hm? G: 00:37:35 Your mom' ; s friend was an Issei, is that what you meant? AMN: 00:37:39 Yeah. G: 00:37:40 Yeah. She, it was an Issei who bought the Hampden building. AMN: 00:37:44 She, she and her husband bought the building. And, uh, so asked my mom if we wanted to move there. So that' ; s why we moved to Hamden Court, Obuchi' ; s. AT: 00:37:56 So then did you live there with your husband, your mom and your brother? AMN: 00:38:00 Yes, my mom and my brother rented another apartment. Uh, I think it was on floor below us. Yeah. And we lived there, oh goodness. You said you were 10 when we moved to Hanamoto, Gail? AT: 00:38:26 Yeah, she said it was 10 years. So in ' ; 55, about. AMN: 00:38:32 Yeah, we moved to Hanamoto on Diversey. AT: 00:38:36 And um, what was that, that area or that neighborhood like when you were living there? AMN: 00:38:44 Oh! It was, um, typical Chicago neighborhood. Very nice. You know, it' ; s a Lake View area, a great location because we were close to, um, Clark and Diversey where you have all the stores and everything. There was a department store at that time and Walgreens, you know, but it was really a good neighborhood. AT: 00:39:14 Uh, were there, do you remember any Japanese American businesses or stores? AMN: 00:39:19 You know, most of the Japanese Americans settle around Division and Broadway and Clark. Was it Clark? AT: 00:39:28 Clark and Division? AMN: 00:39:30 Yeah, on Division. Um, they had, um, uh, restaurants. Um, like I said, it was, there were quite a few that lived right in that area. Where we were living on the North Side, no. Um, I think there were more people from Vietnam later on, but, um, there was another fam, Japanese family, lived on the next block, but I think we were the only one in that area that were, you know, Japanese ancestry. AT: 00:40:23 And what, um, what were you and your husband doing for work when you moved here? AMN: 00:40:31 Gosh, you know, I worked for the War Labor Board until I had her and I didn' ; t go back to work until my youngest daughter was born 18 years later. Um, then I went to work in my company where my husband worked in a office. Ah, I, you know what I used to do? I used to, um, uh, type envelopes. There was a company that, uh, I think it' ; s a marketing company, that need typists, today they don' ; t have such thing, but to type addresses. And you had to go pick up, and I think, I used to pick up, boy, 2000 full boxes. I think there were 200, and I would type at home. AT: 00:41:38 And, uh, your husband, what kind of work was he doing when you first came to Chicago? AMN: 00:41:46 The first job he had was a janitor at, uh, a surgical implement manufacturing. I still remember, [Ditsuken?] shoveling snow off the sidewalk ,and that was his first job. And then he got a job at this, uh, uh, company that, uh, uh, sold, uh, plywood, plywood lumber, and had, um, mail room, you know, they fabricated things and he went to work there and he worked there for, whoa, how many years, Gail? 34? Well, he spent the rest of his...oh no, I take it back. When did dad work at Northwestern? G: 00:42:55 When you first got here. That was the job he had. AMN: 00:42:59 Oh, after he shoveled the snow. Oh, that' ; s right. Uh, he got. Uh, Northwestern was looking for, uh, Japanese language teachers to teach American officers Japanese when the war was over. So they recruited my husband. So he worked at Northwestern University teaching Japanese to army officers until the war ended. I think. I don' ; t, I don' ; t remember how long after that. And after that he went to work at Maywood. G: 00:43:38 National Tea. AMN: 00:43:40 Where? G: 00:43:40 He worked at National Tea, I thought, as a butcher? AMN: 00:43:44 Oh no, as a night supervisor. G: 00:43:48 Clubs. AMN: 00:43:50 What' ; s it after? AT: 00:43:51 No butchers in the family. G: 00:43:52 No best friend, no butchers in the family. [laughter] AMN: 00:43:55 Oh, that' ; s right. That was not for long though. G: 00:43:59 Oh. AMN: 00:44:00 It was a night job. That' ; s right. He was a, he-- G: 00:44:04 He was fired, as I recall, wasn' ; t he? AMN: 00:44:08 Oh yeah. The night worker that collected all the meat orders, they were stealing meat. My husband didn' ; t even know it, but the company said that since he was a supervisor, uh, they had to fire him. So that' ; s how he lost that job. And then he went to work at Maywood. That' ; s right. I completely forgot. G: 00:44:35 Didn' ; t he work at Jefferson Ice? Jefferson. AT: 00:44:39 Jefferson Ice? G: 00:44:39 Jefferson Ice? AMN: 00:44:42 Hm? G: 00:44:42 He worked at Jefferson Ice? AMN: 00:44:46 No, he worked putting ice in railroad cars, refrigerator cars one summer between jobs. He lost 50 pounds. That was the best job he ever had [laughs], because he was quite heavy. G: 00:45:06 He ate 10 bowls of rice a night for dinner. AT: 00:45:08 Oh. G: 00:45:08 And used to buy it 100 pound bags. AMN: 00:45:14 Oh, I had forgotten about that. AT: 00:45:16 Where did you buy your rice and, and groceries from? AMN: 00:45:21 Oh, uh, Star Market on Division. Was It on Division? Clark Street. Clark Street. G: 00:45:32 Yeah. By Wrigley Field. AMN: 00:45:34 Yeah. They had a Japanese food store where they sold Japanese food. So we would go there to buy rice and whatever we needed. G: 00:45:48 Grandma, remember grandma worked at Curtis Candies. Another Speaker: 00:45:52 Oh yeah. AMN: 00:45:53 Oh my gra-- my mom. My mom worked at Curtis Candy and at Christmas, um, the company would give all their employees a huge box of their goodies and the kids couldn' ; t wait for Christmas because they would get this big box of candy. AT: 00:46:15 What did she do at the, at Curtis Candy? AMN: 00:46:18 I think she worked on the line. Uh, I don' ; t know whether she was a wrapper or whatever. All I remember is, uh, Christmas and the kids. They tried to unionize the company, but the company was so good to the workers that they couldn' ; t get it to join the union. And then they moved to, Curtis moved to the suburbs somewhere so she had to quit. AT: 00:46:58 Do you remember, um, some of your first or early impressions of Chicago? I imagine it was probably your first time ever coming to Chicago? AMN: 00:47:08 Oh yeah. Our first impression, it was cold and we had summer clothes on. So the first thing we had to do is buy some winter clothes. So I remember we went to Rothschild. Now, I don' ; t know how we ended up in Rothschild instead of Sears Roebuck [laughs], but we went in there to buy some winter clothes. That was my first impression of Chicago. It was a week, it was December, I think we came in December, and it was cold. And we looked, um, I remember we were standing, um, State and um, gee, First National Bank. Adams? Was the, uh, the big main bank, I think it was on it Ad--. Anyway, we were standing on a corner corner with our summer clothes on and some man came up then and said, you look like strangers, can I help you? And we said, " ; We' ; re looking for our bank." ; And he said, " ; Oh, First National Bank is right down the street" ; So we went down and opened up our account and then we went looking for winter clothes. That' ; s how out of place we must have looked [laughs]. AT: 00:48:28 And what about as far as, um, just general neighborhoods and the city itself? How did it compare to what, um, where you came from? AMN: 00:48:43 From L.A. You know, I don' ; t, I don' ; t think we even thought about any difference or how big it was or anything. I think we were concentrating on getting settled finding a place to live and getting a job more than anything than what kind of a place. You know, aside from being cold, and I' ; m not used to the cold because I grew up in Southern California, I don' ; t remember having much of an impression of Chicago, by much. We were too busy getting going, I think. AT: 00:49:20 Were there, did you experience any challenges when you first came here besides needing to find winter clothing? AMN: 00:49:28 No, I don' ; t think so. Um, I don' ; t even remember. All I know is I got a job at the War Labor Board and I had to get a physical to go work there. It was a government requirement. So I went to the doctor to get a physical and she said, do you know you' ; re pregnant? I said, no. And that was December and you were born in August. So I didn' ; t work very long. I, I can' ; t remember when I quit working. May, I might' ; ve worked to May. And after that I stayed home until, well, like I said, I used to get typing work at, brought it home and I would, you know, type envelopes at home, but I didn' ; t go out to work, oh, for many years. AT: 00:50:46 And so from, uh, Lake View and Hampden Court, uh, you moved, uh, down to Clark and Diversey? AMN: 00:50:57 No, we... Yeah. Um, there was a couple that bought this building, two flat on Diversey and asked if we would like to move in the second floor. So that' ; s how we went to live in Diversey. And we were there for seven years? G: 00:51:22 No, I would say AMN: 00:51:23 Uh, Joan... Kathy was born there in ' ; 55. G: 00:51:30 We moved to Highland Park in ' ; 64. AMN: 00:51:33 We moved to Highland Park in ' ; 64. Yeah, the year Joany was born. Well, that' ; s about 10 years. AT: 00:51:41 How many children do you have? AMN: 00:51:47 I had three sets of family. Gail and Claire are 18 months apart. Then I didn' ; t have any babies until my son was born six years later. And then I had my son Guy. Two years later I had Cassie, and then I didn' ; t have any kids, how many years between Ca--, 10? G: 00:52:13 Nine. AMN: 00:52:14 Nine between Kathy and my youngest, Joan, I was 40 when I had Joan. So there' ; s 18 years. She was a freshman at U of I when I had my youngest and I was carrying a baby at my daughter' ; s wedding. I think Joan was two years, two years when Claire got married, which was the funniest thing if you ever thought about it. The father, the mother of the bride carrying a baby. Right? AS: 00:52:47 Yeah. AT: 00:52:50 And um, so just to take it back a little bit, um, uh, Clark and Diversey, is that, but is that still considered Lake View, so you' ; re just on a different side of the neighborhood? I think nowadays. AS: 00:53:09 Yeah. Yeah. I mean we lived closer to Halsted, Center on Halsted. AMN: 00:53:26 It was a nice neighborhood. AS: 00:53:27 Diversey was like a mile away from Hampden Court. So it wasn' ; t like that far away from where you, when you lived on Hampden Court. AMN: 00:53:39 Yeah, it' ; s about the same. It' ; s a Chicago neighborhood. It was, yeah. No, it' ; s a nice neighborhood to grow up in. Of course Diversey was commercial. We were right on Diversey, which is, you know, shops and everything. But um, typical Chicago neighborhood. AT: 00:54:02 Were you, were there other Japanese American families in the neighborhood? AMN: 00:54:06 Um, not around where Chicago, where Diversey... Little bit west, I think there were some Japanese, um, where Claire used to live, AS: 00:54:23 Well, AMN: 00:54:25 Barry. AS: 00:54:27 they weren' ; t as concentrated on Japanese because Waller was a lot of Japanese and then were removed like... There were still Japanese and then Senn, around Senn High School, the Japanese community. Right. Because that' ; s kind of where Lake View High School, I mean that' ; s what I kind of remember... AMN: 00:54:49 Yeah. AS: 00:54:50 Quarter Japanese people. AMN: 00:54:52 Yeah, where the Shintani' ; s lived. There, there were a Japanese families that lived on right around that area, around Lake View High School. There was time to scatter, you know. At, at first they kind of congregated in that Division and Clark and then slowly they all moved further and further. People moved to the suburbs and, but I think there' ; s still a core of Japanese around Clark and Division. I don' ; t know. I haven' ; t been around. AS: 00:55:33 We used to support like the Buddhist temple. I don' ; t know. Did you talk to anyone about, is there still a kind of critical mass of Japanese around the Buddhist temples still? AT: 00:55:53 Um, yeah, I don' ; t, I don' ; t really think so. I think everybody' ; s kind of AS: 00:55:59 Just scattered, yeah. AT: 00:56:00 all over the place. Um. AS: 00:56:04 ' ; Cause I think the Buddhist temple, the North Side. AMN: 00:56:07 Oh, around AS: 00:56:09 Argyle AMN: 00:56:10 around the Menominee. AS: 00:56:14 Yeah, the priest, I don' ; t think is Japanese. AMN: 00:56:19 There isn' ; t around Menominee anymore. They used to have this, uh, Ginza festival. AT: 00:56:27 That' ; s MBT. That' ; s still there. And Speaker 1: 00:56:29 Ah, well I, like I said, we don' ; t go into Chicago anymore, so I have, when we want Japanese food, we go to Mitsuwa in... AT: 00:56:39 Arlington Heights. [group laughter] And, uh, when, uh, when you were at, um, Clark and Diversey, so before moving out to the suburbs, did you, did you raise your children Catholic or did you, did you go to church or anything like that? AMN: 00:57:01 Oh yeah. You know, the kids went to Saint Clement School, so, I was in the PTA, you know, fundraisers. Yeah. Pretty active in the church activities then. AT: 00:57:21 And um, did you send them to Japanese school or did you speak Japanese with them? AMN: 00:57:31 [shakes head] I didn' ; t think it was necessary. In a way it would have been good. You could have worked as an interpreter [laughter in room], but you probably didn' ; t want to. You would have hated to go to school after school. Anyway. AS: 00:57:51 I think that we were told, or my recollection is, is wanted us to be able to assimilate into the American culture and therefore we didn' ; t speak Japanese at home, even though Grandma was still living with us. At face, tried to speak English, and of course we went to Catholic school. AMN: 00:58:15 Yeah. AT: 00:58:18 Does that sound familiar? AMN: 00:58:23 I, I, I guess I didn' ; t think it was necessary for the kids to learn Japanese. Used to talk a little bit with grandma. Children maybe talk, um, Japanese, you know, they have the way the children talk and the way the adults talk on top of that, it' ; s different from our county. They call it, if you go to one county, like, um, our family Hiroshima and you meet somebody from another, you wouldn' ; t understand them because the dialect would be so different. But they' ; re all Japanese. And, uh, like I said, I didn' ; t think it was necessary and they probably wouldn' ; t want to go to school. Japanese school anyway, after school. AS: 00:59:17 I don' ; t-- AT: 00:59:20 Um. AS: 00:59:20 Go ahead. AT: 00:59:20 Are you sure? AS: 00:59:22 Well, I was gonna say what about Tri-C? Tri-C, did they go to language school? AMN: 00:59:32 I don' ; t think so. AS: 00:59:34 Tri-C was a congregational