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Title
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JASC Legacy Center Oral History Collection
Subject
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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,
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
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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
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Ozaki, Brian
OHMS Object Text
5.4 11/7/2017 Ozaki, Brian (11/7/2017) 1:10:22 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. Ozaki, Brian Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/307904661 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/307904661?h=192c814e77" ; 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? Brian Ozaki: 00:00:02 Brian Kenshi Ozaki. AT: 00:00:05 And where and when were you born? BO: 00:00:07 I was born in Chicago in 1973 in August. I was born at, uh Weiss memorial in Uptown. AT: 00:00:15 Um, and I guess just start, um, can you talk a little bit about your parents, their background, where they' ; re from? BO: 00:00:34 My parents, uh, were not born in Chicago. My dad and his family were from Seattle and my mom and her family are from southern California. AT: 00:00:48 Where in Southern California? BO: 00:00:51 I want to say it was around Gardena, I think it was. That' ; s pretty much where her grandmother and grandfather lived, I want to say before the war and after the war, when they moved back. They were in Chicago for a period of time after the war, but then, uh, they ended up going back to Gardena area probably around ' ; 70, between ' ; 76 and ' ; 79 I think, cause they lived with us for a short period of time. AT: 00:01:26 And uh, you' ; re Yonsei, right? BO: 00:01:30 I am a Yonsei on my mom' ; s side. I' ; m a Sansei on my dad' ; s side. AT: 00:01:38 Um, do you know anything about your families' ; arrivals to the U.S on either side? If not, that' ; s okay. BO: 00:01:50 Yeah. My, well, my mom' ; s, um, they were here for a long time. Um, they were Kibeis. I don' ; t know exactly what year, I want to say it was-- It was the early teens, I think. Um, and they were Kibeis, so they went back to Japan, got schooled and then that' ; s where my grandparents met and they got married and they came back. As for my dad, his side. I don' ; t remember exactly when they came. Yeah. AT: 00:02:36 And um, so it would have been your dad' ; s parents who came to the U.S? BO: 00:02:45 Yes. AT: 00:02:47 And, he was born in Seattle? BO: 00:02:48 He was born in Seattle. He was the 11th of 11 children. Yeah. AT: 00:02:55 And how about your mom? BO: 00:02:55 My mom was the first of three. Um, her youngest sister was born in camp and her younger brother was just a baby, I believe. AT: 00:03:12 And can you tell me about what you know of your parents' ; upbringings and their experiences during the war? BO: 00:03:20 They had very different upbringings during the war. They were both, both sides of my parents were poor. Um, you know, they didn' ; t own businesses when they were growing up. They didn' ; t--on my mom' ; s side, they were farmers. On my dad' ; s side, I remember, uh, we took the, we did the Minidoka pilgrimage in 2015 and so he showed me where he grew up and right where, Uwajimaya market is on Jackson and sixth. It' ; s now the parking lot for Uwajimaya market. But it used to be like a shoyu factory with uh, boarding rooms above and my grandparents managed that boarding rooms. So, um, they just, they never had any money. And so everything they did, they just, I dunno. They just worked hard for and so, um-- AT: 00:04:27 And when were your parents born? BO: 00:04:30 My dad was born in ' ; 32. My mom was born in ' ; 38. AT: 00:04:38 Um, and then with both families, uh, what happened when the war broke out? BO: 00:04:51 My mom has, my mom looks at it very differently. So to her, there' ; s parts of her past that she doesn' ; t remember and she doesn' ; t know because she says that as long as she was with her mom, she was okay. But she had two parents. And her dad was separated from them right after the executive order, right before they were going to camps, they were separated. So he was sent to Santa Fe. Um, my mom and her mom and her brother, they were sent to Gila River, Crystal City and then find it finally ended up in Tule Lake. Um, and they didn' ; t see, my mom didn' ; t see her dad until after they were released from camp. Uh, but they had nowhere to go. So they were one of the last ones at camp. Um, my dad, he was very bitter about what happened. Um, you know, he had a lot of older siblings since he was the last of 11, but he, you know, they didn' ; t have a lot of money. They were, you know, some of his siblings were sick. One of them spent the entire camp time in a sanatorium. Is that correct? Because she had TB the entire time, and one of his other brothers also had TB, but he bounced from-- he was a no-no boy, so he bounced around and he ended up at Tule Lake after being in a medical hospital or something. And then I don' ; t know exactly how he felt leading up to the camp. I just know that in the camp he was very bitter about it. AT: 00:07:01 And he went to Minidoka? BO: 00:07:08 Mmhmm. That was the only camp they were in. AT: 00:07:12 Um, have either of your parents shared any stories or memories about camp with you? BO: 00:07:27 Uh, willfully? No. Uh, my mom, her answer to everything is, I was just too young or, you know, I was with my mom, so I was happy. My dad, you know, it took a lot, it took many years for me to get anything out of him. And, um, he finally was able to tell me little things here and there. He' ; d tell me stories about people and friends that he had and friends that, um, he had going through camp and stuff about his brothers and he would tell me about the hardships of camp, you know, uh, all the dust that would come into the barracks. Uh, and they had a--really big families and they, they had a barrack with I think, two families. But I mean, they were just, it was-- 11, 12, I mean 13 with the parents. Right. So, I mean it' ; s, they had a lot of kids, a lot of people in that family. AT: 00:08:37 And they' ; re sharing it with another family? BO: 00:08:40 I believe so. AT: 00:08:44 Um, so you' ; ve gotten a little tidbits it sounds like. BO: 00:08:51 Yeah. And when we did the pilgrimage, you know, he was a lot older in life when we did that, but he could remember a lot of that stuff. He was always really good about remembering his history better than some of the stuff that' ; s happened more recently in his life. So he had, he had a lot to, to kind of reminisce about, you know, there' ; s a lot more going on in his head that he was actually verbalizing. So-- AT: 00:09:23 Can you tell me about what the process has been like for you, learning about the camp experience and your families history? BO: 00:09:38 Um- AT: 00:09:39 Did you, when you were growing up, did you know about the camps? BO: 00:09:43 I didn' ; t. Um, you know, I heard about the Japanese community. I grew up with the Japanese community. Um, you know, and I heard about stuff in Chicago, but anything in camp I really didn' ; t know about. Um, I heard about, my dad used to always brag about his older brother who was in the M.I.S (Military Intelligence Service) and he would always brag about him all the time and uh, about his involvement in the M.I.S (Military Intelligence Service) and I want to say he was in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. He was a, a, career serviceman and um, yeah, I don' ; t know. AT: 00:10:39 What do you know about your, your family, your mom' ; s family' ; s and your dad' ; s family' ; s experiences? In the camp? BO: 00:10:54 My mom--my dad talked about it more so I knew that they went to Seabrook farms in New Jersey and he was there for only a couple of years. But when he would tell stories about his time in New Jersey, it just seemed as though he lived there for decades. And the friends that he made in that short amount of time, I want to say he was only there maybe two years. He may have been there only less than two years, but it' ; s like the friends that he' ; s made there, he would still talk to them probably up until about two, three years ago. So, I mean, they were like lasting friends to him and he would go out to New Jersey and have reunions with them. And then, you know, everybody started to slowly pass on, lose communication or weren' ; t able to communicate anymore. So through my dad' ; s side, I always kind of knew his travelings. Um, maybe not all the detail, but some of the fun detail, you know, like breaking into warehouses, just causing a lot of mischief, stuff like that out in New Jersey. And then coming back, coming to Chicago, um, to do work here. AT: 00:12:19 And um, do you know if his family got, were they a part of the like early leave process or do you know how long they were in Minidoka? BO: 00:12:28 They left, I thought in August of, around August. So I think they were one of the last ones to leave their camp. I think Minidoka closed around August. AT: 00:12:44 And so both of your mom and your dad' ; s families went to Seabrook farms? BO: 00:12:50 I don' ; t remember a hundred percent about my mom' ; s family. Yeah. Yeah. AT: 00:12:56 Um, and was it from there that they came to Chicago? BO: 00:13:04 Yeah. AT: 00:13:07 Do you know anything about um those circumstances? Did they both come with family? BO: 00:13:15 They came with everybody. I mean everybody in their immediate family they came with. Yeah. And, um, they were here for awhile. They established businesses, uh, on my dad' ; s side. Some of the brothers, um, had businesses or you know, they, they worked for other Japanese, uh, people and their businesses. My mom' ; s side, you know, they owned, um, buildings, uh, like uh low income housing buildings for a little bit. I think the first day they worked for a factory and then they ended up working, uh, taking care of managing buildings and then they owned a couple after awhile. AT: 00:14:07 Um, where in the city? AT: 00:14:10 My mom was, uh, when she first came here, she was on the south side. And, um, and that' ; s how she became affiliated with BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago) because they were on the Southside. My dad was on the Northside, um, and he was part of the, the Northside clubs or gangs or whatever. And uh, so they were, they were rooted around Clark Division. AT: 00:14:39 How did your parents, how and when did your parents meet? BO: 00:14:45 You know, I don' ; t know. Um, I don' ; t know. AT: 00:14:58 Do you know when they married? Did they marry? BO: 00:15:00 They did. And I know it sounds terrible, but I really don' ; t even know their anniversary. I know they' ; ve been married, they were married almost 60 years. Um, does that sound right? So they must' ; ve been married in the ' ; 50s. 50- I want to say it was in the early ' ; 50s. They were married. AT: 00:15:27 Had either, um, ever shared any like stories or memories of kind of their first experiences in Chicago? BO: 00:15:40 You know, they used to talk about, um, going to dances a lot. They used to talk about, um, they used to do a lot of picnics with a lot of other JA' ; s (Japanese Americans) like in Grant Park. I mean that was like a big place where they all used to hang out. You know, they used to play ball and they used to, um, eat a lot. And it just seemed like a lot of the old pictures I' ; ve seen, they' ; re always eating at the lake front. Um, they used to go fishing a lot. They loved fishing and they' ; d go into Wisconsin, fishing. They' ; d, you know, fish around, uh, the lake front. They, they spent a lot of times outdoors. AT: 00:16:29 And at that point, uh, let' ; s see, did they get, do any schooling? Um, in Chicago, that you know of? BO: 00:16:40 My dad went to Lane and the only thing he really tells us about Lane was that at that time it was an all boys school and they swam naked. And that was like his big story. And I guess at one point they must have at one point, they must' ; ve, while he was at school, they must have made it coed cause he said the girls would try to look in on them while they were swimming. So that was like the big thing that I remember. My mom, not so much. She said she went to Waller (currently Lincoln Park High School). Um, and she, she went to Waller. She wasn' ; t supposed to work because she was supposed to help out the family, but because, you know, they didn' ; t have a lot of money, my mom wanted to work, so she lied on her application that she was of age to work. And so she started working, uh, just to help out the family and stuff. AT: 00:17:38 Do you remember what she was doing? BO: 00:17:40 She worked for a law firm, um as a secretary. Um, and I believe that was as far as she went as far as schooling was high school. And same with my dad until, I think it was after Korea. He decided to go back to school and he got his, he went to school for architecture at, uh, university of Illinois, Chicago. AT: 00:18:20 Um, and then do you have any siblings? AT: 00:18:25 I have an older sister. She' ; s four years older, AT: 00:18:29 So that would have been ' ; 69? BO: 00:18:32 She, my parents were not able to have kids, so that' ; s why my sister and I are kind of young in that spectrum of having a parent, um, who' ; s a Nisei because, you know, normally they' ; d be around mid fifties, probably or sixties. But my parents weren' ; t able to have kids, so after 10 years of trying, they went, and they were adopting a young girl from Japan and they had the paperwork signed and as soon as they were ready to finalize it, my mom found out she was pregnant with my sister. So, you know, um, yeah, that' ; s why we were, we' ; re so much younger. Everybody used to think that my parents were like my grandparents, you know, even going out to eat. They would think they were my grandparents cause they were just, they just visually looked older than us. My mom did because she always had white hair. My dad always had black hair and full of hair. So-- AT: 00:19:45 And so, it' ; s just the two of you? BO: 00:19:46 Mmhm. AT: 00:19:46 Um, and where was your family when you were born? BO: 00:19:53 Uptown? Uh, we lived on Margate. Um, I remember, I have very little memory of this place. Uh, my sister obviously being four years older, has a lot more. Um, I remember we lived in a, we lived over in the building that my grandparents owned that was over this bar. And at that time those bars were open 24/7. And in Uptown, it was just like, just homeless people and people drinking all the time. Passed out everywhere on the sidewalks. And that was my memory of Uptown. I remember running away at like three years old, going down a few blocks to the park and walking over, like people that were homeless, people that were drunk in the, in the sidewalks, just sleeping and stuff. AT: 00:20:48 Do you know which park that would have been? BO: 00:20:50 I don' ; t, uh, I remember the color of the playground equipment. I remember the type of playground equipment that was there. I remember where I was hiding. But other than that, I don' ; t remember what park that was. AT: 00:21:07 How long was your family there? BO: 00:21:10 My family was there a long time. I left Uptown when I was three. Um, you know, they, my parents were there for over 20 years, I would think ; um, owning and managing several buildings around Uptown, Lincoln Park. So I would think, uh, I would think around 20 years maybe. I know my dad had enough after getting mugged several times and he was just like, I had enough of this life. So he' ; s like, I just want to move somewhere else. So-- AT: 00:21:51 And where did you go? BO: 00:21:52 To Lincolnwood. Um, you know, back then, you know, you buy the house, it was like $60,000 for post-war, a home, you know, kind of where all the homes sort of looked similar. And, uh, he had to work. I remember him moonlighting all the time. He never just worked one job. He always worked two or three jobs, um, in the architectural field, uh, for different architectural firms. Um, so my sister and I didn' ; t have to live in Uptown anymore because my dad just really could not stand Uptown. AT: 00:22:34 And where, so you said you have some memories of Uptown. Does that mean most of your memories are of this Lincolnwood area? BO: 00:22:43 It is, uh yeah. I mean, I remember going to, you know my doctor' ; s was in Uptown at the, at the big white bank building on Lawrence and Broadway. Um, and you know, my mom' ; s church is in Uptown on, on Leland and Racine. So I mean, I remember always going to Uptown even after moving to Lincolnwood. It' ; s like I spent a lot of time in Uptown because that' ; s kind of like where my mom' ; s roots were. And like her friends or her professional businesses that she would go to were, so I did spend a lot of time there. I just didn' ; t live there. AT: 00:23:25 Oh. How would you describe Uptown in those days when you would visit a lot? What was it like as a neighborhood? Was it still?-- BO: 00:23:37 It was dirty. It was, um, you know, it--it--to me it didn' ; t feel like the parts that I was going to didn' ; t really change until maybe the early two thousands. I mean, I' ; m sure it got, it was getting better in those times, but I didn' ; t notice it, you know, cause I remember going to the revere, I remember going to the Aragon, I remember these places. Um, but it was, but that was much later in my life or, you know, when I was a later teen. But um, it was always kind of a place where my dad would always tell me, you know, don' ; t go there by yourself. Stay with us. Don' ; t walk around. Um, and so we didn' ; t. The furthest that I would ever go would be like across the street. You know, when we were at BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago), there was a like a five and dime store right across the street. And you know, every time we were at Japanese school or Sunday school, we' ; d always run across the street and get candy and stuff for like a penny or whatever, 10 cents. Um, and that was my only wanderings of Uptown when I was around those areas because my dad was always like, don' ; t walk around. So I said, okay. AT: 00:25:18 And how long were you all in Lincolnwood? BO: 00:25:24 Since ' ; 76, 1976. My parents retired and they moved away and I bought their house. So I bought their house and now my family' ; s living there. AT: 00:25:41 Can you tell me about what it was like growing up in Lincolnwood? BO: 00:25:47 It' ; s pretty diverse. Diverse in a sense where, I saw many different ethnicities. It was still predominantly Jewish, um, at that time. And I had a lot of Jewish friends. I went to a lot of Bar Mitvahs and Bat Mitzvahs and so much so that when I was 13, I thought I was going to have one. Um, but then realizing that I wasn' ; t, and I had, um, I had a lot of Korean friends. I can only remember a small handful of Japanese families in Lincolnwood. I mean, maybe three or four outside of my family. Um. AT: 00:26:36 What school did you go to? BO: 00:26:38 Lincoln Hall. Uh, Todd Hall, Rutledge Hall, and Lincoln Hall. Those are the three, um, great schools on the campus in Lincolnwood. AT: 00:26:52 And, um, and then what about high school? BO: 00:26:56 I went to Niles West. Very diverse, very segregated, in its' ; diversity. Everybody kinda hung out with their own, with their own nationalities. And, uh, that' ; s what I remember about it. Yeah. AT: 00:27:18 So Niles West, were you in the district or -- BO: 00:27:23 Yeah, yeah. AT: 00:27:24 And that you would commute to school every day? BO: 00:27:31 I would take the bus and then I would go with friends when they were able to drive. So that' ; s how I' ; d get to school. Yeah. AT: 00:27:42 And I want to ask you too about, um, you had mentioned that your mom was a member of BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago), that you grew up going to Japanese school. BO: 00:27:51 Yeah. AT: 00:27:51 Um, so can you tell me about that and maybe other ways that you were kind of connected to Japanese heritage growing up? BO: 00:28:00 You know, I was, without knowing, I was actually, I was actually exposed to a lot of Japanese culture. I just didn' ; t know it, you know, my sister danced with Shiyu Kai For many, many years. And so my mom was very involved with the Uchimoto' ; s who owned Shiyu Kai and she' ; d always volunteer doing stuff like backdrops and helping out. And I' ; d always go with them to see my sister practice and stuff. And my dad would always volunteer when they did shows. So I was always, always around when they were doing stuff. And so that was like a big part of the culture that I didn' ; t know I was exposed to. Um, I did boy scouts at BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago). Uh, I went to Japanese school at BTC and I did Sunday school probably up until I was 13 at BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago). Uh, so I was around a lot of culture. I just, I think I was just so aloof to it. I just never knew it. I just thought it was just what I' ; m supposed to do. Right. Even though, ' ; cause I think about it now, I, I never think about this stuff, but as I' ; m thinking about it now, I had a lot of Korean friends at school, a lot of Jewish friends, just a lot of different friends of different ethnic backgrounds. But in the evenings or on the weekends, we always hung out with my parents' ; Japanese friends, and I never hung out with my school friends on the weekends when I was younger, it was always my family' ; s friends. So it' ; s like I grew up with families like the Imajis and Ideis and the, ah it' ; s so many people, you know, the Okumuras and the Haritas. I just grew up with so many Japanese people of my friends of my, my parents, family and friends that I guess I was exposed to it. I just didn' ; t know it. AT: 00:30:23 Do you speak Japanese at home? BO: 00:30:25 I don' ; t. I' ; m so bad. AT: 00:30:27 When you were growing up, though? BO: 00:30:28 Nope. My mom can speak it fluently. My dad, it was like, it was real urban Japanese. I mean it was, it was terrible. So- AT: 00:30:50 So, um, and did you spend time with your grandparents at all, were they ever in Chicago? BO: 00:31:00 My, my dad' ; s side, I didn' ; t know at all. I think, you know, my grandfather on my dad' ; s side passed away way before I was born and my dad' ; s mom, she passed away in Chicago, I think because I always remember my dad talking about. Yeah, she passed away in Chicago, but it was before I was born because it was right before I was born because my dad would always talk about how his older brother who was, who was a career military serviceman, he was escorted here by the military. Like all these black vehicles came and let him out of the car, like they opened the door for him and he attended the funeral. So we never knew what my uncle did in the military, but he was somebody, um, after MIS (Military Intelligence Service), we don' ; t know what he did, but, but as for my grandparents, I don' ; t, I know they lived in our house in Lincolnwood. I just don' ; t remember them living there because we had, we had space for them. We had areas designed for them, but I don' ; t remember them living there. And I just remember always spending all my summers in California uh, at my grandparents house all summer long. AT: 00:32:27 Your mom' ; s parents? BO: 00:32:28 Yeah. AT: 00:32:29 And you said they moved back in ' ; 76? BO: 00:32:31 Somewhere around there, yeah. So I always remember that was where I spent my summers. I knew I was going to California and spending my summers