church on the near North Side. You know about it? Ok. AMN: 00:59:38 The Buddhists, the people that went to the Buddhist church were more, uh, likely to keep learning the Japanese language than, um, the Christian churches, you know, because it' ; s, it' ; s the religion of Japan. The Buddhists. So I think if you were a Buddhist or, if you went to Buddhist church, you went to language school. AT: 01:00:13 Can you tell me a little bit about your decision to move to Highland Park and out of the city? AMN: 01:00:22 Well, my brother always lived, my mom and my brother always lived, uh, next to us and he worked for a company that moved to Waukegan. So he started commuting or he found a room to rent in Waukegan. He would come home weekends with his dirty laundry, you know, family dinner. And so we thought if he want to be together, um, I think we decided to see if we could find a place mid-ways. So that' ; s why we decided to, um, uh, the man that my husband worked for had a real estate agent. His aunt was a real estate. And so why don' ; t you move into around Highland Park? That would be midway. And so that' ; s how we moved to Highland Park. So my brother, you know, could sort of commute and my husband would take the train to work. He wouldn' ; t have to drive. AT: 01:01:42 And so your mother went out to Highland Park as well? AMN: 01:01:46 Yes. AT: 01:01:48 And. AS: 01:01:49 Grandma had passed away by the time you moved.Grandma passed away when we were on Diversey. AMN: 01:01:55 Oh, that' ; s right. She, she died the year Kathy was born. Right, 1955, so she was gone. So it was just Uncle Frank. AT: 01:02:06 And how did, how did life in Highland Park compare to Lake View? AMN: 01:02:13 Oh, well it' ; s the suburbs. It was very nice. We, we had real nice neighbors. You know, the interesting thing was the real estate agent went to a neighbor that would be my next door neighbor to ask her if it was okay if, you know, Japanese Americans moved next door to her, which today, you know, you wouldn' ; t even do that. But she was wonderful. The Fruman' ; s were great neighbors. So, um, the whole neighborhood, and it was great because there were a lot of little kids, eh, for my kids to play with, you know, and it, good school. Alcott School is a wonderful school. And she was, you know, they were gone [indicating others in the room]. She, and Claire were. AS: 01:03:12 Okay. Well. Okay, so here' ; s the story again, that it was also around the time Joany was born, the youngest, and I think they thought the city was getting a little bit too inner city for her to grow up in. And so part of the impetus besides Uncle Frank working in Waukegan was, you also had a baby, another little kid. And so the move was both to take her into a AMN: 01:03:40 Suburban environment. AS: 01:03:42 place, environment and for Uncle Frank. AMN: 01:03:46 And you know, Highland Park had really good schools. Or the reputation was really good at that time. So, um, we, we found a inexpensive part of Highland Park right at the entrance of Ravinia Park. Perfect. It was really nice. AS: 01:04:06 And there was still, interestingly enough, on the North Shore, some prejudice, which is why they asked the neighbors about having the Japanese family, but there were still some groups that really did not want Japanese people in there. AMN: 01:04:23 Glencoe. And my cousin too, Ron and Edy, when they moved to Lake Forest, they had to, trouble looking for a house. There was still prejudice, you know. AT: 01:04:39 Had you tried looking at Glencoe? Is that how you know? AMN: 01:04:43 No, I lived in Highland Park, which was a great neighbor--. Our neighbors were really great. Lot of little kids for mine to, you know, uh, play with, uh, like I said, it was the, um, low income part of Highland Park. If you go east along the lake is where all the big mansions, but right by the entrance to Ravinia Park, there were a lot of um, you know, modest homes. Um, a lot of kids a great place. It was really great. Neighbors were all wonderful. We had really great neighbors. AS: 01:05:22 I don' ; t think she heard you. AT: 01:05:27 Um, my, my question was, um, so you said that there was some prejudice in, around Glencoe. How, how did you know about that? AMN: 01:05:39 Um, my cousin was trying to buy a house on the North Shore and, um, we, they were talking about, you know, they would go, uh, I think they, they had to ask the neighbors if they would accept, you know, uh, because you don' ; t want to move into a neighborhood where there' ; s prejudice, you know, and there were rumors going around. Uh, like I said, it' ; s so long ago. I don' ; t remember all the details. AS: 01:06:21 And I think the realtor also helped steer the... AMN: 01:06:25 Yeah. Uh, I don' ; t know if they do it today, but they would go around asking, How do you feel about, you know, um, African Americans living next door to you or, um, but in those days they did ask. AT: 01:06:43 And, um, in Highland Park, did you experience any prejudice? AMN: 01:06:47 No, never. I think I asked my daughter and she, somebody asked her at junior high school, are you Chinese or Japanese? Then until then, she never even thought she was any different, which I thought was kind of interesting, you know, so I guess they never treated her any different. AS: 01:07:25 So for timing, this is late ' ; 60s so, or no, not even late. It was ' ; 65? Yeah, ' ; 64, ' ; 65. AMN: 01:07:40 I know when we first moved, Guy had, was in junior high school and he would wake up in the morning saying he had a tummy ache. And so the um, assistant principal came over, uh, we discussed it and we found out that, uh, he felt, he came in the middle of the school year. He hadn' ; t, didn' ; t have any friends, so he felt, felt very lonely. So the assistant principal found him a friend, Glenn [O' ; Rian?] and that did it. You know, little problems like that to adjust, like I said. And I didn' ; t drive., and I used to walk my son to junior high school until he got, he knew the neighborhood. Uh, I was afraid he' ; d get lost, you know, because, um, we didn' ; t have bus service unless you lived more than a mile away from the school. So I used to walk him to school and pick him up. I remember one day, it was a real bad day. The assistant principal saw me pushing the buggy to school and he picked up Guy and said, " ; I' ; ll take him," ; which was very nice. AT: 01:09:09 And uh, how long were you in Highland Park? AMN: 01:09:12 34 years? I think we decided that, I sold the house and moved to a condo in Deerfield and I lived there for 12 years before I moved to Lincolnwood. It was about 12 years. Nice place. Deerfield' ; s a nice place to live. Northbrook, where my daughter lives at, a real nice place to live, to bring up the kids, to good schools, nice, nice neighborhood. I feel very lucky. I had a good life. Ups and downs, experienced a lot, traveled. I think I' ; m living too long. [laughter] AT: 01:10:09 And um, if you could leave some kind of message or legacy with, with your children and maybe grandchildren, what would you want them to have or to know? New Speaker: 01:10:25 Oh my gosh. To, um, good or bad, um, adjust to everything, you know. Um, don' ; t be bitter. Don' ; t be, uh, regret. Um, just I think accepting life, what life hands you and living the best as you can. And uh, friends and family are so important. So have good friends. And luckily my kids all get along very good because I seen some siblings that really fight a lot. So that would be it. You know, that my kids stay close together and they have wonderful friends. So I think that' ; s important. Have close siblings, good neighbors, good friends and you know, they help you through good times and bad times. You have a lot of good times. We love, we love our get togethers and I think we' ; re lucky. We had the core of five families that, um, got along so well. We were like one big family. We picnic together, holidays together. Um, we were very lucky. We had the Hanamoto' ; s and the Shintani' ; s and... AS: 01:12:08 And you didn' ; t go into that about Hampden Court because that' ; s where it started. AMN: 01:12:12 Yeah. We became friends. AS: 01:12:16 With the people who lived there. AMN: 01:12:18 Who lived there and we remain, the families did everything together, picnics, holidays, the kids' ; birthdays. Um, it' ; s been great. It' ; s been really wonderful life. AT: 01:12:35 Was that something that was important to you to, um, be close with other Japanese American families? AMN: 01:12:46 I don' ; t know. What do you think? AS: 01:12:49 Um, I think it was... AMN: 01:12:51 I think we all found... AS: 01:12:53 Probably helped because you had a common background, a shared background, but I just think it was more of compatibility. AMN: 01:13:03 Yeah. AS: 01:13:04 What made it important is they just happened to be really compatible. AMN: 01:13:08 The five families somehow, um, the kids who are great together ; they all played so well together. Uh, luckily, mostly girls. Was Richard the only, Guy and Richie, were the only boys, right? But the rest, the girls got along so well and, and today even, they' ; re very close. So yeah. Um, I was talking to a psych, I was, I had kind of a nervous breakdown at one time and I was talking to this psychiatrist and she said, " ; Tell me about your life." ; When I described our group, she said, " ; You' ; re very lucky to have five families that are so cohesive." ; You know, the kids are so great together. And I said, " ; Yeah, I think so." ; Not Too many people experience what we had. Right? I think so. I think it' ; s been, uh, and they' ; re still so close, the the whole group. AT: 01:14:24 And uh, as, as we wrap up here, is there anything else that you' ; d like to add or that I might' ; ve missed in this conversation? AMN: 01:14:33 Ah, I don' ; t know. Pretty much, what do I want to say. Like I say, I hope the children continue to be good friends. Close friends. Take care of each other because they don' ; t have grandchildren. So they, they, no, they don' ; t, they. I mean, that' ; s okay. That' ; s the decision. But they' ; ve got to take care of each other now because that group didn' ; t want children, which is okay. It' ; s their choice. But now you have to take care of each other. AS: 01:15:16 We' ; re looking into it now, grown-ups. [laughter] AT: 01:15:22 Well, thank you so much again for coming in and speaking with us. AMN: 01:15:27 Well, like I said, it' ; s been a long time to go back and forgot a lot of things, I guess, but that' ; s all right. I' ; ve had a good life. AT: 01:15:38 Thank you. AMN: 01:15:39 Thank you. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=NakamuraAnnaMarie20171022.xml NakamuraAnnaMarie20171022.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Nakamura, Anna Marie (10/22/2017)
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
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This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
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Takada, Anna
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Nakashima, Alec
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5.4 11/18/2017 Nakashima, Alec (11/18/2017) 0:29:07 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Nakashima, Alec Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/307597276 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/307597276?h=7ae7fbd545" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00 To start, can you state your full name? Alec Nakashima: 00:02 Uh, Alec Christopher Nakashima. AT: 00:04 And where and when were you born? AN: 00:06 I was born in 1992 in Lodi, California, just outside of Sacramento. AT: 00:12 And, um, so to get started, can you just tell me a little bit about, um, your family' ; s backgrounds- AN: 00:20 Sure. AT: 00:20 Um, and I guess your, your connection to the experience of Japanese Americans during World War II? AN: 00:28 Yeah, I think that, I guess I should start by saying I' ; m a fourth/fifth, uh, generation- generational uh Japanese American. My dad' ; s side is fourth and they came straight to the mainland and my mom' ; s side, the reason for them being fifth is they immigrated a little bit earlier to Hawai' ; i first and kind of dispersed into the US from there. Um, but I would say I probably have the typical blend of the Japanese American upbringing and experience probably, um in the sense that you really keep, keep, hold some traditions that are very rooted in Japanese culture, but you don' ; t necessarily, um, feel separate from your classmates until you kind of understand what being a Japanese American means, I think. Um, and it' ; s funny, I think some of the traditions you don' ; t even realize necessarily until you get a little bit older that those are kind of rooted in uh, Japanese traditions. I, the, one of the ones that I like to draw a parallel to is the American thing of New Year' ; s Eve being a really big holiday, right? And then in Japanese culture it' ; s more, New Year' ; s Day is just a huge uh, feast really and celebration with food. And I think for a majority of my life I had kind of that duality represented in those, in those like mix of American things that I celebrated with my friends. And then things that were more familial, uh, traditions where we kind of celebrated a blend, a fusion of like American and Japanese holidays. But yeah, I would say it was probably a very, like, even split between the American upbringing and the Japanese upbringing. AT: 02:26 Hm. Um, before we get in, like talk a little bit more about, um, your, your, um, Japanese American identity and kind of that identity development part. Um, do you, do you know or have any more details about kind of, um, like your, your grandparents integration patterns and like where and when people were moving to? AN: 02:54 Specific dates? Not really. I know that on, especially on my mom' ; s side, they came to Hawai' ; i to work. Um, and my, my great, great grandpa, um, initially worked like in the sugar plantations. It was, it was really common back then apparently in Hawai' ; i. Um, and then I think it was a fairly natural diaspora from there. Like, my grandma' ; s generation, right, wanted better education opportunities and for that they went to places like Colorado and even Los Angeles in California. And from there I think naturally like, were able to open up and unlock better opportunities for their kids and realize that those would come in certain places, right. Like ver- more urban and city areas. And then on my dad' ; s side, it' ; s actually, kind of the opposite, right. They found one place in northern California and very much