there. AT: 00:32:44 You haven' ; t talked to them about World War II experiences? BO: 00:32:50 I didn' ; t know that stuff back then. My grandparents both died before I had an interest in what happened. My grandfather was a certain way. He was quiet, but he was very hard. He wa-- It was rare when I would remember him smiling and laughing and I' ; ve seen pictures of him doing that. But he was very hard and he was very quiet. So my mom said he was like that but doesn' ; t remember if it was because of his experience in camp or not. AT: 00:33:36 What about your grandma? BO: 00:33:41 She' ; s like my mom, she just marches on. Just whatever happens, happens and you just move forward. This, that' ; s just how I remember my grandma. She was just, she was-- she would laugh a lot. She would, I couldn' ; t really understand her. She spoke broken English and I, it was just very difficult for me to understand her, but, you know, I was, I' ; d sit there and I' ; d like laugh and smile at her when she would like talk to me cause I was, I mean, I didn' ; t know really how to communicate with her. Um, but yeah, that' ; s all I remember. AT: 00:34:22 Do you know, um, was there a moment or an experience that exposed you to, um, the World War II experiences in Japanese American and your family? BO: 00:34:36 Yeah, it was, it was after high school and I don' ; t know what that turning point was or where the trigger was because I was never very studious and I was never, never into education. And so I don' ; t remember this in grade school or in high school, but there was some point in my late teens where it triggered. So, and that' ; s when I started asking my parents, you know. AT: 00:35:13 Just from, uh, some type of feeling or inclination too? BO: 00:35:21 There was something that I was exposed to that made me think about it. And then I would, I was talking to my parents about it and seeing what they knew about it and then I would do a lot of my own research on it. Uh, I wasn' ; t getting much out of them. AT: 00:35:37 Well, do you remember about like how did they respond? BO: 00:35:41 They didn' ; t tell me right away and it wasn' ; t until they saw that I was being proactive in my research that they would share bits and pieces about it. Yeah. AT: 00:35:58 Did you ever talk about it with your sister or friends? BO: 00:36:03 None of my friends could relate or understood or cared. My sister, I don' ; t talk about it with her. She just doesn' ; t share that same interest. So she went on the pilgrimage with us and I think a lot of that stuff may have been a very first time for her, for a lot of things. But to be honest, yeah, it' ; s kind of sad. My sister and I are, our relationship is very superficial. So it' ; s, we' ; re not very deep. We just are very on the surface with each other. AT: 00:36:41 And what did, when you were like researching, um, were you just like going to the library or how, what was that like? BO: 00:36:52 It was the internet. I was trying to find as much information on the incarceration and where this happened and why did it happen-- You know, it like, it was, I was so aloof by it, like I didn' ; t even correlate the bombing of Pearl Harbor to the incarceration of the Japanese Americans. So it wasn' ; t real late in my, I dunno in my educated years that I just started really piecing things together and then how it was related to my family and it wasn' ; t like my grandparents, it was my parents. And then I start talking to some people and realizing that some of the people that I knew, it was their grandparents that were in there, not their families. So I was like, well, what' ; s going on? Why is, why are my parents there? And their parents weren' ; t there. And so, and you know, it just brought up a lot of other kinds of discussions with my family on why this was like that. AT: 00:38:02 If you remember, um, do you remember um some of your own like personal reactions or feelings as you' ; re kind of digging into this history? BO: 00:38:16 Shock? I think shock was most of it. Some of it was like, I can' ; t believe that my family was part of this history. Um, kind of like honor, I would say in a sense because they were part of this history but also part of this history that changed the world a little bit or changed our country a little bit. Um, so I had, I felt like I had a lot more personal investment in what happened, which I think maybe drove me a little bit more because it did happen to my immediate family. Um, so I felt as though I need to learn more about this cause I don' ; t know any of it, you know, it wasn' ; t something that my parents talked about. I mean, both of my parents, I really had to pry for any information for anything, you know, any, anything about my dad' ; s experience in the war or anything about their experience in camp, anything I really had to just dig. They, they wouldn' ; t offer that information on their own accord. AT: 00:39:47 It would be great if you could fill me in on this point you' ; re talking about now, you know, the kind of the digging in the research and asking, you know, asking your parents questions and kind of where you' ; re at today. BO: 00:40:03 I think there' ; s a lot of information out there and I feel like had I have known a little of what I know today, back then, I would' ; ve been all over my grandparents. I think. I think there' ; s a lot more in history and in my own personal family' ; s history that I don' ; t know about and I would have loved to have had that opportunity to dig further and maybe play the, play the sympathy or kid role to try to get my grandparents to talk a little bit more. Right. I mean, you know, I think it, it drives me to what is happening today and to learn more about what happened during World War II, to drive me what I' ; m doing today and to prevent something like that ever happening again. AT: 00:41:23 You might have just answered it but I might have prompted you with a question, another question. Why, why is that something that would be important to you to get those answers from your grandparents? To, to really get as much information. BO: 00:41:48 I think there' ; s a lot more to my mom' ; s family than my dad' ; s family. I mean, I heard stories from my dad' ; s family, I' ; ve heard stories of their time in camp and I' ; ve heard stories of what the living conditions were and the waiting times, going to the bathroom. And I, you know, I' ; ve heard those stories and those are very similar stories to what I' ; ve heard in my research and reading or you know, going to symposiums or, or anything. Right. It' ; s kind of similar, but my mom' ; s side is really interesting and I, I, it' ; s something I want to know because you don' ; t hear much about the DOJ (Department of Justice) camps. You don' ; t hear much about the treatment, you don' ; t hear about how they were treated. And that' ; s where my grandfather was. And I have a couple of pictures of him in those, in that camp and he just looks just physically exhausted. Like he just looks like he' ; s just beaten up, not physically, just emotionally and just beaten up. That' ; s how he looks. And so I know there' ; s so much more to that history that I would just love to know more about, you know, so I mean, I can only imagine what happened in there. You know, in my head, I equate camps like Santa Fe to be like Guantanamo, you know, so, and it' ; s interesting. I, you know, I met with some people from Anchorage on the Minidoka Pilgrimage that passed through Santa Fe, that was like one of their stopping points before going to Minidoka and they had no idea that was going on. They said we didn' ; t know any of that was there at Santa Fe. They only knew it as their passing stop before going to Minidoka. And, um, you know, I' ; d show them pictures and they were just, they recognize where the picture was taken. They just didn' ; t know that stuff was there. So, yeah. I don' ; t know if I answered your question. AT: 00:44:12 Um, you have two kids that are school-aged. As a parent, someone who is connected by family to this history. What has, what' ; s been important to you or what have you maybe done, um, to kind of teach your kids about it? If anything? BO: 00:44:51 Everything that I talk about, I talk in the open with them about this, this period of our family' ; s life. So, and I, you know, I' ; ve recently got involved with JACL (Japanese American Citizens League). I' ; ve gotten involved with other committees, with other organizations and so everything that I' ; m doing, I do it in the open where they' ; re always exposed to it. You know, my wife is very educated. She' ; s very much into, um, you know, diversity and inclusion. And so this is not something that we hide in our family. And so it' ; s always out there. We go to a lot of, we go to a lot of, um, events. We go to a lot of fundraisers. We go to a lot of just things that revolve around this subject and other subjects. So it' ; s what our interests are, are always in my kids' ; spotlight so they know what we' ; re talking about. They know what we' ; re thinking about, they know what we stand for as a family. They know what is right from wrong. And it is very important for my kids because as I watched them grow up to when I grew up, and I' ; m sure from when my parents grew up, things are extremely different in that short amount of time and their priorities are a lot different and their thought processes are a lot different. BO: 00:46:37 It' ; s not something that I feel as though I can teach them. It' ; s something that they have to learn by exposure. And so we feel as the more exposure we provide them, the more that they will understand and they' ; re going to have these memories later. Oh, I remember doing this with my parents. I remember doing this with my parents, and hopefully that sticks with them so they understand and they become more socially aware. Um, I know in a lot of different aspects, my son is socially aware and he' ; s always been a fighter for the, for the person who' ; s being picked on. He' ; s always been that way and it' ; s gotten into, gotten him into some trouble sometimes. But he does have that in him. He just has to know the battles that he needs to pick, and he' ; s very good at it. Um, my daughter' ; s really young. She, she' ; s just recently, probably in the last few years, figured out she was Japanese, you know, I mean it' ; s, she either thinks she' ; s Korean or Chinese or she thinks she' ; s Pakistani or she thinks that she' ; s Japanese. So, you know, we try to just enrich her with so much more culture. AT: 00:48:07 Do you feel like there was a moment or experience where you realized that you were Japanese, kind of similar to what your daughter is experiencing? BO: 00:48:19 You know, growing up in Lincolnwood, for the majority of my life I can see where my daughter comes from. You know, she just has a lot of friends of different cultures, different races, different cultures, different religious backgrounds. So, and she doesn' ; t discriminate. She will be friends with anybody, you know, as long as they' ; re friendly with her. Um, I didn' ; t, maybe I didn' ; t realize the importance of my Japanese background ' ; till much later where I embraced it more. I didn' ; t grow up with a lot of Japanese people, you know, in a day to day environment at school. So I really didn' ; t know. Right? And I think about these days of, you know, people making slanty eyed, you know, notions or go back to China. You know, it' ; s, I remember growing up with stuff like that, but I grew up shrugging it off. I grew up playing it off and being funny with, you know, even joking around with it with my friends is, and you know, partaking in it, you know, and I know for like, my son won' ; t take that, he won' ; t take that. He, he' ; ll speak up about that if like even his friends are doing it