stuck around that place and they were kind of similar. The, the common denominator being like agriculture was a huge part of not only them but like many Japanese Americans of that time where they, I mean that was like all they could get at that time, right? Like that was the only opportunity. It was like agriculture and farming. And there was actually a really interesting history that I' ; ve kind of just started to look at of like how Japanese Americans of that time were real pioneers of agriculture. Like all they could get was the undesirable places that grew the undesirable crops and they found ways to like, do irrigation and, and stuff to be able to grow, like more premium things at those locations. So I think probably that' ; s like the two separate paths of, of like my mom' ; s side of my dad' ; s side. AT: 04:41 And do you know, um, like what kind of farms they were..working on? AN: 04:47 No, I don' ; t. Like specific, specific crops. No, uh uh. I wish I did. AT: 04:53 And, um, during World War II, like what happened to your, to both families? AN: 05:01 So I think I have like a unique blend of, um, like, especially for the terrible options of the time, but the options that like Japanese Americans had at that time of like every possible scenario, right. So my, my dad' ; s side, they-- the most common path. Like they went, they went to the camps and dealt with all of that. Um, but my mom' ; s side has two really interesting, uh, scenarios. My grandma was in Hawai' ; i right, at that time. So she, that was like a completely different experience from Japanese Americans who were on the mainland, Japanese Americans in Hawai' ; i. right. There was just so many Japanese in Hawai' ; i at that time that they couldn' ; t really do the same formula that they did on the mainland, but there was still like some, there was still like rounding up and they had to deal with like the aftermath of the prejudice that came from Pearl Harbor. But that' ; s like a very separate experience from mainland, mainland Japanese. My grandpa was living, um, on- in the Central Coast at the time and he was really young, but his family chose the option of like, ' ; no way, we can' ; t go to these camps' ; . Like, so they fled. Which is, I mean, it' ; s kind of similar, like they had to lose all their belongings. Very the same story as like tons of families, but they, instead of going along with the camps, they fled to Colorado. And so that' ; s, I mean it' ; s almost, the parallels are crazy. They like, it was like same like, all they could, whatever they could carry was all they took. They had to sell off everything. Um, and they fled to Colorado and were like sleeping in farms and stuff there. My grandpa gets really emotional when he talks about it, but like he said, actually that was like, he' ; s so grateful that they did that because like they lived in Colorado and like didn' ; t face a lot of prejudice there. Maybe just cause, I mean the spread of news was so different back then, but like, because they like, they found a great community out there. Um, but it' ; s interesting because his dad actually was the, the like president of, I forget what it was called, but something equivalent to like a like club that a few of them were in at the time. So he was actually like arrested by the FBI of course. No, no trial, no warrant, no anything, and taken to like a special camp, right, where they thought people of like prominence would be put, I mean that they would be x amount more likely to be like disloyal or whatever. But yeah, he didn' ; t get to see his, his dad, he said for like a year and a half I think, or something crazy like that until afterwards he went and met up with them in, in Colorado. AT: 07:47 So this, this was your, your maternal great grandfather? AN: 07:51 This was, yes. My, no, my maternal grandfather. Yeah. AT: 07:55 But the great, but his father... AN: 07:59 Oh yes, sorry. His father. Yeah- AT: 08:00 Okay. AN: 08:00 His father. AT: 08:01 Okay. AN: 08:01 Yeah. But yeah, and this, this all, I just know from my, from my maternal grandfather, but on my dad' ; s side, like very right, like his, my dad' ; s mom went to camp, she was in Poston, um, I believe. And my grandfather went there as well and he had very fortunate, and this is something that like they' ; ve talked about a lot, at least in the, I mean the hard part of unlocking this whole thing is like none of our, that generation really wanted to talk about it. Like it was just, it' ; s passed down in a very weird way I think just because it' ; s like I' ; m sure very painful to talk about and like they just like, well I forget what they explain is, the expression is. It' ; s like ' ; shikata ga nai' ; or something... AT: 08:46 Shikataganai AN: 08:46 Yeah, of like just ' ; can' ; t be helped' ; and they didn' ; t really want to talk about it. So a lot of this is like really anecdotal, the way it' ; s passed down to our generations. AT: 08:55 Sure. AN: 08:56 But um, yeah, my, my grandma on my dad' ; s side, her sister went just like went dark. They call it going dark and they told everyone that they were Chinese and they just went like kind of on the run. They just like cut contact with, with other Japanese like friends and family and were able to pass themselves off as Chinese and they didn' ; t reunite with my, my dad' ; s mom until like years and years later. But that' ; s like crazy and that' ; s, yeah. AT: 09:30 Do you have any more details about, um, like where exactly people went? Like, did your, um, dad' ; s family, did they go directly to Poston or did they go to uh, an assembly center first? AN: 09:45 Oh, I don' ; t, I don' ; t know if they went to, I mean I' ; m, I' ; m assuming they did. I just know that was the camp that they like- they were, they were a lot older than me, so like kind of what I was saying before, like the, our talks about this, were super limited, but yeah, I think that' ; s something that me and like my cousins and brother, like wish we would have had the opportunity to talk more with them about. But yeah, I mean it was just so, like such a painful thing for them to talk about, I think, that it wasn' ; t really like part of our main interactions. That' ; s why it' ; s important projects like these, right, where you- to be able to pass down that kind of that knowledge. But my, my dad' ; s family had, and I even saw a little note out there about it, like we' ; re very fortunate to, I mean people cause people, some families literally lost everything, right? But my dad' ; s family was very fortunate. They had, um, Italian neighbors that were like, I know, like very, uh, empathetic towards them, I think. And they like watched all of their, their business and like they kept all of their stuff so that they didn' ; t have to start from absolutely nothing when they got back, which is something that' ; s like, that part specifically has been passed down as like, that was like amazing. That changed the trajectory of like our family and my generations that they were able to like be very successful in business. Lose it, have to step away for two years or, or what, and then come back and not, not have to start from ashes. Right. Like, yeah. AT: 11:18 So what are some other, um, like memories or, or stories that have been passed down in your family about this? AN: 11:27 I think the biggest story that I' ; ve like really started to dig into recently is my, my mom' ; s dad and they experience of like intentionally deciding like, ' ; We are not going to go. We are going to do what it takes to not have to, to report to camp and like to like deciding that this is, this is wrong and we will make an intentional decision,' ; right. To like, to change the path of what our family is going to do. And he said like that was, that was a very, and that' ; s, I mean it was like exacerbated by the fact that like his dad got taken away to like a special camp and it was a very like, difficult times for the mom and the six kids to have to like make it from California to Colorado on their own with like nothing, right. They sold all their stuff. That' ; s something he talks about a lot, which is like kind of the opposite of what my dad' ; s, dad' ; s dad had. Right. Like they had to sell everything for pennies on the dollar, which is just the more typical thing. Um, but yeah, just, I mean he' ; s talked about, he' ; s talked- that' ; s the most out of all my grandparents that I' ; ve been able to talk with someone about, like it was very difficult for them to make that journey, uh, by themselves with nothing. They were like sleep from place to place every night on their way there and occasionally would just meet people who were empathetic towards them. Um, which I think is, is, is an important part to tell, right? Like they couldn' ; t have done that without the kindness of others being being, I mean kindness of non-Japanese, right. Being, being something that let them do that and just sleep in farms, place to place until they could get there. I mean when you get there, what do you do? Like, you know, you have nothing. And then his mom got a job, they all had to get jobs in order to, to raise money and try and build a life. But, but they were able to, I mean, and that' ; s eventually where he met my grandma, right? It was in Colorado. And I think that that' ; s pretty, that' ; s a cool underlying aspect of the story is like how the kindness of non Japanese Americans like shines through. Right? Like in, in, in a part where like even just letting a Japanese family stay in your farm, which is not a high cost to you at that time. Like that' ; s a huge thing for them. I don' ; t know. I think that' ; s, that' ; s a pretty cool part of the story. And that' ; s the one I' ; ve talked with him most about. AT: 14:13 Mhm. Um, do you have any idea where in Colorado they...? AN: 14:17 I don' ; t remember the specific city, no. I' ; d have to look at, look at like a map and actually think about it, yeah. AT: 14:25 Huh. And then how about after, after the war or maybe your dad' ; s family' ; s place after camp, where did people end up going? AN: 14:35 Uh, Stockton. Stockton is where they, that is a really, that is like the American dream of a story, I think. Like they came back from camp and were already in like a better position than others I think just because of like that. I mean the theme, I have like the kindness of that one family who was like willing to help them, like not lose everything and man, they made some incredible like business decisions back then, I think. They, it was my dad' ; s dad and his five brothers and one sister. Um, and they pooled their money and made some like strategic investments and bought land that has really like gone up in value since then. But that is like the true American dream of like they came with nothing. And like the meritocracy of America, like ' ; you, if you work hard, you can have a shot to, to change the like destiny of your family' ; . And that' ; s why like their parents had come to America, honestly. AT: 15:44 Hm. Um, and so, so that was your dad' ; s family that went to Stockton? AN: 15:50 Mhm, yup. AT: 15:50 Um, and then how about for the folks who were in Colorado? Did they stay there? AN: 15:56 No, they eventually moved, came back and moved to LA. Um, and then that' ; s kinda where my mom' ; s generation was born and then moved up to Sacramento, yeah. AT: 16:09 Um, was there any particular reason that they chose LA? AN: 16:14 I th- I just think economic opportunity and educational opportunity, that' ; s something that' ; s really important for like that side of the family in terms of like unlocking opportunities you didn' ; t have for your kids. Um, but my grandpa served in the navy and uh, my grandma was a nurse for a long time and they worked really hard to, to let their kids have better opportunities than they did. I mean I think that' ; s, that' ; s like another huge part of this story is how that whole experience shaped the mentality of the people who are kids during that time. Like our grandparents' ; generation. Um, that' ; s, that' ; s something that I think drives me a lot actually is like, their, is like their desire to see things changed from how they experienced and how they doubled down and were kind of determined to change things for their kids. That' ; s something that I think our generation has benefited a lot from like is their, is their drive and their tenacity. AT: 17:27 How do you think that' ; s, um, can you explain that a little more? Like how, how has, how exactly has that, um, helps shape our upbringing, hence later generations. AN: 17:41 I think it really, I mean it provided us opportunities that they, I mean we just, the fact that can live where we live and have the kind of like educational opportunities that we have to be able to kind of like trace that back towards the kindness, the kindness of a select few people and like see to look back in retrospective and see how like how important that was. To me that' ; s, that' ; s like a huge part of this story and it' ; s kind of crazy. Like that minimal acts of kindness could have such like a, a lasting impact or even like generations down the line. AT: 18:22 Um, can you tell me a little bit more, um, about your, your own personal interest or investment in, in learning about your family' ; s story and what that process has been like, kind of piecing together? AN: 18:37 Yeah, I would say probably it' ; s only, it' ; s only been something I' ; ve been interested in the last few years, I think. And like really like wanting to learn. Just ' ; cause I mean like what I talked about earlier, it' ; s not something that is widely circulated and comes up, you know, at dinner with your grandparents or something like that. It' ; s something you kind of have to dig into just because it' ; s like such a painful thing. It' ; s like a very like, visceral emotional thing. I think that' ; s the most emotional I' ; ve seen my grandparents like ever- AT: 19:09 When they AN: 19:09 Um, when they' ; re speaking about just that time period in general. Um, but I think it' ; s really important that this, this story gets told. I mean, especially in the world we live in today, I think it' ; s something that that generation understandingly had a lot of pain from. But from our generation we should think of it as like, that' ; s a source of strength that we should, we should be able to, to draw from and from, from their stories, especially as, as it' ; s being told through like various through art forms and through like ways that beyond just the Japanese community can learn from it. That' ; s hugely important. I think that' ; s something that, that, uh, our