about him. Our daughter, I don' ; t even know if she would know what that is. To be perfectly honest. I think she' ; s so innocent. She just, she truly doesn' ; t know it. You know, my kids, they know Japanese food, they know the Japanese things that I surround them with. Um, but you know, I probably didn' ; t realize my importance of being Japanese until I was in my mid twenties, maybe. AT: 00:50:24 You had mentioned something about kendo-- BO: 00:50:28 Yeah. AT: 00:50:29 Can you tell me about that? BO: 00:50:31 You know, my sister always had Shiyu Kai growing up, so she learned traditional Japanese dance. Um, and I really didn' ; t have that, you know, things that I was interested, you know, it' ; s like when I was a kid, I loved ninjas and I have loved, you know, Samurai Sundays and you know, just the stuff that I grew up watching and being around. But, you know, I loved watching chambara movies with my dad, which was like old samurai movies. But kendo was something that-- I didn' ; t even know iaido exists, but kendo I knew of, but I just never took it because it was expensive. Um, but kendo, I took on later in my life because it has such a deep, strong connection with the Japanese culture and there' ; s so much in kendo that it provides for me outside of kendo. And it helps me understand my Japanese culture and it helps me appreciate and why I may do things or why may others may do things. Because kendo is, is, it' ; s really deep into the Japanese culture. And I was lucky enough for the dojo that I belong to is the first kendo dojo in Chicago. And it was based out of a BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago). And you know, it was Izui Sensei and he was really, he' ; s, he' ; s a very famous Sensei, but he' ; s, he' ; s passed on. BO: 00:52:38 But he believed in teaching the etiquette and the culture of kendo rather than the, uh, the tournament style of kendo. And that' ; s something that to this day, the kendo-- that dojo has been around since ' ; 69. And so to this day, it' ; s that etiquette is still being taught and I really appreciate that. When I bring that etiquette to other people that belong to other dojos, they just brush me off or say, don' ; t do that, I don' ; t like that because it' ; s, it' ; s either embarrassing or it' ; s maybe too old school, but that, that old school is my culture. That' ; s, that' ; s my heritage. That' ; s, that' ; s, that' ; s what I belong to. I mean, that' ; s my family way back then, you know? So that' ; s why, it was one of the reasons why I decided to join kendo was you know, it brought me to a lot of deep cultural roots to, to who I am. AT: 00:53:51 What are some of your hopes for your kids? And the eventual grandkids, future generations-- BO: 00:54:03 Respect. Respect is very important to me. Uh, it' ; s important that they understand respect. It' ; s important that they understand what our family or our family roots are from and who they were and their struggles. It' ; s important that they understand that not everything has to be now. It can be later. Yeah. You know, I think it' ; s important that they just know their family history. AT: 00:54:56 Why? BO: 00:54:56 You said why? I think it' ; s who they are, they just don' ; t know it. And I think it' ; s important to know why things are, whether it' ; s, you know, why a car runs or why your arm moves in a certain motion, you know, it' ; s important to know why they are the way that they are. Um, and sometimes other things are more important than what you see every day. I don' ; t know. You know, it' ; s about the family sacrifices about what it means to just persevere and move forward. Like this entire time I' ; m thinking about my, my dad' ; s dad, you know, they were poor and you know, for all these families that had persevered through this, through being incarcerated and moving forward and establishing themselves in a brand new area or a brand new line of work or whatever it is, it' ; s about perseverance. You know, my dad' ; s family didn' ; t have any money. My dad used, my grandfather used to have this car, this Ford where you would have to crank the car in the front to start it up. One day he was starting it up and sometimes when it starts up, the crank goes the opposite direction, well it broke his hand. And my dad was, uh, my grandfather was a physical worker, phys-- physical labor, and he couldn' ; t be without work. He had to supp- help support his family, but it was also a different way of thinking, right? So he' ; s like, I don' ; t have money. I can' ; t get this fixed. So he decided to just cut his hand off. BO: 00:56:53 That was his way of fixing the problem and taking care of it and getting back to work. And that' ; s the perseverance. That' ; s the sacrifice you make for the, for what you have to do. And I, and that' ; s what we try to tell our kids. You know, it' ; s not about what' ; s right in front of you. It' ; s, you' ; ve got to look at a much bigger picture. You can' ; t just figure out what' ; s, you know, five inches in front of your face. You have to just look much larger than that. And that' ; s what happened to my family. That' ; s what' ; s happening to our family now. Um, so it' ; s very important. You know what I mean by that is, you know, my family is Muslim. So I have a lot of deep roots in the past. And with the current political climate, you know, the past makes me fear for the future and I have a personal stake in that. So, you know that makes me all the more want to push further and have my kids understand what' ; s happening and they need to understand where this can put them. And so this is why they need to be aware, you know? Yeah. It' ; s just very important about-- for them to know and understand our history so it doesn' ; t affect, you know, their future. AT: 00:58:42 Um, that' ; s hard to follow [Both chuckle]. But, um, I, I am thinking of just a couple of questions that I wanted to--we should ask you, um-- So I still have to find the right words to say. Um, but one thing I wanted to ask was, um, about your experiences growing up. Um, I would say being connected to the Japanese American community in Chicago. Um, and I want to ask you, in what ways do you see the Japanese American community, community in Chicago as maybe being unique from other places or other Japanese Americans? BO: 00:59:58 Personally, I feel like it doesn' ; t exist anymore in comparison to the fifties. It, they' ; re not all clumped together anymore. They' ; re so spread out, you know, and you know, that' ; s, that' ; s, that was part of my inexperience. And part of my way of thinking was once I stopped hanging out with my parents' ; friends, because, you know, they were getting up in age and people started moving out further away from where we all were. That, where did all the Japanese community go? Where are they? They' ; re still there. They' ; re just more spread out now. You know, I, the only thing I can really compare it to is California, you know, going, uh, Gardena every year. I mean, it' ; s nothing but Japanese people, back then, I mean the whole Gardena area was Japanese stores and Japanese restaurants. Now it' ; s changed a lot today, but I mean those are Japanese communities, you know, and they were not only, you know, second or third generations, some of them are first, a lot of them are first generations too. So here that community is so spread out, you know. They' ; re parts of Chicago, parts of the northwes sur--, suburbs, part of the southwest suburbs. BO: 01:01:42 And I think that' ; s why I' ; ve, I' ; ve become more involved so I can be more around that community, you know, because they' ; re not readily at my disposal. Um, it' ; s not, you know, when you go to, you know, you hang out, people from like Tri-C (Christ Church of Chicago) or, or you know, from BTC (Buddhist Temple of Chicago) or anybody else who' ; s affiliated, you don' ; t-- you have that community. And I think I missed that because I find out from talking to so many people that have connected to so many people that I never knew. And I think now I, I' ; m really cherishing that. I' ; m really appreciating that and I wish the, the JA (Japanese American) community was more condensed in the sense where it is easily available for so much of the JA community instead of making the efforts to make a JA community. I don' ; t know if that makes sense. AT: 01:02:50 So if you were to summarize maybe your, your hopes for the future, the Japanese American community of Chicago? BO: 01:03:00 Well, it' ; s not so much of a JA community in the future. There' ; s, it' ; s JA slash other right? I mean, my kids are a part of that, you know, but my kids, I think like my kids, I don' ; t know about others, but like my kids, they associate themselves more Japanese than their American Pakistani side. So I hope they learn to embrace their culture and their American Japanese culture and create friendships and bonds with others that hopefully lasts throughout the years and follows them wherever they go. You know? And hopefully wherever they go, they seek out other JA (Japanese American) communities and they find comfort and home in those communities. AT: 01:04:12 Um, oh, so I want to ask you a question. Um, but I apologize ' ; cause I- I don' ; t know very much about your family. BO: 01:04:21 Sure. AT: 01:04:24 I don' ; t mean it to be such a superficial question, but I' ; m just, I' ; m curious because one of the biggest and main connections that people have made between the history of the World War II incarceration and contemporary issues are around anti-Muslim, anti-Arab sentiments. BO: 01:04:46 Sure. AT: 01:04:47 Um, and I' ; m just wondering about, um, you know, given the, the identities within your family, do you think how, how has that maybe had an impact on your own, like your own work, whether it' ; s volunteer or whatever, or what are your hopes for-- BO: 01:05:20 I think it drives me more. I think it drives me to unify more. I think it, it makes me get off the couch. It makes me do things that historically in my characteristic or my habits that I would not do. So it really drives me, I think. Yeah. AT: 01:06:14 Before we wrap up, uh, is there anything else that you' ; d like to add or that I might' ; ve missed? BO: 01:06:32 I don' ; t want to pass up any opportunities that may be presented to me. My natural instinct is always just to be the listener and be silent and to observe. That' ; s, that' ; s who my personality is. But I think with a lot of people, what' ; s happening in the current political times and what' ; s spilled over into a lot of racial, religious hate, that I don' ; t want to look back at this time and say, I should' ; ve done this. You know, I, what' ; s important to me is that my family knows that whatever could have been done was at least-- there was some effort. And I know my wife is very involved in many different ways and she would love to be involved more in many different ways and myself included. Um, and I want my kids to be aware. If they want to be involved, that' ; s great, but I want them to be aware. And that' ; s, that' ; s one the most important things. And I think what has happened to my parents and their parents and their siblings and their family during World War II you know, I don' ; t want that to happen to anybody else. Whether they' ; re Muslim or not, doesn' ; t matter. I don' ; t want that to happen to anybody else. And I think whatever little effort, that I can give or offer or help or lend a hand in, I' ; l ; --I' ; d like to at least say that I tried. And you know, I' ; ve put myself in that ring to try to protect my family and my wife' ; s family and anybody else that needs a voice. Um-- BO: 01:09:22 I don' ; t know. I think, uh, I think I have big hope, big hopes and dreams for my kids and my family and their families down the road to come. And I hope all these efforts and our efforts are not for nothing. And I just want them to appreciate who they are and where they came from and how they got here and what it took to get here, what it took to get to where they are, and hopefully that passes down from them to their kids and so forth. Yeah. AT: 01:10:15 Well, thank you so much again for coming in and taking the time to speak with us. BO: 01:10:17 Oh, 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=OzakiBrian20171107.xml OzakiBrian20171107.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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Ozaki, Brian (11/7/2017)