generation is kind of tasked with, right, is like making it known to a wider, a wider group of people other than just our generation- that shouldn' ; t fall to that, the generation that experienced it, right. It shouldn' ; t be, understandably, shouldn' ; t be something that they, they have to share with people, but that' ; s, that' ; s our task is to like spread knowledge of these, this event and these events. And it' ; s, no, it' ; s no, never been more important than, than today. I think. AT: 20:29 Um, can, can you unpack that a little bit more? So, so why, why is there, it, it sounds like you' ; re talking about there' ; s almost a, a responsibility- AN: 20:42 Mhm. AT: 20:42 That kind of falls on um Sansei and Yonsei and I guess Gosei generations, um, to make sure people know about this history. So, um, can you tell me a little bit more about, about that responsibility and, and why that' ; s an important... AN: 21:02 Yeah. AT: 21:02 Act, I guess? AN: 21:03 I mean, I think because it' ; s, I think often it' ; s something that gets airbrushed a little bit, especially in, in like education. I mean, my wife is from Portland, is from a very predominantly white town and they have half a paragraph about it in history books. I think that' ; s crazy. Um, especially when you think about like some people just don' ; t understand that the, the uh, the impact that it' ; s had that- and how long it' ; s lasted, right. Um, I think it' ; s definitely something that gets gilded over in the way it' ; s taught to ge- future generations and just ' ; cause it' ; s a mistake. Like that' ; s a theme too is like those people who all, all went to camps, like it was totally proven afterwards that they, none, not a single one, like they were all very loyal to America. And I think it' ; s our like responsibility to make sure that type of discrimination is never taken that far. Uh, again. AT: 22:10 And you, you mentioned that, you know, um, especially today this is a really critical task. Why, why is it so important today in particular? AN: 22:25 I mean, I think the parallels to discrimination against marginalized groups are just terrifyingly sad. Uh, I think it' ; s hugely important for Asian, I mean Japanese communities and probably Asian communities in general that have kind of always been adjacent to those types of like really important conversations and like, uh, rights to be, to like thrust ourselves into those conversations, right? As people, one of the foremost examples and like American history that this happened to, to really like be advocates and uh, let our voices be heard and tell stories like this and like we need to be more forthright in the parallels to it, right? It shouldn' ; t be- we shouldn' ; t have to cover up how similar it is to some of the scary things that we see happening today, right? Like, this in the grand scheme of things was not a long time ago. This was very, very recent in US history and I think to have mistakes as one thing, but not to learn from those mistakes as, as a nation and as a people and Japanese Americans should feel like as much empathy as anyone for for marginalized groups, Muslims, African American communities that we see today. We should, we should let this inform our empathy for those groups. Let the experiences of our grandparents really put us, you know, right in the middle instead of on the sidelines. I think that' ; s like really important. AT: 24:12 Um, do you think something like this um, could ever happen again in the US? AN: 24:23 Not if we don' ; t let it. AT: 24:34 Um, one other thing I, I wanted to ask you was about, um you had mentioned your, your wife' ; s experience in, you know, quote unquote learning about the incarceration and that there was just a mention. Um, what was your own particular experience in learning about it? Did you hear in school or from your family or...? AN: 24:58 I think probably from my family before in school. Um, but yeah, I think in general it' ; s just something that' ; s kind of glossed over as not a huge, I mean, especially when you contrast it to some of the- like the Holocaust and things that are very covered in schools. Uh, we look, we being America, look back very fondly on our own mistakes sometimes I think. Which is not, you know, a virtue of anything that we aren' ; t learning from it. But I think that' ; s it' ; s, I mean, it' ; s important. I, I would say that like learning about this and understanding, I mean, the crazy thing is you' ; ll, you' ; d get people who even to this day would semi try and justify it. Um, which is insane in that the first response to that is not anything but empathy is just ludicrous. Yeah. I think it' ; s very important to, to educate people on what happened. And, I mean, at the root of it, like American citizens put Americans citizens in camp. That' ; s crazy. And it' ; s crazy that some people would try to this day to try and explain that away. Um, and to, to justify it. Yeah. AT: 26:24 So you came a long way from California to come see this show. AN: 26:29 Mhm. AT: 26:29 So, I' ; m wondering if you could tell me a little bit about, um, some of your reactions to it. AN: 26:36 I think I really enjoyed the photography, uh, part of it because images of like are just so powerful. I think when you see people who look like you...well first off, Japanese Americans of that age just had so much style. They were just killing it. I think that' ; s like my sneak take away from, from this exhibit is like, man, those people they looked good man. Um, but I mean I think that' ; s being able to see photographs and know that like famous photo-- Ansel Adams-- famous photographers were all really like, saw this as a huge inflection point at that time. Even, um, seeing that I think is what had the most impact to me and just seeing the quotes, it' ; s all, it' ; s all put together in a very like, uh, difficult way. I think that really makes people who' ; ve come to the exhibit, wrestle with it and like really put themselves in those, in the shoes of those people. I mean, it' ; s just difficult to imagine honestly what like that that could even happen, especially with some of that, the lives that we lead now. AT: 27:51 Are there any particular photographs that stood out to you? AN: 27:55 I think the one of the, it' ; s a whole other conversation, but the 442nd mom, that' ; s just, that' ; s, I mean, I don' ; t know. I had a lump in my throat the whole time walking around. But I think that' ; s the one that I could just cry for hours in front of probably. But it was like some of those, those stories out of the 442nd are like some of the most incredible, incredible things I' ; ve ever heard. I think. Yeah. I mean those are literally people who believed in America when America didn' ; t believe in them. That' ; s, that' ; s nuts, man. Yeah. That' ; s like super, super powerful, yeah. AT: 28:28 Uh, well thank you so much for, for coming in and for seeing the show AN: 28:34 Sure, yeah. I hope some of it is useful. AT: 28:37 Um, before we completely wrap up, are there any last things that you' ; d like to add or that I might' ; ve missed? AN: 28:43 No, I don' ; t think so. I, I' ; m really glad, I mean, that this story is being told and like, yeah, we, I came all the way from California because I wanted to see it and, and uh experience it. So I' ; m really appreciative that people are, people are telling this story and making sure that it' ; s, it' ; s heard this is sufficiently more than a half a paragraph in a, in a school textbook. And for that, I' ; m really thankful. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=NakashimaAlec20171118.xml NakashimaAlec20171118.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Nakashima, Alec (11/18/2017)
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
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Japanese Americans--History.
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This collection contains oral history interviews from the Japanese American Service Committee (JASC) Legacy Center's holdings. Where available, transcriptions have been included and synced to the recordings to enable full-text searching.
Interviews were recorded at various times, some by JASC staff and some by external partners, often supported by grant funding. See the metadata associated with each interview for full details.
This digital collection will continue to grow as new interviews are recorded, and as additional pre-existing recordings are received by donation or discovered in the physical archives.
The digitization and transcription of many of the recordings in this collection, the recording of interviews between July 2018 and June 2021, and the creation of this publicly accessible digital platform, were funded by a Japanese American Confinements Sites (JACS) grant awarded by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. The JASC Legacy Center gratefully acknowledges the financial support received between 2018 and 2021 that enabled this project to succeed.
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of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
This material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
U.S. confinement sites where Japanese Americans were detained during World War II.
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
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Japanese American Service Committee (Chicago, Ill.). Legacy Center
Oral History
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Takada, Anna
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Oda, Stanley
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5.4 11/16/2017 Oda, Stanley (11/16/2017) 1:26:01 JASC_OHP JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection TTCFM Then They Came for Me Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center Recorded with financial support from the Alphawood Foundation Chicago. Transcribed and made accessible online with financial support from the Department of the Interior, National Park Service, Japanese American Confinement Sites grant program. Oda, Stanley Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/308362089 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/308362089?h=a348d0676f" ; width=" ; 640" ; height=" ; 360" ; frameborder=" ; 0" ; allow=" ; autoplay ; fullscreen ; picture-in-picture" ; allowfullscreen> ; < ; /iframe> ; [NOTE: This transcript has not undergone a final proofreading and may contain errors. It is being provided in draft form to enhance access to the video recording. As soon as possible, it will be replaced with a final, corrected transcript and will be synced to the video to provide clickable timecodes.] Anna Takada: 00:00:00 To start, can you just state your full name? Stanley Oda: 00:00:02 Sure. My name is Stanley Oda. Uh, I was born in Chicago and, uh, I still live in Chicago. AT: 00:00:09 Okay. And, um, when, when is your birthday? SO: 00:00:12 Birthday is August 16th, 1952. So I' ; m 65 years old. Uh, yeah, just I was born in Chicago. Uh, I think it was Wesley Memorial Hospital on the South Side. Yeah. My family actually resettled on the South Side. So, uh, for the first, like 17 years of my life, I grew up on the South Side. AT: 00:00:34 Okay. Whereabouts on the South Side? SO: 00:00:35 It was on 42nd place and Berkeley Avenue, which is, I guess you' ; d consider that the Oakland [inaudible] neighborhood maybe. Uh, and yeah, so that' ; s where I lived. AT: 00:00:49 And, um, so like I mentioned, we' ; re interested in hearing about, um, your family, your parents in front of your family' ; s experiences during the war. So where were your parents from originally? SO: 00:01:05 Uh, they were actually born - my parents were born in California. Uh, you know, that' ; s a little vague to me. I would say my dad maybe in Visalia and maybe possibly my mom, but I' ; m not, that one I' ; m not sure about. Uh, they were, uh, my dad was born in 1919 and my mom was born in 1913 or ' ; 19, yeah, 1913. AT: 00:01:31 In what part of California is that? SO: 00:01:33 Oh, that' ; s kind of northern, uh, around I would guess around the Sacramento area, somewhere around there. You know, what little east of, uh, east of San Francisco area more in the, in the middle of the state, you know, more mid-state. AT: 00:01:49 And um, how about your grandparents? Do you know about where they live? SO: 00:01:54 They were in the Hiroshima area. Uh, yeah, I' ; m a little vague. I don' ; t know a whole lot about them. Uh, I never, you know, they were dead by the time I was born, so I don' ; t really, I never met them or knew them. Uh, but yeah, my family is from the Hiroshima area. AT: 00:02:12 So both your mom' ; s and your dad' ; s - SO: 00:02:14 Yes, yes. AT: 00:02:16 Do you have any idea when they came to the US or was it just your parents? SO: 00:02:22 Uh, no, I don' ; t actually, I would guess that they came - since my dad was born in 1919 - I would guess they came maybe in the, you know, early teens, maybe something like that. AT: 00:02:38 And, um, what do you know about their, their lives in California growing up before the war? SO: 00:02:47 Uh, they were actually Kibei, so they were, even though they were born in California, they, they probably spent only the first two or three years, maybe longer, maybe up to four, uh, and then they went back to Japan and they were actually went to school and were raised in Japan. And then they came back in the mid-thirties, like around 1936 or so. They came, they came back to California. Uh, so I mean, they kinda knew English, but they also really knew Japanese for a while. So, uh, I know we' ; ll get into this later, but during the, during the war, uh, you know, my dad was in the MIS, so, uh, because of his knowledge of Japanese, I mean, he was a fluent Japanese speaker, so he was, uh, you know, so was, it was easier for him to, to do that job. AT: 00:03:35 Hmm. And do you have any idea or sense of what, um, brought them back to the U.S.? SO: 00:03:43 I would say that, since they were American citizens I think they, they, uh, wanted to come back, uh, partly I think that was one of the reasons, but, uh, you know, my dad had three other brothers and they all did the same thing. They were all born in California, but they went back to Japan and they were raised in Japan. But, uh, they all came back around 18, 19 years old. And, and that was I believe, Japan at the time had conscription going on. So at 19, you had to register or join or whatever. So, so, you know, so to avoid, it' ; s probably not the right word, but to kind of not do that they, they, you know, they said, " ; okay, well, you know, we' ; re American citizens, we' ; ll