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2017-11-07
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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
Ozaki, Mary
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/15/2017 Ozaki, Mary (9/15/2017) 0:43:33 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. Ozaki, Mary Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/299788345 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/299788345?h=ee4e06548e" ; 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 Now we could just start by stating your name and your, your hometown. Mary Ozaki: 00:08 Mary Ozaki from Los Angeles, California. AT: 00:14 And um, when were you born? MO: 00:16 August 11th, 38' ; . 1938. So that makes me 79 now and about three or four when we entered the camp. AT: 00:28 Do you remember any, anything about LA before? MO: 00:32 No, my parents were farmers El Centro, California and um, which is, uh, near San Diego I guess, but more east. And AT: 00:48 What kind of farm did they have? MO: 00:53 I really don' ; t know. Grow lettuce, vegetables I guess. Yeah. AT: 00:58 And when did they come to the U.S.? MO: 01:02 Well, actually they' ; re both born in America, my mother in LA and my father in Seattle. And uh, at an early age were sent back to Japan or at least my father, he and his sister were sent to Japan for ah education. And my mother and his parents, my mother and her parents went back to Japan after they were here a few, a few years doing farming and uh, I guess they made enough money to go back to Japan. So, um, they got married in Japan and they came here to LA. So that' ; s the beginning. AT: 01:53 And so when, when were they born? MO: 01:56 Um, my father, 1909. And my mother in 1915, I believe. AT: 02:04 And do you have any idea when their parents came to the U.S.? MO: 02:12 Uh, no I don' ; t have that. AT: 02:18 Um, so when, when the war broke out from, well, where did your family go from LA? MO: 02:28 From LA we went to Tule Lake. And then from there we went to ah Gila River, Crystal City, uh I' ; m not sure in which order that is. And um, and we were in camp for a very long time. I think one of the last ones because my father didn' ; t want to go back to California. So, um, we were told that for people who didn' ; t have a place to go to uh, we can go to Seabrook Farm, New Jersey where they have work there and uh, they have housing. It looked like another camp area because of barrack type buildings. So I' ; m not sure how long we were there. Um, but, uh, my, both my parents walked over to the, uh, ah farm of the frozen food section everyday. I used to, I had, I came down with pneumonia, so I was in the hospital for 10 days and in the morning I would watch them go past the hospital to go to, uh, the work, to the factory. And uh AT: 03:55 That was in Seabrook Farm? MO: 04:01 Seabrook Farm, AT: 04:01 New Jersey MO: 04:01 New Jersey. And we still didn' ; t know what to do or where to go, but after we found out that we had a cousin in Chicago, so we, uh, my father wrote to them and see if we can go there and they happen to have a huge apartment building and they said they would welcome us. So I believe it was 1949 that we came to Chicago and we lived in Chicago all these years. AT: 04:47 Do you have any siblings? MO: 04:47 I have a brother, my brother is two years younger and my sister was born in Chicago. She' ; s 13 years younger than me, but she recently passed away. So my brother lives in Florida and I live in Midwest. AT: 05:07 Where, where was your brother born? MO: 05:07 Uh he was born in El Centro, I was born in LA. He in El Centro or Imperial Valley. AT: 05:18 And so where are your, of course, very young when your family was sent to camp, what were your earliest memories of MO: 05:33 I have a little bit of a memory in camp, but I don' ; t know which one. My mother was ah, she worked in the mess hall, so uh probably, we were with her most of the time because two of us were just too young to be out in the street. And uh, my father was never with us. He was sent to another camp. All men, all men camp in New Mexico, I believe. So he was not with us. I don' ; t know why he wasn' ; t there. I never found out. And uh, and I can' ; t remember. He was with us in New Jersey, but during camp days, I don' ; t think we, he was with us. AT: 06:29 Was he active in any churches or temples? MO: 06:32 No, that' ; s why it' ; s puzzling to me because he was a quiet farmer, you know, kept to himself. He wasn' ; t an activist or agitator as far as I know. AT: 06:45 Because from what I understand and what I' ; ve heard from folks, people' ; s whose family' ; s were um, I know someone who was even gave money to a, um dojo, like aikido, but they were, he was sent to Crystal City. MO: 07:09 I' ; m not aware. I don' ; t know. It could be that he and he wanted to go back to Japan maybe at one time, but he changed his mind, but I don' ; t know why that would make him go there. AT: 07:26 And we where in Japan. Did your parents go? Where they MO: 07:31 Kagoshima, they' ; re both from Kagoshima. AT: 07:43 And so as far as you know, you, you and your family. It was between Tule Lake, Gila River and Crystal City? MO: 07:53 Yes. AT: 07:54 So those three? MO: 07:56 In Crystal City, we met other Japanese from Peru. There were a lot of people from there. So we met some of them and I' ; m still in touch with some of the people there yeah. AT: 08:12 So do you have memories of Crystal City, of meeting people? MO: 08:18 Not too much really. I don' ; t know why I told remember. AT: 08:26 Maybe just family friends you' ; ve kept in touch with since? MO: 08:30 Yeah. But yeah, um, it' ; s very vague and the rest is all what people told me or. But I have no memory of my own what I was doing and at some point I did, I do remember playing with my brother. I mean we always were together. But other than that, and we must have gone to school. I don' ; t even remember that. AT: 09:07 The. the things that you did learn about camp, how did that, how did that work? Did your family talk about it or did you MO: 09:17 No, my parents never talked about it, so, um, they passed away a good 20, 25, 30 years ago. So I, I, at that time, I guess I wasn' ; t really interested in it so I couldn' ; t ask them anything. And so I did send in for the, uh, history, uh, of us, uh, you know, to the archives in Washington, DC. So, and I have no relatives or friends that can tell me what we did over there. But, uh, so I' ; m sorry, I don' ; t have too much information. AT: 10:07 What, what inspired you to do some of that research and going to the archives? MO: 10:13 Well, since I, my parents never told me anything, I was curious, you know, what really happened and I was really surprised that we all went quietly without, you know, uh, without having any trouble with it just all went together. AT: 10:40 Well, about how old were you when you started? MO: 10:43 I think, uh, over three. If the war started in 1942. AT: 10:50 I mean, I' ; m sorry when you were, when you started researching, and trying to figure out MO: 10:56 Oh! I would say 15, 20 years ago after my parents passed away. AT: 11:11 So did you, forgive me, I' ; m just trying to get a better sense of, you know, what it was like to have that happen at such a young age when you don' ; t necessarily have the memories, I mean, you were, you were aware that you were in camp in your childhood? MO: 11:35 Well, I don' ; t know if I was aware that I was in camp. All I know is that I was with my mother and my brother, so, you know, wherever you go and you don' ; t think anything of it. AT: 11:55 Like, if people asked you once, like when you left camp and let' ; s say you were in New Jersey and people asked where you were from or anything like that? MO: 12:12 People did ask, but not, not, not too much in detail. When we came to Chicago at first, uh, I did notice a little bit of a prejudice, but of course I went to Oakland Wall Grammar School where there were a lot of Japanese children there. So we played together. But, uh, going outside of that, then you would feel the difference. And growing up as a teenager, um, there was a CNAA for ah teenagers getting involved in athletics. You know, so I played basketball. My brother also did that. And so we sorta, well, we stuck together and that' ; s where I met my husband and got married. AT: 13:18 And so you must have been, you were 10 or 11 when you came to Chicago? MO: 13:26 About nine or so, yeah nine. AT: 13:31 Where did your family. Which neighborhood did your family? MO: 13:35 On the South Side. We stayed on ah, that' ; s where we, we stayed in that apartment building until 1951 when my sister was born. So we moved to the North Side, where my parents bought a, uh, a roomy house type of building. So my mom says my mother had my sister, she couldn' ; t go out to work. And so, uh, she, she ran this building and my father went out to work. AT: 14:12 Where was that building? MO: 14:14 On Elm Street near Clark and Division. AT: 14:22 As far as you know, um, was that, is that difficult for your parents to buy a building or find a? MO: 14:32 No, they didn' ; t have any money, but they, I guess they scraped enough money to get, get into this venture. I guess they felt as since she cannot go out to work. In the summertime, my mom was able to work so that I could, you know, watch the house, I guess. I' ; m not so sure. Maybe before my sister came, she did both work at, uh, at Curtis Candy Company and uh, since um, my sister was born then they got into this roomy house type of business because she can' ; t work anymore. So uh AT: 15:25 And what was your father doing? MO: 15:25 He was working, um, Curtis Candy at first and then, uh, American Carbon Paper Company for the longest time until he got sick and he could no longer work. So my father was not that healthy. So my mom, my mom coming to America, didn' ; t know English. I thought it was kinda odd that she was totally dependent on my, uh, my father, she never went shopping. She just stayed home on the farm. And then coming to Chicago she learned a little English, well enough to run a rooming house. And uh, so she, I thought it was strange that she got stronger, strong, stronger as a person. So that' ; s basically my life and nothing really exciting. AT: 16:32 What do you, what do you remember about the boarding house? Did you spend a lot of time there? MO: 16:39 Yes, my teenage years. I spent my life there and um, I didn' ; t do much. I didn' ; t help help her out or anything. She did everything, changing linens and cleaning the building and taking care of the tenants. So she did, she did all that and after that she got into a bigger building from there. So like I said, she' ; s the one that was ah bold enough or had the gumption to get into a new venture like that. And my father just went out to work. AT: 17:23 Where was the new building? MO: 17:25 Montrose, Montrose near Clarendon, Clarendon Road is it? It' ; s near the lake. And after that they bought a property on a Racine near a Diversey. And that' ; s it. AT: 17:47 When you, when your family to, when you made that move to the North Side, did you switch schools? MO: 17:55 Yes, I went to Hyde