come back," ; and avoid that hassle of having to do that. AT: 00:04:38 Hmm. And, um, how about your mom? Do you know the circumstances? SO: 00:04:44 No, I would say that, um, my mom and dad actually knew each other in Japan. Uh, and my, one of my, my dad' ; s younger, younger brother was coming back to, to the United States in 1936. And so maybe she took that opportunity to come back with, you know, with, um, because she, she knew somebody. So, uh, she came back with my dad' ; s brother, uh, to, to the United States at that time. AT: 00:05:17 Did they have any other family that was still in the U.S.? SO: 00:05:21 No. I mean, there was an uncle that was - that lived in Arizona that, uh, that was in, in this country. Uh, and he actually helped my dad' ; s brothers and my dad - helped get back into the country because he vouched for them when they came they came to Angel Island and uh, you know, even though, you know, they could prove, probably fairly easily that they' ; re citizens, uh, but what really helped to have that uncle there saying, okay, no, you know, they were born here and maybe he has some proof or something, so they weren' ; t held at Angel Island for very long at all. AT: 00:06:01 And do you know anything about what your parents did once they arrived back in the U.S.? SO: 00:06:08 Uh, they were, they went to high school. They went to high school a little bit, but also, uh, my dad was - what do you call it - a houseboy where, you know, he kind of was a, worked for, uh, an American family doing, you know, the chores and stuff like that for them. Uh, you know, my, my mom, uh, I think she probably was like a nurse' ; s aid or something like that. AT: 00:06:35 And what are your parents' ; names? SO: 00:06:37 Well, my mom is Margaret and my Dad is Ted. And my mom' ; s last name is Takamia. AT: 00:06:44 Hmm. Um, okay. And then as far as you know, about, um, what they were doing, like around the time when Pearl Harbor was attacked and the war broke out, um, what kind of happened in their lives? SO: 00:07:06 I' ; m sure it affected them a lot, uh, they were, uh, they were, uh, I mean they were interned. So they were in the, uh, assembly center. They were in Santa Anita Assembly Center. Uh, they were still fairly young, so I don' ; t think they really owned property, but they obviously lost their livelihood by, you know, having to go into the assembly center and, and the, and, and, and again, they didn' ; t know each other. I mean, they kind of knew each other, but they weren' ; t related. So, uh, after the assembly center, my mom was sent to Heart Mountain and my dad went to a Hamachi or Granada and with the younger brother, which was the same younger brother that came, came across with my mom. Uh, so, oh yeah. AT: 00:08:08 And, um, do you know, uh, let' ; s see. Your dad was born in 1919, and your mom was 1913? Okay. So they were, they were early twenties, then, at the time that the war broke out? SO: 00:08:30 Yes. AT: 00:08:31 Um, do you, did they share with you, um, any information or, or memories or anything about their experiences? SO: 00:08:47 Not really, they didn' ; t really talk about it as, as, as common, uh, that I hear anyways common. Uh, they, they really didn' ; t talk about it at all. I mean, I really only learned about internment, the whole whole thing, you know, later on in college and stuff. So I didn' ; t really, really know about it or they didn' ; t talk about it at all actually. AT: 00:09:13 And so the information that you do [inaudible], you do know about, um, where they went and all of that, did that come from them directly or how did you - SO: 00:09:23 No that came from the afterwards just during - once I got interested in, in the, in the incarceration and everything. I, I, you know, yeah, I just kind of dug up, dug around myself. Uh, obviously the government, you know, government archives, online archives where I' ; ll find a lot, I mean that I was in, you know, ancestry.com and, and just trying to find records and stuff, so I was there. I' ; m able to piece together a lot of it. AT: 00:09:52 Hmm. And do you have a sense of how long they were in either? AT: 00:09:57 Sure. Yeah. My dad, uh, was probably from Granada, I mean, yeah, in Granada. He was probably there from, I actually knew- know - the dates, but I should' ; ve looked it up before I came. Uh, it was probably maybe July of ' ; 42 or so that him and the younger brother, uh, Dick Oda was, uh, interned but then they weren' ; t there for very long because in December ' ; 42, they volunteered for the MIS. So they were only in Granada for maybe four months or so. Um - AT: 00:10:43 And that was both your uncle and your dad? SO: 00:10:46 Yeah, my uncle, yeah, my dad, they both volunteered at the same time. So there' ; s - I even think their serial numbers were only, you know, one one apart. Uh, and they, you know, they both volunteered. Uh, so they were, so they weren' ; t incarcerated for very long. My mom on the other hand, uh, she was she went, went to Heart Mountain, uh, again, probably from early summer ' ; 42. And this I found out fairly recently, I was out and she transferred to Poston because most of her family was, excuse me, because most of her family was in Poston. And I, I' ; ve always tried to find out when does she transfer when does she transfer? I actually found out really recently that it was like in February of ' ; 43 that she transferred from Heart Mountain to Poston to be closer to her family members. AT: 00:11:44 Do you know what family she had? SO: 00:11:47 Yeah, it was like a - she had, she had a brother. Yeah, her brother, uh, and his family and some of his relatives that she knew were in Poston, so that' ; s why she transferred to Poston. And then she was probably in Poston until the end of the war. AT: 00:12:12 And then, um, what do you know or what can you tell me about how long are, um, what happens after the war? I guess for your mom' ; s or - or what happens, you know, what was their next move or step? SO: 00:12:36 Okay. Yeah. My, as I said, my dad was in the MIS. Uh, it was my - was his younger brother. They' ; ve volunteered at the same time, but also my dad also had two other brothers who were drafted who were actually drafted. Um, and they claimed right before, right before that they were drafted, before the war but looking at online records, it looks like they were both drafted maybe in, in January of ' ; 42. So it was maybe right, you know, a month after the war started. But um - AT: 00:13:08 You have any idea how that works? That two of those four boys? SO: 00:13:13 Yeah. Uh Huh. AT: 00:13:14 Two of them were drafted. And then the other two - SO: 00:13:16 I guess maybe because just a matter of luck? Maybe whether you' ; re called up or not? I don' ; t know. They have a lottery thing or are they, yeah, I don' ; t know how that worked because, uh, because I actually, the oldest brother was drafted, my dad' ; s twin brother was drafted, but my dad and his younger brother weren' ; t. So maybe if another top two or three months later, if the war hadn' ; t started, maybe they would' ; ve been drafted too possibly. But, uh, I don' ; t know the story to that, but, uh, so yeah, my dad' ; s oldest brother and obviously being Japanese American, they, I' ; m sure they weren' ; t sure what exactly to do with him because he was already in the army. Uh, I know he went to, uh, cook school or cooking school, uh, somewhere in Illinois or maybe Wisconsin. And then eventually he joined the MIS and became an instructor there. Uh, and my dad' ; s twin brother who was drafted. Joined - once the 442nd was, was established - he, he, he joined that. So, uh, so he, he joined and obviously was trained probably at Camp Shelby and Mississippi, and then were sent overseas. So he actually saw, saw combat. Um, yeah, I think, I believe he was in company I on on the 442nd. Um, my dad, once he graduated from the MIS school which was probably June-ish of ' ; 43, um, along with my younger brother, Dick, uh, Dick was sent to the Aleutians right away, um, because the Japanese was, uh, in the process of invading the Aleutians. Uh, my dad was sent to check the China, Burma, India theater of war. So he spent most of its duty in India. His commander - his commander was a non-American, but British, because the British were kind of in charge of that theater of operation, I believe. Uh, so I mean, as an aside, uh, because of that when I was born, he wanted to name me " ; Archibald" ; because that' ; s a very British name. And he must' ; ve liked it, but of course my mom said, " ; no way Archibald?" ; So she said that it was either Stephen or Stanley. So they, they went with Stanley. And then my, my cousin who is like 12 years older than me, she told me the story of that, um, I was named after Stan Musial, which is a baseball player, a famous baseball player at the time. Uh, that' ; s why Stan, you know, Stanley - uh, that I don' ; t, I' ; ve never heard, that' ; s the only time I' ; ve heard that - but that starts, she' ; s still, she' ; s telling me, uh, well, sorry for kind of going off on a tangent there. Yeah. And, uh, so yeah. So my dad spent all this time in the China, Burma, India, theater of war. I know. He told me stories about on leave, like going to the Taj Mahal. So he thought was really impressive and to this - and, and like a year before he died, he mentioned that he would' ; ve liked to have gone, like to go back, but we never were able to do that. So I, you know, he' ; s, you know, he would, I know he was really impressed by that. Um, yeah, we have pictures of him riding a motorcycle and, and uh, and stuff like that there. Uh, and - AT: 00:17:21 Do you know how long, uh, he and his brother were in service? In the MIS? SO: 00:17:26 Yeah, I would say my dad - I mean, I think - except for uncle Peter though - all of [inaudible] were instructors in the MIS and the other three brothers were stationed in Japan after the war and the occupation. And I think my dad was the first to come back. I think he came back around maybe ' ; 47-ish or something. Uh, I think my uncle Peter - Mary the Japanese woman, and he brought her back I believe, maybe 1952, ' ; 51, ' ; 52, maybe. And my, my dad' ; s youngest brother, Dick, stayed the longest. And he didn' ; t come back ' ; til probably ' ; 54 and he also married a Japanese woman and brought her back at that time. AT: 00:18:38 And, so when your dad came back - or did he come back? SO: 00:18:45 He came back to Chicago. Uh, I' ; m not sure exactly why, but my guess is that he knew people who are here, had friends who are here, uh, had heard Chicago was kind of more welcoming place, uh, for Japanese Americans. Um, and I know that. Yeah. You know, I, I, eh, you know, after the war, the Chicago Japanese population grew with like 20,000 or something, so, and they were kind of Japanese communities, like one on the North Side, one on the South Side, and he kind of picked the South Side community to live in. So yeah. AT: 00:19:24 Um, do you know where he moved to when he first came to Chicago? On the South Side? SO: 00:19:30 Uh, I would say he moved to the apartment that we, you know, cause he met my mom and they got married and then they moved into this apartment, big apartment building, that I grew up in and their address was, um, 4700 South Berkeley Avenue. It was, it was a big, uh, big multi-unit apartment building. And it actually has two entrances as there was, uh, the main entrance that was the 4700 address. But also it was on the corner, so they also had another entrance which had a different address address, which was 1019 42nd place. Um, and, and my dad was the kind of superintendent of the building, so, uh, and I would guess it was probably, you know, probably had at least 30 units in the building. So it was pretty big. Yeah, it' ; s pretty big. AT: 00:20:33 And um, as far as, um, his relationship with your mom, did they reconnect in Chicago? Is that how they got together or do you have any details about that? SO: 00:20:48 I think they probably corresponded and they did get together in Chicago. I want to say they got married in Chicago cause I know I' ; ve seen the wedding pictures. Uh, and I know my cousin Oh, who told me the story about my name being named after Stan Musial. She - that whole family was in Chicago. AT: 00:21:18 Who was her father? Which brother? SO: 00:21:21 Well, let' ; s see. My cousin was actually, that cousin was actually my mom' ; s sister - my mom' ; s sister with her mother. And so they were in Chicago, so they - so I think they - but they settled on the North Side, but, my cousin Alice was born in 1940 so, so she grew up in the camps, so she was about maybe five, you know, once when, uh, when the camps closed. Uh, and she was all old enough to, uh, kinda help my mom and family out. And I, I kind of remember, I think I saw she was at the wedding. I think I' ; ve seen the picture of her at my mom and dad' ; s wedding. So I think because, you know, they were there already in that, that' ; s what draw drew everyone to Chicago. AT: 00:22:22 That family had kind of already come in. SO: 00:22:26 [speakers overlap] Yeah, yeah. AT: 00:22:29 Do you have a sense of - so your mom, do you know when she came to Chicago? SO: 00:22:38 No, I want to say that looking at the records online, she left Poston and, and got a job somewhere in Illinois. Uh, again, uh, maybe as a nurses aid or something at some hospital. I should have looked - I don' ; t remember the town, but it was somewhere probably fairly close and not really close to Chicago suburb but you know somewhere fairly close but not like in the metropolitan area. AT: 00:23:13 And then at some point you must' ; ve come into the city. SO: 00:23:20 Yeah, yeah. I think she, you know, she met my dad again and they got married and that' ; s when they, I' ; m sure that' ; s when she moved to the city. AT: 00:23:31 Um, okay. And then, so your mom was in Chicago with some family, most likely, and then your dad came in ' ; 47. Um, do you know what kind of work - did your dad immediately go into the superintendent position? SO: 00:23:53 No, they were, they were actually - my sister was born in 1950 and they actually had a variety store, um, on Allison Avenue near Montrose. And yeah, I, I, I know my family still hadf stories and maybe I' ; ve even heard this from my cousin that, uh, it was kind of a variety store. They had toys and stuff too, but other sundries and um, and my sister was born in 1950 and my - sometimes my mother would leave her in a buggy in the window, uh, and people would pass by and say " ; oh" ; and think that' ; s a doll or something and want to buy her. Uh, and so yeah, they had this variety store. Uh, probably not too long, I would say. You know, I was born in ' ; 52, so I' ; m not sure if they still had it by the time I was born - I mean, I don' ; t have, I have no recollection of it, so I don' ; t, I really don' ; t know if they still have it then or not. But after the variety store, my dad went into the superintendent. AT: 00:25:05 Um, do you have any idea if they were living on the South Side still and then would they commute up to Allison in Montrose? SO: 00:25:14 Yeah, I would, I would say that they, they commuted. Yes. AT: 00:25:18 Have you ever seen any pictures or something like that? SO: 00:25:21 No. You know, I kind of walked the block I thought it was on, but you know, I don' ; t know what to kind of look for. I mean I think I know the block, but I think I would lean like - again, my cousin Alice was older, she might remember a few things where it was, so I probably should go with her and just walk the block or to the say and she might say, " ; oh yeah, this was the place or this was close to the place," ; then it was. Yeah. AT: 00:25:53 And do you think that was a family operation? Like more than just your parents? SO: 00:25:57 No, I think it was just my mom and dad. Yeah. Uh-huh. AT: 00:26:01 um, okay. So you have an older sister who was born in 1950? SO: 00:26:06 Right. Uh-huh. AT: 00:26:06 What' ; s her name? SO: 00:26:08 Her name is Christine. AT: 00:26:10 And then were you the next one? SO: 00:26:13 Yes. And then I have a younger sister, uh, another two years apart. ' ; 54 her name is Susanna. AT: 00:26:23 Um, and you said that the, the building at 42nd and Berkeley, you were in that for 17 years? SO: 00:26:34 Yeah, let me think. I can even give the exact date probably. Cause I was there for freshman year in high school. And then we moved right before, for sophomore year. So let' ; s see, I graduated high school in ' ; 69 so I started in ' ; 65, so it' ; s probably ' ; 66 that we moved, uh, that we moved north. AT: 00:27:01 And um, can you tell me a little bit about, uh, what it was like growing up in the South Side in the area? SO: 00:27:11 Yeah, I would say - you know, I didn' ; t think anything about it being dangerous or anything. I mean, people think of the South Side now or thinking look at the neighborhood now and they think, oh, you know, how could, you know, you know, but uh, at the time, I mean, growing up I didn' ; t think it was dangerous at all. I mean, we went to - the grammar school we went to what' ; s called Doniatte and it' ; s not there anymore, but it was on 42nd place, uh, about maybe three and a half blocks west. So we - we walked it every day. I think my mom actually you know took us there and back every day. Um, you know, then we' ; re a block from 43rd street, which was a real big commercial district. You know, there were supermarkets, there was a Walgreens, you know, there were restaurants and, and you know, a shoe store, you know, clothing stores, things like, yeah. I mean, anything you would want, you could just walk up to 43rd street and get. AT: 00:28:25 What were the demographics of the neighborhood at the time? SO: 00:28:29 You know, I would say it was mainly, uh, mainly African American. I mean, there was another Japanese American family on our block, I think, uh, you know, I don' ; t remember their names. They were like - we' ; re on the corner -maybe a half a block south of us, um, there was another Japanese family, which, yeah, I knew my parents knew real well, you know, I would say hi to them if I saw them in the yard or something. But, uh, yeah, I don' ; t remember their names, but that' ; s the one, the other Japanese American family, uh, that I knew of except my, again, my youngest - my dad' ; s younger brother, uh, my dad got him an apartment building, not that close, but fairly close. It was on Oakenwald and 47th street. So it was probably about one, two, three, four, maybe an eight block walk or something. Uh, and so, yeah, so that we, we would go there all the time. AT: 00:29:35 But besides that you didn' ; t know - SO: 00:29:38 No, no, I don' ; t think I did. Uh, you know, my, in school at Doniatte, uh, you know, it was mainly African American. I was the only, you know, I could think - besides my sisters - I think we were the only Japanese American kids in the school. Uh, yeah, there' ; s a church we used to go to, which was on 46th and Greenwood, which is called a - AT: 00:30:09 What kind of church was it? SO: 00:30:10 Yeah my impression was that it was a Methodist church but I could be wrong. Uh, it was on 46 in Greenwood and we would go to Sunday school there. And then, uh, you know, I can' ; t say my parents were members of the - you know, we went to church there, but we did go to Sunday school there. Um, I think it was called Kenwood. Maybe. Maybe it' ; s changed its name. I think it' ; s called Kenwood United Church of Christ right now, today. But yeah, I want us, you know, my memory says it was, you know, Kevlin Methodist Church, maybe, I could be wrong, but that' ; s my impression. AT: 00:30:52 And do you know about your, your parents, um, religious backgrounds, how they grew up and how they feel you' ; re doing [inaudible]? SO: 00:31:00 No. You know, my dad, no, I don' ; t know. I mean, when they came to the, I mean, in Chicago he attended, uh, there was, I know there was a Buddhist church you probably went to occasionally. I mean, neither my parents were, I would say real religious. Uh, but they made us go to Sunday school, which I was happy for, I mean, you know, there were things you learned in Sunday school, you don' ; t learn anywhere else and you know that - yeah, I' ; m glad I did that actually. AT: 00:31:39 Um, besides school and church, were there any other activities that you were involved in as a child? SO: 00:31:45 You know, in seventh grade I joined the Boy Scouts. Uh, so that was fine. I mean we went on some camping trips and stuff like that. But other than that, I can' ; t say were that involved in anything. Um, AT: 00:32:11 Can you tell me more about, um, the Boy Scouts [inaudible]? SO: 00:32:15 Sure. Let' ; s say, uh, you know, I went to Doniatte [inaudible] up to sixth grade and they, that' ; s how - that' ; s how as high as they went. So for seventh and eighth grade we had to go somewhere else and one school, one more well known school, it' ; s probably still there. It was called Oakenwald school. But, uh, they didn' ; t have a good reputation. So my parents decided to send me to a school in Hyde Park, which was a, yeah, which wasn' ; t that far, but it was, I, I couldn' ; t walk out, you know, I ended up, I ended up taking the bus there, uh, and in order to, in order to do that, actually we had to kind of be in the district. So they got a friend of theirs who lived in the district to say, I, we live, you know, we live there. Uh, and again, I don' ; t know the friend' ; s name, I know they live, I think they lived on Dorchester and 53rd or 52nd and Dorchester. Um, so I was able to go to - and again my older sister, uh, I know why we went to do two different elementary schools. My, my sister went to an elementary school called Ray in Hyde Park and I went to one called Bret Harte in Hyde Park. Um, so, so that for, so, so for seventh and eighth grade I went the Bret Harte, which was pretty much an all white school. Uh, and, and making friends there, you know, that' ; s for, that' ; s when I joined the boy scout troop there. Um, because most of my classmates were actually in that same troop. Uh, what was it like? I remember I actually had a good time. I remember going to the troop meetings, you gonna learn how to tie knots, learn how to, you know, light a fire with some flint and some, you know, some kindling and stuff, and uh, we went on camping trips, uh, overnight camping trips. Um, so it was, it was fun. I had a good time in the boy scouts. I don' ; t recall being in it for very long, I guess seventh, maybe eighth grade, but after eighth grade, you know, I didn' ; t go, you know, I didn' ; t do it anymore, but it was a good time. I enjoyed it. Uh, yeah, I remember having, you know, to buy like the uniform and stuff and, and I think a lot of the uniform we bought from a friend of mine in school who was in grade school, who was for some reason selling his stuff. Maybe he was, I don' ; t know if he was not doing the boy scouts anymore or this was some spare stuff he had, but I remember going to his house and buying it used because my parents were actually, you know, not well to do so they, uh, you know, we definitely, you know, when we bought it used it was a lot cheaper. AT: 00:35:43 Um, so it sounds like between home and church and school, you weren' ; t really around other Japanese Americans? SO: 00:35:54 No, I wasn' ; t, you know, I, I didn' ; t know any other Japanese American kids. I want to say until high school. Um, yeah, I think that, you know, as I was growing older on the South Side, I think the Japanese American community on the South Side was kinda slowly disintegrating a little bit. And, and, and I know my mom and dad kind of wished in hindsight that maybe they had moved to the North Side enclave. Uh, but I know I should maybe backtrack a little bit. You know, my dad was superintendent of the building we' ; re living in, but then he decided to buy the building, so, and, and a Japanese American person owned the building. So, you know, he, he, he was buying, you know, he was making payments to this person. Um, you know to buy the building. Uh, eventually my dad actually lost the building because it was getting harder and harder for him to collect the rent, um, because people were falling behind. And he finally ended up hiring a management company to collect the rent and pay the bills. Uh, but they ended up cheating my dad. So they, they, they took the money and then didn' ; t pay any bills. So it was like two years later or something my dad, you know, find out about this and, uh, but you know, it was so much money that he owed for, you know, like utilities and, you know, just the building, the mortgage and, uh, you know, it was just too overwhelming. Uh, so we actually ended up losing the building, um, and that - and that' ; s actually one reason we ended up moving out of the South Side and we, and we move north, uh, you know, right before my sophomore year in high school. Uh, so I know that was fairly real traumatic experience for him because he worked really hard, you know, to keep up the building and, uh, yeah, I know he, he wanted to own it and it didn' ; t work out. AT: 00:38:42 So with that, that was probably around the late sixties? SO: 00:38:50 Yeah. That was, uh, let' ; s say ' ; 66 probably. Yeah. When that happened. So we, so we moved north and we moved into an apartment building that my dad' ; s twin brother, the one who was in the 442nd, uh, he, he kind of, I wouldn' ; t say he owned it, but he was maybe the super of that building. So my dad was able to get an apartment. Um, my mom and dad were able to get an apartment in this building. AT: 00:39:24 And where was this? SO: 00:39:24 It was on Kyler Avenue, Kyler and, and, and Broadway. And Kyler is a block north of Burnham park. Uh, the address, I, you know, I, I want to say it' ; s 838 Kyler, but that could be totally wrong, but that number sticks to my mind. Uh, and, and then, so my, my uncle lived there, so, you know, I had, uh, you know, he had four children, so they were, they, you know, they were there, so I had people to play with and stuff like that. AT: 00:39:57 Hmm. Um, one thing I wanted to ask about before talking about the North Side, do you remember any, uh, Japanese American owned businesses or restaurants or anything like that in the South Side? SO: 00:40:11 You know, let' ; s see. Yeah, I kinda do maybe do remember going to one. It was more Hyde Park, maybe, it was, maybe it was on Hyde Park boulevard and 51st street. Possibly. I remember going there a few times with my family. Um, yeah. Restaurant wise, we didn' ; t eat out a lot, cause we weren' ; t that well to do, so we didn' ; t eat out that often. And when we did, I think we probably went to the North Side, maybe somewhere on Clark, you know, North Clark Street. We went to, you know, some restaurants, some occasionally, uh, um - AT: 00:41:02 Do you remember a grocery store? SO: 00:41:04 Yeah, I remember a grocery store going to a grocery store somewhere in the Hyde Park area, you know, that, you know what it was called or exactly where it was, I don' ; t remember. AT: 00:41:16 Did you eat Japanese food at home? SO: 00:41:19 You know, I wasn' ; t that adventurous. I mean, I, you know we liked sashimi. I liked sashimi a lot. Uh, that, you know, I, I ate whenever we had at, which wasn' ; t very often, but I did like the sashimi. Yeah. You know other stuff, you know, octopus, eel, my dad, my dad and my mom liked that, uh, even, uh, mochi. I mean, I like the plain mochi, but my dad liked the stuff with the stuff inside of it and you know, and I, you know, I said, nah, I don' ; t think I' ; ll go for that, but I like the plain mochi. Yea, uh, so yeah, we were brought up more on, you know, American food, but I mean, my mom cooked rice every day. I mean, every, every night, every, every dinner. My, you know, my mom and dad ate rice every night. Uh, besides that, uh, I would say it was more American food. AT: 00:42:22 I also wanted to ask about, um, Japanese language. Did you speak Japanese with your parents? SO: 00:42:28 No. You know, again, my mom and dad, again, not talking about the internment, they wanted to bring us up American. So I mean, they spoke Japanese, they didn' ; t teach. They didn' ; t, they didn' ; t endeavor to teach us Japanese. I mean, any Japanese I learned was through Osmosis with them talking to each other. I mean, they never said no, we' ; re going to sit down and teach you. Well, I can' ; t say that' ; s true. I remember one point maybe when I was maybe 10 years old or something, my dad said, okay, I' ; m going to try to teach you guys Japanese. But you know, it doesn' ; t last very long. I don' ; t think, uh, AT: 00:43:12 Could you understand it when they speak? SO: 00:43:14 Mmm, ah, I can maybe get the gist of maybe what they were talking about, but no, I couldn' ; t, you know, you know, to this day, I mean, I might know, you know, a couple hundred words, but that said, you know, yeah. AT: 00:43:29 Um, okay. So going back to the move to the North Side, um, to Kyler Broadway, um, can you tell me a little bit about what that move was like for you? Maybe how the neighborhood is different? SO: 00:43:45 Yeah, I would say that, you know, the, towards the end of our stay on the South