Park for just one semester or one year. And then, uh, the rest of my time at Waller High School on the North Side. AT: 18:04 And what, what were those schools like? MO: 18:13 Well, I was, um, I didn' ; t participate in anything. I would just go to work and come back. I mean, go to a school and just come back and I wasn' ; t in any extracurricular activities where I would stay. So I just went to school, came back and when I was old enough to get a part time job, then I did go to to work. AT: 18:48 Where was your first part-time job? MO: 18:50 A place called the Massachusetts Bonding, doing typing work. AT: 18:59 How old were you? MO: 19:01 I was still in high school then. AT: 19:03 Was that pretty typical? For a high school student? MO: 19:06 I don' ; t know. I don' ; t think I was supposed to be working, but I was working. I won' ; t go into detail about that. AT: 19:19 What about the schools in the areas you were in? Did you know other Japanese American kids? MO: 19:24 Yeah. Well, our high school, there were a lot of Japanese there. So basically I was with Japanese people. Even to this day I have many Japanese friends and uh, I guess I just stick with them maybe for comfort. I, I' ; m not sure. AT: 19:57 And was your family, I know you said you weren' ; t involved in any extracurriculars that um, did your family, were they involved in any um temples or churches or anything? MO: 20:07 No, but I did, go ever since I came to Chicago, I did go to a Buddhist temple in Chicago, which was on the South Side because my friends went there. So that' ; s the reason why I went. And to this day I' ; m a member on the same temple. So. AT: 20:32 And the, where, where did you go from from Waller High School? MO: 20:43 Uh, I got married at the age of 21. My kids didn' ; t come for 10 years. And uh. AT: 20:52 Where were you living at that time? MO: 20:59 When we first got married, I lived on Racine. My mother, my parents' ; building, we help them manage the building. Uh, I would say for 10 years. And then, um, since I was pregnant with my daughter, uh, we moved to a different building. We bought a building on Margate Terrace, that' ; s near Lawrence and ah Marine Drive. So we were there for a few years and then then we bought a house in Lincolnwood. My husband just didn' ; t want to deal with tenants, so we moved to the suburb. AT: 21:45 And what year was that you left the city? MO: 21:50 1970. Ah 72' ; because Brian was in the new house. No? 70' ; Brian Ozaki: 22:03 76' ; or 77' ; . MO: 22:12 76' ; or 77. But you, BO: 22:14 I was three. MO: 22:14 Yeah, you were three and Jennifer was in first grade or kindergarten? Well, somewhere around there. AT: 22:26 Where did you meet your husband? MO: 22:29 Where it was one of those, uh, CNAA dances, socials that we had. That' ; s where I first met him. AT: 22:38 And so did you go to those dances often? MO: 22:43 Whenever I could, I did go. AT: 22:49 Can you describe or explain with, what the dances were and then maybe describe. MO: 22:55 It was usually held at the YWCA on Chicago Avenue I think. Or no, also at Olivet Institute where we played basketball. So uh it was either there or. Other than that I guess, uh, I was in a all girl basketball club, Bellesharmeer, AT: 23:33 What was that? MO: 23:33 Belle, Bellesharmeer. Um, there were many clubs but we were at the tail end and after that I think they, uh, it was phased out. But uh, so other than that I wasn' ; t really doing anything outside. Basically a homebody, I guess. AT: 23:55 Ballshawmeer? MO: 24:07 B e l l e s h a r m e e r. I think. AT: 24:10 So was that a club? A team? MO: 24:11 Yes, basketball club. AT: 24:13 Oh it was a basketball club. MO: 24:13 Yeah. AT: 24:14 So you did, you played basketball? MO: 24:16 Yes. AT: 24:20 And then what about the dances, um, who was invited and who was coming to these? MO: 24:29 Well, all the members of the clubs, I don' ; t think there was any admission or anything and, and uh, records were, I mean the music is by records. I think I' ; m, I' ; m not quite sure. AT: 24:53 Well, how, can you explain a little bit more about what the clubs were, how they formed? Was that just kind of a normal thing that people were affiliated or? MO: 25:07 I, I guess, uh, you, you choose your friends and you form a club basically to play basketball. I think uh, the boys, they also played baseball. But I don' ; t know too much about that, but basketball was the most popular sport. So that' ; s it. I guess I wasn' ; t really, I guess I was more a homebody, you know, not really going out and venturing out to meet other people more or less just stayed home. AT: 25:58 But you did meet your husband at one of those dances? MO: 26:00 Yeah, but outside of that, CNAA. I didn' ; t venture out to a high school clubs or high school, um, events or anything that was happening in school. I didn' ; t participate in that. Just everything during school hours. AT: 26:25 Do you remember the names of some of the other clubs? MO: 26:31 Yeah. Ruins, Role Babes, Saints, Imadoerries, Colette' ; s, Debonairs. Oh, that there are many. And each club I, think had about at least half a dozen or dozen to a dozen or so. Like I said, we were at the tail end of it though. The other clubs are the people were much older. And uh so. AT: 27:06 How many were in your club? MO: 27:10 Probably six. You have to have at least five, six or eight maybe. AT: 27:20 Do you remember the names of the members? MO: 27:27 Um not all of them, but a Tatsko Matsumoto model was one of them, uh, in Bellesharmeer I can' ; t, you know, I can' ; t remember the rest, that' ; s terrible. AT: 27:43 We won' ; t tell anyone. MO: 27:43 But I mean, I have other friends that were in the other clubs, you know, but in my club, uh, I wasn' ; t sure. I' ; m not sure of the names. AT: 28:03 And um, you, you mentioned that I' ; m coming to Chicago and Virginia out of your circle is that were mostly Japanese American, but there was some prejudice. Um, can you tell me a little bit more about that? MO: 28:31 Well, I mean, they use the word Japs, you know, things like that. And um, uh, I guess, uh, we heard, we heard that, uh, not, not many people would rent to Japanese or even hire you, but I think, uh, later on they realized that we were clean and work very hard and diligently and kept to ourselves. We don' ; t make waves and have ah respect for other people. So people, uh, became to trust us more. So it was much easier about that, but you can still feel some, the uh, well, I guess I shouldn' ; t say that, but it turned out for the best, I think it did. Something that was negative, became a positive, I think. And um, since I was so young, I didn' ; t feel any, uh, suffering because you' ; re with your family most of the time. And where would you go? Oh, you' ; re with your family, ah good or bad. But, uh, so I' ; m pretty sure my parents suffered a lot because they were forced to do something that didn' ; t want ah and also they had to let go of all their belongings, so I' ; m sure they really had a hard time, but I myself did not experience that hardship or suffering, and my parents didn' ; t show it either. AT: 31:05 Um, do you, um, how do you keep in touch with your, your Japanese heritage. If you do, um, what are some ways that you? MO: 31:32 I belong to the Buddhist temple, Buddhist temple of Chicago. And then I go to, when I' ; m in Illinois, I go to, uh, uh, the, uh, most of the festivals that they have here. And um, even in Las Vegas I go to their festivals and uh, uh, sometimes, uh, the taiko group from Japan comes. And so I would see them perform and it. BO: 32:13 [inaudible] MO: 32:13 Well, um, I do belong to a Buddhist temple in Chicago, like I said, and then I also belong to the Osoko group of that temple or we are, or we used to be the backbone of that temple. So of course I' ; m not here every Sunday because I live in Wisconsin. So when I' ; m in town, I' ; m at the temple and whatever is going on, I do help out with whatever I can for the temple. AT: 33:06 Is that something that' ; s important to you? MO: 33:08 Yes, when I' ; m in Chicago I always make sure that I go to the temple on Sunday. I try to make it my business to go there, yeah. AT: 33:19 And how about for your children? MO: 33:24 Uh, Joe, I did, I did take them to the temple when they were young, but uh, as they become, became older, well, I let them do whatever they wanted to do and they also want to Japanese language school at the temple had. So they went to that. And um, my daughter was also taking Japanese dancing with the shiyu kai. And so she was in that for several years. So I, I try to maintain the culture, but now it' ; s very difficult. The children grow up and they had their own ideas. So I don' ; t force my ideas on them. Whatever they want to do, it' ; s, it' ; s okay. AT: 34:26 And then, um, I think for many Japanese Americans the [historian?] Experience of internment, of course, is very prevalent. Is that something that you talked about with your kids? MO: 34:41 No, not really, uh, I don' ; t believe so. Of course, um, later on the kids got interested in it, especially my son, then we would talk about it. But other than that, no. AT: 35:16 Do you feel like, do you feel like it' ; s something that your, your kids and grand kids should know or is it important? MO: 35:31 Well, uh, I think they should know and uh my grandchildren are learning about it because the teacher does ah dwell on that subject. My husband and I went there and met with the class and we spoke about our experiences. In fact a teacher or ah video taped it and every year around October she would present it to the children and then every year after that, uh, she was sending me a thank you know, along with the remarks from the children. So that' ; s very nice that she has an interest in this project. So, um, I hope most Americans will hear about this, something that happened to us. But, um, but I think it turned out for the best, at least I don' ; t. I was too young to really know the impact of it. And I think, uh, now that a lot of people know about a Japanese American, that, that, uh, we are decent American like anybody else. So I' ; m happy the way it turned out. AT: 37:13 Now that you' ; re older and more, you know, there' ; s been a lot of time since what happened, what do you, what do you see as being some of the impacts of that experience? MO: 37:30 What, say that again? AT: 37:38 What, what are, what do you see as some of the impacts of internment whether on you or your family or MO: 37:50 You know, like I said, I, there is no because I wasn' ; t with my parents, my mother. And wherever your mother takes you, you know, that' ; s your, that' ; s your life and you don' ; t know anything else. Any other things, whether good or bad, you' ; re with your, with your mother. So, um, I have no ill feelings myself. My education was not interrupted. My work was not interrupted. I was too young. But just thinking about my parents, what they went through, then I can understand, but of course didn' ; t talk about it either. So I could just imagine what the adventure that' ; s, that' ; s about it. AT: 39:03 And if you could leave your children and grandchildren and generations to come with some kind of message or, or legacy, what would you want that to be? MO: 39:21 Always be respectful, consid, considerate of others. Um, that' ; s all I would want from them. Be a law abiding citizen. AT: 39:41 Well, thank you so much for coming in and speaking MO: 39:45 You' ; re welcome. I don' ; t think I had too many to offer here it. AT: 39:51 Is there anything that you might want to add or that I might' ; ve missed in the conversation? MO: 40:00 No, not really, uh, you know, in camp, they fed you, but, but, uh, I can' ; t even complain about that because I don' ; t even really remember, but I guess it was edible. We survived it at all. Uh, I never remember complaining about the food. I do remember my mom bringing home ah leftover rice and I guess it was a, it was like, um, it was burnt so they would dry it and put teriyaki sauce on it and make it like a senbei or arare, but those little things. But I never, never thought about the food, how bad or how good or bad it was, I just. And I don' ; t even remember the many lines that we had to stand and wait for her to go into the mess hall or even to the washrooms or a shower. But um, so that was my life and I just, I guess accepted it, you know, it was, it wasn' ; t bad at all. I think I had a good life. AT: 41:23 Well, and some of those things you described, it seems like they might have been learned later on. MO: 41:31 Yeah. AT: 41:33 Do you remember your reactions to learning about some of the conditions and MO: 41:40 Well um, just that, I' ; m very surprised that everybody went quietlly, that' ; s the only amazement that I have, you know, we didn' ; t have a riot or we didn' ; t. I don' ; t think my maybe most people did oppose it, but I didn' ; t experience it. So it was just ah, um just amazed that we all went quietly and of course we were given few only a few days to do that. So I' ; m surprised that we were all able to do that. Getting rid of our belongings and selling whatever you had. And so that' ; s all I can add. AT: 42:34 Brian, is there anything you want to say, or ask? BO: 42:41 At what point did they take grandpa? Was it at the very beginning? MO: 42:46 What? BO: 42:46 At what point did they take grandpa to Santa Fe? Was it at the very beginning? MO: 42:46 You know, I, I' ; m not sure. Maybe we were there together at Tule Lake and after that, uh, probably, uh, he left. I' ; m not quite sure when, when he left us. So. AT: 43:12 Was that something that you remember as a child? MO: 43:15 No, I don' ; t remember that. AT: 43:26 Thank you so much again for coming in and speaking with me. MO: 43:30 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=OzakiMary20170915.xml OzakiMary20170915.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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Ozaki, Mary (9/15/2017)
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2017-09-15
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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
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Takada, Anna
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Saka, Stephen
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5.4 7/27/2017 Saka, Stephen (7/27/2017) 0:38:23 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. Saka, Stephen Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/301983662 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/301983662?h=e9f28b5831" ; 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 So you were born in L.A. Um, can you explain or describe a little bit about what your experience was like growing up? Stephen Saka: 00:09 Well, growing up in Los Angeles, I remember I was 10 years old when Pearl Harbor happened. Uh, I remember we have to have all the shades down, you know, curfew. And of course we, uh, we had, uh, a radio. We always around the radio and listen to the news, what' ; s going on in the war. And, uh, things were really tough for my mother because my father and my mother separated. My dad was living at different area in Los Angeles and, uh, my mother had a job, uh, cleaning chicken, you know, menial job in, uh, we' ; re being supported by the Maryknoll Missionary, uh, Catholic Church there. They were giving us, uh, sacks of food and stuff. And the city of Los Angeles, we just go down there for our clothes. AT: 01:36 You have siblings? SS: 01:38 And my bro, yes, my brothers. I have four older brothers, three or three older brothers and one younger brother. And my sister, older sister, you know, my mother, there' ; s a six of us. And uh, uh, going to, uh, going to school, we went to Maryknoll at one time, and then my dad couldn' ; t afford it, so we ended up going to public school. And my, uh, uh, uh, we, we had no furniture or anything. You know, we had, uh, actually, uh, uh, uh, mat, one mattress in for all the boys would sleep on one mattress. That' ; s how bad it was, you know. In a way, when we went to, uh, Manzanar, we didn' ; t, we hadn' ; t, we had, hardly anything to take with us. Uh, so, in a way, um, my mother was kind of, glad that once she didn' ; t have to worry about us anymore, you know. We were all, in Manzanar, we all went to school there and, and uh, she had a job in the kitchen. And uh, and uh, my oldest brother was a senior in high school. I was in, at that time I was in the eighth grade. And I, yeah. AT: 03:30 Can you talk a little bit more about, um, your experience like when, um, or, uh, after Pearl Harbor and once the war started, how did, how did things change for you and your family? SS: 03:46 Well, only thing I can remember, I remember walking to school with my, a friend every day, you know, and and when that happened, he came out and says that my dad said I can' ; t go with you anymore. You know, things like that. But you' ; re young. It doesn' ; t, didn' ; t bother me, you know. But, uh. AT: 04:09 And um, in terms of the area you grew up in and the, the school you went to, was it pretty diverse in terms of? SS: 04:17 Yes. Yes, there was a, the area we went to, it was mostly, uh, it was, uh, uh, uh, 14th and San Pedro is a area of, it' ; s, it' ; s not there anymore. The Santa Ana freeway goes over that, but that area is, eh, is by the, 9th, 12th Market 9th Street Market there. It was, it was an upscale neighborhoods, you know, it' ; s pretty. AT: 04:55 Were there any other ways that, or anything else that changed? SS: 05:02 Oh, no, no, it' ; s, it' ; s, it was tough times. I remember, I remember the uh, the guys used to come around with the horse and buggy. They' ; d come round, with rags and stuff, you know. And uh, my, my brother, I go with him, we' ; d go to the fish market. He had uh, he had uh, got a job cleaning up there. He got in, come back with some fish, you know. It' ; s, it' ; s, uh, just things like that, I remember, you know what I mean? And I, of course, I remember going down on the train, you know? Yeah, yeah. AT: 05:57 Going to? SS: 05:58 To Manzanar. Yeah. We had to pull the shades down and all pile up in the train. I remember that. Uh, but then at that age, I' ; m just following, you know, my brothers, you know, just going. Yeah. And it' ; s, it' ; s, uh, for, uh, a person like at that age, uh, it just kind of a adventure. You know what I mean? It' ; s, once I got there, I met, I met, uh, uh, uh, had new friends, you know? Yeah. We, we had, we had clubs, our own clubs, group of people. And, uh, it' ; s, you know, um, um, uh, I' ; m eigth here I am in the eighth grade and, uh, first time, uh, uh, having all these friends, you know what I mean? And it was, it was for, uh, uh, someone my age. It was, uh, it was, it wasn' ; t a tough thing like the parents, a lot of these people that had lost so much, you know? That it was, for me, it was, it was a meeting new friends going to school and that kind of thing. Whereas if people have had lost businesses and homes and whatever you want, you know, so it was a complete different thing for our family, especially because we had nothing to begin with. AT: 07:46 How do you remember your, your mother through all of that? Could you sense any? SS: 07:54 Well, she was, my mother was a, she would, she had a hard time because my, first of all, my dad was tough on her, you know, and uh, this uh, when she got, we went to Manzanar she was, she had worked in the mess hall and she didn' ; t have to worry about anyone because we were, we went to school and we did our thing, you know, and before she had a hard time trying to figure out how to take care of us, you know, so cause the oldest was a senior in high school, you know, 41' ; , so six kids it' ; s a tough time. Anyway in our case, our family, I think the Interment camp helped, saved us in a way. I really think so know. I have one brother that of course, he' ; s passed away since, but he, he never felt that way. He always felt that he shouldn' ; t have been in there, you know, and uh [inaudible]. From camp, I remember he, he took off from a camp. He went on these trips out outside of camp for for, picking potatoes and sugar cane and that kind of stuff, you know, and it came back. But, uh, uh, in, uh, my oldest brother, he enlisted in the army, you know, from, from a, from there. So, uh. AT: 09:48 And what, what were or are your siblings' ; names? What are your siblings' ; names? SS: 09:57 My oldest brother' ; s name is Aki and my, uh, next little one, uh, Mark is, uh, he' ; s the one that, uh, uh, used to take off and go, you know, outside of camp work and, uh, uh, the mix mix, three of us were all, had Japanese name that were, we were baptized in the Catholic Church over there in Manzanar. And we all changed to have uh, our English um, English names and my brother above me, his name was Tim, Timothy. And my, I had my baptism named Stephen. And my younger brother, uh, had his name change to a Phil. So once we got to, uh, uh, after we left camp, you know, we went to uh, my sister who found some housing for us in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Uh, once we got there as she insisted that we use our English name over there. So that' ; s, I' ; ve been using that name ever since, you know. AT: 11:18 What was a , what was an average day, like in Camp. You went to school and uh? SS: 11:24 We, we had, uh, we had clubs, you know, certain groups, you know, guys that meet, meet and uh, uh, oh we do a lot of things. We played the ball, basket, baseball, football, all the sports. And uh, and uh, they had uh, they had dances. Girls, the first time I got a chance to meet a woman, girl, you know what I mean? And uh, uh, yeah, had uh, had a lot of fun actually, you know. Used to run around, and I had fun and I had the friends that I, I had for a long time and we used to have, uh, these reunions in Las Vegas and uh, I used to go there and a meet. But uh, most of them, passed away now, so I haven' ; t been going the last few years because there' ; s hardly anybody I know there. AT: 12:32 Were, they, they were friends that you grew up with in L.A.? SS: 12:35 No, these are, from AT: 12:37 From camp? SS: 12:37 Yeah, yeah. AT: 12:37 Did you know, anyone in camp that you knew from L.A.? SS: 12:43 From a camp yeah, I know a couple of people from the camp that I met, we used to see each other at the reunion, you know? Yeah. But no, I actually, I have a couple of close friends that, uh, actually, but I met them here in Chicago, you know that I physically California, but they' ; re all gone now. All my friends aren' ; t really, except a couple are still alive. Interviewer 2: 13:13 Have you been back to Manzanar? SS: 13:16 I' ; ve never been back to Manzanar. My one brother has been there. He says this, this, there is nothing there really. Just a monument or something. Yeah. Yeah. But they, I understand they still have pilgrimages that go there and they have a museum there or something like that. Uh, I remember this guy, one of my, uh, I can do, he said. I said, " ; Where' ; d you go?" ; Neighbor of mine. He said he went to California hiking. I said, " ; Where did you go?" ; He says, he went to Mount Williamson to hike. I says, " ; Oh, I did that when I was in camp." ; You know? Yeah. They used to at the end of are and by the third year before he did, they let us out the gates and one of the older guys took four or five of us. We went up in the mountains there. We hiked around there and yeah, the first time we went swimming and went there, they have these reservoirs, I guess big reservoirs up there for water for L.A. You know, I jumped in there. It was