Side, yeah, I did feel some racial tension maybe. Uh, I remember my cousin when one day my cousin came to visit and then we said, well, let' ; s walk, there was like a playground maybe a couple blocks away and it was in actually a low-income housing complex. They had just kind of a high rise and then they have a playground play area. So we walked over there and then, uh, I remember that. You know, some of the kids there were trying to say, you know, we can' ; t, you know, you can' ; t come here. We don' ; t belong here. And, uh, I would say we could' ; ve gotten into a fight, but one of the people there knew me from school, so he kind of diffused the situation a little bit. But yeah, that, that was one of the few times where I felt kind of a racial tension being in that area. Um, so yeah, when we move north, yeah, I changed high schools, so I, the first year on the South Side I went to Hyde Park High, which was a very integrated school. I mean, there was a - I don' ; t know what the percentages were - but I mean it was, it was really integrated. AT: 00:45:33 Did you, did you have other, um, Japanese American classmates at Hyde Park? SO: 00:45:42 No, I can' ; t say I did. I mean, I had a lot of the people I knew were actually from, you know, from my eighth grade class. I' ; m, a lot of them were, were uh, oh, the Jewish religion. So, uh, they, I knew them a lot. Yeah. Japanese, I can' ; t say I knew any Japanese Americans in High Park, even though my sister was going there, she graduated from Hyde Park, so she had to be, when I was there as a freshman, she had to be yet a junior or senior there. Um, but yeah, I can' ; t, say I knew any Japanese Americans you know in Hyde Park High, uh, when we move north, you know, I went to, I went to Lane Tech and that' ; s where, when I, I, I got to know what some other Japanese Americans in Lane Tech. AT: 00:46:41 Was that still an all boys school? SO: 00:46:43 Yeah, it was still an all boys school. I graduated in ' ; 69. I think they went co-ed maybe a year or two after that. AT: 00:46:52 Um, and how would you describe, um, well first of all, how, what was, what neighborhood is Kyler in Broadway called [inaudible]? SO: 00:47:11 Would that be called? Oh, I' ; m not sure maybe possibly uptown. I mean, it' ; s on the southern end, fringe of uptown, if it was uptown. Uh, yeah, and we didn' ; t stay there that long, I think we were there a year or two at the most. Then we moved to another place on Montrose in Greenview. And that address was 4413 and a half [laughter] and that was a courtyard building. So they - that' ; s why in some courtyard buildings, the post office gave a half to some of the addresses itself. They wouldn' ; t use up a lot of numbers. AT: 00:48:09 And uh, so that move was while you' ; re still [inaudible]? SO: 00:48:11 Yeah, I want to say, yeah, we probably were only at Kyler for a year maybe. So it was probably the last two years of high school. Yeah. We were at the Greenview address AT: 00:48:25 And remind me, that building on Kyler - your uncle was there? SO: 00:48:30 Yeah, my uncle was there, you know, maybe he was the superintendent of that building. So after we moved out, I think he probably moved, uh, somewhere else. AT: 00:48:46 Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences, um, going to Lane Tech and I' ; m living on the North Side [inaudible]? SO: 00:48:54 Yeah, I would say it was a totally different experience at Hyde Park. Uh, again, there were just, there were some racial tension. I mean, uh, I remember, I mean, it was at the time there were, you know, the big gangs in the area were Gangster Disciples and the Blackstone Rangers were the two big gangs around the, around the high school. Um, and I would sometimes walk with some friends from Hyde Park High, which was on like 62nd and Stony Island to, uh, where they lived in, in Hyde Park, which was maybe around like 53rd or something. So we had to walk, you know, maybe 10 blocks or so, uh, to get to their house. And I remember one time we were, it was just me and another friend of mine, we were passing, we' ; re walking and then a gang of, of kids, I don' ; t know, maybe a dozen people, we passed, and then, um, then they started chasing us and I said, " ; oh my God." ; So we ended up, uh, you know, running and then eventually knocking on a door. And then, uh, and luckily someone was home and they opened the door and those people who were chasing us, kind of stopped and kind of walked away. Um, so, you know, that was one experience I had, uh, another experience. I was actually in summer school taking a history course. Um, was it history or was it typing? I don' ; t know, I took maybe - did I take both? Yeah, maybe I did take typing and history that one summer, I don' ; t remember, but yeah. But, uh, I remember, and that was in Hyde Park High. And I remember at lunch or something, I walked and went outside and it was just sitting on kind of like, yeah, not the stoop that they had, you know, where the grass was, but they had a kind of a raised grass area and they had an edging around it, so I was sitting there and this kid came up to me and wanted my watch. I remember, you know, I didn' ; t want to give it to him when he said, and then he was kind of saying he the didn' ; t want to take it, he said, " ; oh, just lend it to me, I' ; ll give it back to you later." ; So we had a back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. And finally, you know, I think he never did take the watch, but again, it kind of told me I shouldn' ; t sit out there alone anymore. Um, so anyway, going to the North Side now, I guess I didn' ; t have those things happen to me on the North Side. Um, you know, I' ; m sure there were gangs around, but yeah, I didn' ; t, I didn' ; t have any, uh, you know, feel any of that. Um, I think the - I think the school Blaine was probably a better school than Hyde Park High. Um, there were more, you know, it was a big school. I mean, you know, when I was there I think they had like 5,000 students there and my graduating class was probably almost a thousand, so I mean, it was a big school having just to get used to the size. Uh, I mean it was, uh, it was, it was, it was intimidating at first, but, um, and I was kind of always, I, I' ; ve always been kind of a shy person, uh, and kept to myself, so, yeah. So, you know, I wasn' ; t, I never didn' ; t have that many - I' ; ve never had, you know, that many friends. So. Yeah. AT: 00:53:32 When you were at Lane Tech, were you involved in any other activities besides school? SO: 00:53:38 Yeah. Let' ; s see. I joined a few clubs. I joined the math club, I joined the astronomy club. I think, um, yeah, there was a stamp club I possibly joined. AT: 00:53:54 Were you all going to church still? Or - SO: 00:54:03 I would say no, I think once we moved north, I don' ; t think we actually found a church to go to. Um, you know my dad would still go to his, you know, his, his church occasionally. Uh, but I would say that, no, we didn' ; t, we didn' ; t go the go the church once we came north. AT: 00:54:30 And then, uh, same question as I asked when you' ; re on the South Side, do you remember any, um, Japanese American [inaudible] or she stays in the North Side? SO: 00:54:43 Yeah, I remember, uh, yeah, definitely around Clark and Belmont area, there were, there were several [inaudible] I think was there, there were, you know, two or three Japanese restaurants along the Clark street strip. There was a Japanese grocery store, maybe a block and a half - two blocks north of Belmont and Clark, uh, that we went to a lot. Um - AT: 00:55:09 Is that Star Market? SO: 00:55:10 Yeah, there was Star Market. Yes. Uh Huh. That was Star Market. Um, you know, I think there was probably Kyo' ; s restaurant was there at the time was another restaurant, I don' ; t remember the name, further north there was on Broadway, north of Lawrence [inaudible] there was Zuma that another restaurant we went to. Um, so yeah, there was definitely, there was like, yeah, there were several Japanese businesses all along Clark Street area that I remember. AT: 00:56:00 And did you and your family, did you frequent any of those? You said you went to Star Market a bit? SO: 00:56:07 Yeah, I can' ; t say we did a lot,again, yeah, we weren' ; t that well to do, so we didn' ; t eat out a lot. Uh, but you know, for my - if my folks need to buy, you know, Japanese food or something, you know, they would, they would go there. AT: 00:56:21 What was Star Market like? From your memory. SO: 00:56:25 My, my memory was, it was fairly small. Uh, I remember, you know it small. Yeah. I don' ; t, you know, I don' ; t know. I mean, uh, I do remember one thing and you know, going back to the South Side, going to the Japanese market on the South Side, I remember I have a memory of going with my dad and going to the, the butcher and my dad wanting some sashimi and the butcher brought out this huge big tuna -and I had never seen a fish that big before - and he cut out pieces of sashimi for my dad. And I said I had no idea that fish was so big and that this is where it came from. Uh, you know, I still have that memory in my mind, but, um, but no, I, I don' ; t remember, remember Star Market that well. AT: 00:57:25 Do you think there was - is there any certain points or, or time in your life where you, um, I guess became aware or maybe in touch with or, um, yeah, get so aware of you' ; re, you' ; re Japanese American identity? SO: 00:57:48 Uh, I would say it wasn' ; t probably until in college that, you know, I learned about the incarceration and, uh, and I wanted to know more about it and maybe I' ; m trying to maybe learn the language a little bit more. I remember after school, after I graduated, yeah, I remember taking a Sumei class where, you know, you know, I was at an [inaudible] I think, Wright Junior college had a class for 10 or 12 weeks or something once a week. And yeah, yeah, I, I enjoyed that. It was very, uh, very peaceful for me to do that and to learn that. AT: 00:58:37 And what college did you go to? SO: 00:58:39 I went to University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana. I graduated in ' ; 73. AT: 00:58:47 Can you tell me more about your experience learning about, um, the incarceration? SO: 00:58:54 Sure. I would say - I mean, it was a slow process. I mean, uh, my mom and dad never did want to talk about it. Even when I asked them questions about it, you know, uh, yeah, I think the because, oh yeah, my mom said, yeah, " ; I was in Heart Mountain and uh, and Poston," ; so I kind of maybe knew where she was, but to get any type of detail out of them, it was, it was impossible. Um - AT: 00:59:26 And this was, um, when you were college aged? SO: 00:59:29 Yeah, I was probably, yeah, probably during or slightly after college. Yeah. Uh, and - AT: 00:59:35 have you known as the child or growing up at all? SO: 00:59:40 No, I can' ; t say I had a consciousness about it. No, no. Uh, no. I don' ; t think I did. I don' ; t think I did. AT: 01:00:02 And then I, I wanted to ask about, uh, because clearly since that time you developed an interest, as you' ; ve had quite a collection of your own with the posters and the loyalty questionnaire and some objects and articles from camp. Can you tell me a little bit about how you came upon collecting? SO: 01:00:27 Right, right. I would say that, yeah, as I learned more and more about the incarceration, uh, as I did more research into what, uh, and you know, my mom and dad still have few things from the camps. Uh, I guess I, I, I started getting - first I started collecting books, uh, because I wanted to learn as much about it as I could. I figured, you know, there might be 30 or 50 books on incarceration, you know, but once I got into it, I mean, I, I think I have like 900 books now, um, in my collection. And not all of them are on incarceration. Some of them are like pre-war immigration and then the post-war things. But I would say a lot more, 90% of them at least is on incarceration. Uh, so once I started collecting books and started reading more about it. Um, yeah, you know I really got a real big interest in it and I decided to, I know don' ; t, started to collect artifacts. I think maybe, you know, I had maybe visit - the first camp I visited was Manzanar. Uh, my wife and I had gone there, uh, not specifically gone to Manzanar but, we had gone to that valley and, um, I' ; ve always wanted to the see, you know, try to go to all the camps. And since we were, I mean, fairly close, I mean, not that close, fairly close, I said, " ; well, let' ; s go up up there." ; And my wife was, um, interested too, so yeah. So we drove up to, to Manzanar and uh, and drove around and walked around. And, uh, and I think that' ; s probably one of the best preserved camps. I mean, they, you know, they had a big cemetery, they had the auditorium and the auditorium - I know they had remodeled the auditorium now, but when we had gone, they had not done that. So uh, there was not an auditorium. And they have, you know, they still have the guard tower in the front - a guard shack in the front. And, uh, so, um, so I think that got me thinking about the artifacts and uh, and, and I' ; m wondering, you know, if any of the, the barracks room were left anymore and uh, and between that and, and no, and the things that my mom and dad still had kept and I said well, I want to preserve all of this and, and try to understand it more and try to preserve it and then pass it on to the next generation. Uh, so that' ; s what started me in collecting. AT: 01:03:47 And why is that something that is important to you? SO: 01:03:55 Yeah, I think, I think, you know, from a history standpoint, I mean, we keep making the same mistakes all the time. I mean, history keeps repeating itself and, uh, I think it' ; s worth people learning about what happened and knowing what happened to the Japanese Americans in World War II. And, and part of them learning about it is through the artifacts, and the books, uh, so it doesn' ; t die. I mean, so the next generation would - can learn from it. And I think your exhibit here, I mean it' ; s fantastic and it' ; s going, it' ; s helping, keeping that memory alive and now in the memory, but learning from it and saying, " ; no, we can' ; t go down this road again, I mean, we can' ; t, uh, you know, ban whole racial groups, uh, just because of how they look or their religion." ; I mean, uh, and you know, we' ; re going through that now. So, uh, it' ; s something that is, we need to learn from and, and, and keep, keep it alive. So that' ; s why I' ; m doing it. AT: 01:05:15 With that said, I' ; m wondering if you could offer your thoughts or reflections about, um, cause like you say, um, you know, unfortunately we often see history repeat itself and that' ; s why it' ; s important to preserve and document and share this history, um, given, uh, some of the current events and current political climate in the US and all of that. Can you share just, I guess, maybe some reflections on what exactly we need to learn from this history and how it can help us kind of navigate where we' ; re at right now as a country. SO: 01:06:07 Yeah. I would say that, I mean, the rights guaranteed to us by the constitution. I mean, they were so trampled on for Japanese Americans during the war that, uh, then you have the supreme court that upholds some basic rights for Japanese Americans. Uh, and you know, I think it' ; s important that, you know, people look at that and say, wow, you know, through prejudice or hysteria or, or, or, um, whatever, uh, you know, there' ; re certain rights that you can' ; t, that are given to Americans that you can' ; t, you can' ; t abrogate because of some situation. Uh, and that, you know, prejudice I think will always be there. Uh, but hopefully, you know, we' ; ll have enlightened leaders that understand that and, and, and will not realize that. No, you know, be, we' ; ll be strong enough to say no, you know, it might be easy. It might be, uh, convenient to go along with the masses who might want to incarcerate a bunch of people or because of their religion or race. Uh, but I think, you know, leadership needs to be stronger to say, " ; no," ; you know, " ; this is the country we stand for." ; This is the freedoms we offer. Uh, this is our constitution and no matter what you may think - I mean the constitution gives us, everyone, equal rights and that you might not agree with them. Uh, you might not agree with what people are say or what they stand for, but as long as they are within the law, you know, they have the right to their opinion in their speech, uh, and their religion. Uh, so hopefully, you know, people can learn from the Japanese American experience and, and, and say all the leadership might have been weak at that time, but, you know, let' ; s learn from it and be strong. AT: 01:08:29 Um, I' ; m getting the sense that you were kind of, you were already delving into this history by the time that redress, um, and t\hat whole campaign. SO: 01:08:40 Yes. Yes. Huh. AT: 01:08:41 Can you tell me a little bit about, um, your memories of that, that time and maybe some of your reactions? SO: 01:08:49 You know what, I wasn' ; t that, you know, the redress movement was not something that I was really maybe understood, not maybe knew about that much at the time. Uh, you know, I know they had a hearing or hearing in Chicago. I, you know, I didn' ; t, I don' ; t know why, but I wasn' ; t, you know, it wasn' ; t something I I Kinda knew about. Um, I - so, yeah, I, I don' ; t know how to answer that. If I had known about it, uh, yeah, you know, I definitely would have been maybe involved in it, but that I didn' ; t - to be honest I didn' ; t even know about it - what was going on at the time. Yeah. I want to think what was happening in my life. I don' ; t know. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I was very happy when my mom and dad both got, you know, checks for $20,000. I was like, you know, but, uh, yeah, that was, yeah, that was my involvement in it. AT: 01:10:00 Did they have any particular reactions to it that you recall? SO: 01:10:07 Uh, yeah, I think they were good - happy it happened. Uh, I think the apology, they got meant something to them. Um, because the money was, I mean was something but didn' ; t cover anything of their losses or stuff that they went through. Uh, but, I think yeah, they were, they were, they were supportive. They definitely, they were supporters of it. AT: 01:10:49 And, um, so was Manzanar the only camp that you - SO: 01:10:55 No, I, and the - I' ; ve seen two of the camps. I wish I had seen more. But uh went to Poston, um, yeah you know, there' ; s a big monument there. Uh, we went to the monument, but then, you know, I asked - there was a firehouse fire station next door. And I asked the people there, " ; you know, is there a any other camps to left?" ; And they said, " ; yeah, there' ; s," ; you know, " ; a half mile down the road, uh," ; you know, " ; there, there' ; s some buildings there." ; So, you know, we drove there and, and there was a whole kind of fenced in area, pretty large fenced in the area that was there. So we, we stopped there and, and we' ; re trying to figure out how to get in and we walked all the way around and find that there was - I wouldn' ; t say entrance - but there was a place where the barbwire fence was, you know, was, was open. So we said, okay, we could get in. So well so we walked in there and they have one, one, one barracks. They had moved there. Uh, but with, mainly it was mainly the, the school area. There was all Adobe buildings there that was the grammar school and, and, and, and possibly high school classes there now that were still there. And there was a, and there was actually an auditorium that was there, but it had burned someone had burned it down fairly recently. Uh, so that, so the walls were still there for that. Then there was a giant warehouse, which I' ; m not sure was original or was, was, uh, uh, was something the tribe - cause it was on tribal land, maybe the tribal government had erected - uh, yeah, you know to them I' ; m not sure if that big warehouse was original or not, but, uh, so we walked, you know, so we walked around there. AT: 01:12:43 What year was that? SO: 01:12:45 That was fairly recently. That was a, I wanna say that was last year, actually. Yeah. Spring of 2016. That' ; s when we had gone there. Yeah. AT: 01:13:01 And did you say you went to one other? SO: 01:13:03 No. AT: 01:13:04 So just Poston. SO: 01:13:06 Yeah, uh huh. AT: 01:13:06 And, um, what was that like to, to be there in that space? SO: 01:13:14 Oh, wow. It was, uh, it was emotional, uh, to, to be walking along, uh, which is basically a prison camp, about you know where my mom was at and, um, you know, we actually did a small ceremony. My [inaudible] did a small ceremony at Poston. And um, to realize that, you know, our government had locked up people for no reason. It was real emotional and, and, and the visit Manzanar, I mean, the cemetery is still there, Manzanar and, uh, and that was, uh, you know, to see the cemetery and the big monument they have in the cemeteries. Yeah. And I, I think there' ; s still people and some people still buried there. Uh, and all that. They died in a prison camp. I mean, that' ; s, uh, uh, not knowing, you know, whether they' ; d be ever free again or what, what happened to them after the war. Uh, you know, that' ; s sad, yeah, that' ; s really sad. AT: 01:14:56 Um, and before we wrap up, I just have a few more questions. I' ; m wondering if, uh, if you have a sense of, or I guess maybe if you' ; ve done some research on it or looked into the process and the experience of resettlement and kind of what happened to folks post-war and post-camp. Um, is that something that you' ; ve looked into? SO: 01:15:34 Well there' ; s been a few things about it. I mean, even on the west coast, I mean, a lot, a lot of people did return to the west coast and you know, some, some, I mean, I, I would say maybe half the people were okay with it. Other half of the people were still didn' ; t want them back, maybe, so, so there were still a lot of prejudice and I mean a lot of violence and even shootings. Uh, and I mean even there' ; s, there was a VFW post that didn' ; t want returning nisei soldiers. And I think that was in the Oregon to, to, uh, be part of the part of the membership. And so, yeah, I mean there was, um, so I think that' ; s why a lot of the people did end up coming to Chicago because they thought maybe it was more welcoming for them. AT: 01:16:34 And, um, as far as your own family' ; s experiences go, uh, I mean, it sounds like your parents were really open or just, you know, forthcoming with information about, um, this particular time. But, um, do you have a, a sense of what that was like for them or their own thoughts or feelings about that move to Chicago? SO: 01:16:59 Uh, I would say that it was tough for them. Uh, I think one, I think, for climate change. I mean, they were, you know, grew up in, they were used to California weather, so I, Chicago winters can be brutal. Uh, I think that just to get acclimated to the people and the new environment, uh, that they faced prejudice. I' ; m sure they did. You know, they didn' ; t talk about it. Uh, they yeah, they have the Japanese spirit up, you know, of overcoming it and, and persevering. Uh, and they really wanted the kids to be American. Uh, so, uh, you know, they did everything in their power to make sure we were American. And I think again, that the whole incarceration affected them. They, they didn' ; t want us that, that happened to us. So they wanted us to be very Americanized. So I think that' ; s one lasting legacy for them, was to not teach us Japanese, to, to, you know, make us really American so that hopefully the same thing will happen, won' ; t happen to us. And I would say they' ; ve succeeded in that because, uh, I mean, every one of my cousins of my generation, like all, all of my, my dad' ; s brothers, you know, who had kids, my cousins, all of them who married, married, non-Japanese people. So, uh, so I think they really homogenized us into that, into the fabric of the, of the United States. AT: 01:19:13 How do you feel about that legacy? In a way that' ; s been asserting an American identity. SO: 01:19:26 Uh, well, I, I' ; m, I' ; m, I' ; m torn about that. I mean, part of me says, yeah, it' ; s great. You know, I mean, you know, I feel, I don' ; t feel Japanese. I mean, I feel American, uh, but the other part of me says, you know, I don' ; t want to lose my heritage either. And, uh, you know, I wish I knew Japanese more. Uh, I wish, um, you know, I keep saying, I want to learn, you know, I' ; ll take a Japanese class and learn more and you know, hopefully I' ; ll do that. Uh, and I keep saying I haven' ; t been to Japan yet either. I mean, I have relatives there that I' ; ve never met. Uh, I mean, they don' ; t know me. I don' ; t know them, but it' ; d be nice to at least see them. Uh, and I keep saying I want to learn Japanese before I go, but if I see if I use that excuse, I' ; ll never go so I should just end up going. Uh, so yeah, I guess, I like, everyone needs to learn their heritage and to respect their heritage and to know enough about it so they can convey it to the next generation. Um, but yeah, I' ; m also, you know, I' ; m also glad that I feel American, so, yeah, I guess I wish my mom, dad taught me Japanese when I was growing up, but you know, that I can' ; t blame them, you know. AT: 01:21:05 And if you could, you talk a lot about passing things on to the next generation or future generations more generally. Uh, if you could leave any kind of message or legacy for the generations to come, what would you want to leave people with? SO: 01:21:34 Uh, let' ; s see. AT: 01:21:37 And it could be, it could be more specific too. Like if you have any children. SO: 01:21:41 Yeah, I would say respect, you know, respect your elders. You know, they have stories to tell. Uh, you can learn from, you know, you can learn from things that have come before the experiences they' ; re experienced. They paved the way for you to live a better life. Uh, so, you know, thank them for that. Oh, the whole incarceration experience. Um, I think has, has made, made my folks stronger and that in turn made me stronger. Um, you know, I feel very, you know, self-reliant. I feel, yeah, I feel I can handle anything that comes at me and I don' ; t know that that' ; s because it' ; s unique to me or whether that was because of what they had gone through. But, you know, respect and not only your relatives and your elders respect history and don' ; t forget history. AT: 01:23:01 Well, thank you so much for opening and speaking with me. Before we wrap up, is there any last thing you' ; d like to add or anything that I might' ; ve missed? SO: 01:23:11 Well, I don' ; t think so. Let' ; s see. I don' ; t think so. I mean, I could remember on the South Side in that apartment building. Uh, I remember finally, I mean, you know, people will look back on it now and think we grew up in a slum or something, but when you' ; re growing up in it, you don' ; t think that way. Um, I mean, you know, it was routine to have roaches in the kitchen. I mean, it was routine to not have enough hot water for a bath. You know, you had enough hot water for maybe one bath, so everyone had to, you know, take their turns taking a bath and that same water, uh, I, you know, yeah, I look back on it now and, and I don' ; t think that was bad. I think you know, it was just part of growing up and again, it probably made me stronger for going through all that. Uh, yeah, I had wonderful teachers and not only at Doniatte, but at Bret Harte. Um, you know high school. Uh, so yeah, in Chicago, yeah. I obviously haven' ; t left Chicago except for college, you know, in Champagne-Urbana. I' ; ve been here all my life. So, yeah, you know I enjoy the city. I think that there is a lot lot to offer in a city. I don' ; t feel, yeah, I really don' ; t feel prejudiced against me in the city. Um, yeah, I think that has to do with the acclimation and also what Japanese Americans did during the war, especially in my joining the army in the 442nd and 100th and MIS, I think that, you know, really helped the Americans realize that, you know, that these Japanese Americans are American and, and deserve the respect and, uh, the open, you know, openness that you can give them. AT: 01:25:45 Well, thank you so much again for coming in and sharing. SO: 01:25:49 Oh, you' ; re welcome. I hope it was, you know, worth it, I don' ; t know if it was. You know, if I was able to answer to much of what you wanted. Okay. You' ; re welcome. Bye now. Copyright held by the Japanese American Service Committee, Chicago, Illinois. video Interviews may only be reproduced with permission from the Japanese American Service Committee Legacy Center. 0 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=OdaStanley20171116.xml OdaStanley20171116.xml http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/collections/show/1 http://digitalcollections.jasc-chicago.org/omeka/find?tags=Series%3A+Then+They+Came+for+Me& ; layout=1
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Series: Then They Came for Me