cold. I jumped in there swimming first time. But uh, yeah, I hiked in the mountains and there' ; s a, I remember. And every time I see that mountain right away I know it' ; s Manzanar, you know. INT 2: 14:40 What do you tell your customers about camp over the years? SS: 14:44 Well, for, for uh, for me it, our family, I think the whole family it was, yeah, it was great. My brother, first thing he did was when we went in that barracks, you know, they give you, allow you so many feet for each person. So, uh, first thing my brother did, they right away and he got some wood together to make chairs. They made a couple of, with chairs and a table, you know, and then somehow we got, uh, uh, uh, set of barbells, you know, the weights and we used to have that upfront. And all the guys, used they just come to our house, our barracks, they used to come and we have always a lot of people there. And then next thing you know, he set up, he set up a punching bag, you know there. And that' ; s the thing. Some guys come out, they always to come to our place to, you know, goof around, you know. So a lot of, a couples over there, they, they, they would build ponds, you know, or, or, or some guys would sit out there and the carvings and different things, you know. But um, I remember, I remember, and they we set up a horizontal bar, you know, front there too. They used to come around there, hang around. INT 2: 16:13 Did people have paid jobs? Did anybody have a paying job in the camps? SS: 16:18 Yeah. Oh, yeah, they say, in fact, I, I' ; ve worked, uh, putting tar on, on, on a roof, you know, and they paid like $3 or something like that, you know, $3 a day. And then my brother worked in the camouflage, make camouflage knits, you know, for the, for the army. He did that for awhile. And um, people who worked and my brother, one of my brother, he worked on the farm, you know, they grew their own vegetables and stuff. He worked out there for awhile and they get paid like $3 or something like that. INT 2: 17:00 So the camp gave your family a second chance? SS: 17:04 Uh, yeah. Well, gave us, gave us a, oh yeah. Because uh, no question. Yeah, yeah. Our case, uh, uh, I don' ; t know what would happen if a stayed like we were before because there' ; s still 40 months, you know, still was a Depression. The, you know, still it' ; s saying it' ; s tough. It' ; s tough times then. INT 2: 17:38 But is it hard? You had a personal good experience, but I, I, it sounds like you under, you know, you feel like, like your brother says that it wasn' ; t a good, you know, is it hard to reconcile those two things? SS: 17:51 Oh well. Yeah. I dunno why he, he felt my poor brother felt like he never should' ; ve been put in there, that kind of thing, you know? I didn' ; t feel that way, you know. I didn' ; t feel that way. I felt once I was in there. I just live my life the way, you know, like any 12, 13 year old person would, you know. AT: 18:25 Did your family talk about it with one another? Like I um, either in camp or afterward because it sounds like, you know how your brother felt. SS: 18:37 Well, my other brother, they, my younger brother, he, he doesn' ; t remember much as I do, you know, because he was young. But even the one above me says, uh, you know, we got lucky in a way, you know, we got lucky in a way, because we didn' ; t have anything to begin with and we lived there. We, you know, you got an education and made friends. Yeah. It was a good experience. Other Interview: 19:08 How about the barb wire and guns? SS: 19:11 Well, you can see that, you know, in fact that one photo out there are three boys with the barb wire, the center, Isa Shisa, he was my classmate, so I know him, but uh, uh, I never went close to the barb wire and stuff, you know, that only was there and the centuries, you know, we' ; re only there for a short, short time, you know, they weren' ; t there after awhile, you know. INT 2: 19:46 How' ; d your mom do, how did your mom and dad do after the war? SS: 19:51 Well, uh, uh, my mom, uh, we would, Ann Arbor there. She got a job in a hospital. My dad, he went into a different, internment camp, you know, he because he was at a different entrance and uh, it just so happened that my mom passed away. My brother and we all got together in Ann Arbor in May. My, uh, oldest brother said, I wonder where dad is, you know? And I, yeah, and my other brother says he came to Chicago one time and he seen my dad and he says, he looked up his phone name and a phonebook and saw him and went to visit him and he says, " ; Oh yeah, he says, they never say anything because my dad says, don' ; t tell anybody," ; you know. He didn' ; t want anything to do with the family anymore because he felt he never, he didn' ; t raise the family know. So, uh, my oldest brother says that since I live here in Chicago, I should, try to look him, look him up, which I did. I went to all the different, uh, organization places and uh, told them about my story about my dad. And, um, finally I went to the social security place and they said, yes, he' ; s alive, but he won' ; t give me his address because of invasion of privacy. And so I said, " ; Oh, good." ; You know. So anyway, I worked at this, I did some volunteer work at a senior home, Hayworth Terrace. And um, uh, I went there because the head of the one of the girl woman who worked there was one of my first client as and she asked me to come and help. So I went there and I helped open up the place when that first place, when it first opened up that place. And uh, one day, uh, this guy from they call, Mutual Aid Society, Japanese Mutual Aid Society. He came there and he told us morning at, uh, this is the kind of work I got to do. He said, I got to use a copy machine borrow your copy machine. And I got a write to this, girl, because uh, this his uncle passed away. Yeah. You know? And, and I find all of these letters of this woman in Japan. And so I' ; m going to write to her, I' ; m writing to her to try it out. What to do with his ashes. Yes. Cause he' ; s been cremated and this woman up there, says that letter, that might be Steve' ; s father, you know. So it just so happened that she asked them about that letter and he said, uh, well, uh, contact, contact me and find out if, uh, if, uh, it is. And sure enough, I met him, uh, the next day and he brought all these papers and my dad' ; s stuff and had all the names, my brother' ; s name, my brother' ; s name and everything in there. So they had, uh, I' ; ve had him cremated already. So we had a service for him. Uh, I had to notify everyone and we had, so that was it. INT 2: 23:53 When was the last time you saw your dad? SS: 24:00 Well, uh, before the war. So, uh, uh. OI: 24:17 Do you want some water? SS: 24:17 No, I' ; m fine. INT 2: 24:20 Steve, what camp, what camp did he go to? SS: 24:22 Yeah, my dad went to a Poston, Poston. He came here, I read everything, all his things he had together, I read it all and he came here and 19, 1913, uh, he, uh, he, I ended up in Boston, Massachusetts on a U.S. Coast Guard ship. He wrote a letter to the government saying, please send my discharge papers to be hours in the coast guard from 1913 to 1914, something like that. Yeah. So he must' ; ve got some hot, got letter, came here on a coast. Gosh, I don' ; t know how he got on, but he ended up in Boston and sure enough, they, they send them discharge paper. And yet he was never a citizen, uh, in Japan. AT: 25:24 Where were your parents from? SS: 25:26 My dad was from a town called Kushimoto. It' ; s in the southern tip of just from Osaka, straight down in a small town. And, uh, the woman at the Haywood Terrace, you know, where I work, she said that since you found the ashes, they have the ashes and he wanted to go back to Japan, you should take the ashes back there, you know. So, and she says, my daughter has a place in the Tokyo and if you' ; re ever wanting to come there. So I said, okay. So I made a reservation to go there. And, uh, I wrote to my, uh, cousin and told him, I sent a picture of myself and I told her I' ; m coming in and I never got a return until my, it was time for me to leave. And I couldn' ; t leave with the ashes because, uh, his, his name was misspelled on there. His name was Kumizo and the i was missing, it was just Kumzo. And they, the, the Consulate General here, wouldn' ; t let me take the ashes back because you know, everything has to be so. And I, unless I had it corrected, but I was time for me to leave. So when I started to, my daughter was taking me to the airport, we looked at the mail and here it was a letter from my cousin and I opened it up is, it' ; s all in Japanese, you know, so I couldn' ; t read it. So when I got to Japan, uh, uh, people, uh, read the letter and said, please don' ; t come because you know, you can' ; t speak Japanese, I can' ; t speak English, we' ; re going to have a hard time. And so we call this friend of the people, they called her and they speak Japanese and she was very happy that somebody could speak Japanese, you know. So it we made arrangements and as we went there and I visited my cousin and we sat there and the second cousin and my interpreter there, the person that went with me and introduced me to a 95 year old man at that time that knew my grandfather and knew my dad real well. Yeah. Said they, uh, my grandfather used to own all this land up here and he lost most of it because people won' ; t pay back the money, you know, whatever. But he said he remembered, he remembered my dad going to America, he says that was like, at that time he says like the new world, you know. And then I told him that he came back five years after that. He says, Oh yeah, he says, I remember he came back, he says he, then the second time he came back via Seattle and he worked his way down to Sacramento and he met my mother in Sacramento, he had a seven children involved there, you know, during the Depression and everything. And my, uh, uh, uh, cousin would write down, like they would write down all my dad' ; s brothers and he had one sister and where they are now in any way up in a family tree. You know, what kind of, uh, where I, where I fit in my, my mother and my, where I fit in and, and my brother and my brother, one brother in Detroit, he, he married, he married a girl from, he married a girl from Detroit there. And, and their, their son first son doesn' ; t even look, married, he married a German girl. Because when he went there from Ann Arbor, well, we came to Ann Arbor, not many Asians there, you know, so my brother ended up marrying a German girl, German French I guess. But anyway, the first son, uh, married, uh ended up marrying a girl from Kentucky or someplace and they have two daughters, one blonde hair, kind of green eyes and with a Japanese last name, you know, and, and the mother, when I brought this bag, you know, the header all written down, all the family and she was looked at, she said at least they know where they came from now. You know what I mean? So there was a good trip for me. AT: 30:41 Was that your first time in Japan? SS: 30:45 Uh, yes. It was the first time in Japan. AT: 30:50 And what year was that? SS: 30:50 I think that was in 88' ; , 1988. INT 2: 30:54 That seems amazing to me that you, your dad who had never really seen for so long, you just, he felt there was a responsibility of taking him back, tell us why. SS: 31:05 Uh, he would, he had, uh, he was very tough on our family. You know, I remember one time when he, uh, uh, Yew years when we had the, he' ; d bring over, he, uh, uh, mochi, Japanese, you know, for New Year' ; s time, he put it on the table and we had like a dining room table with two benches like that and table, it' ; s like a plywood and put it up there. And all of a sudden, for some reason or another, this one brother of mine, he got to arguing with him and he couldn' ; t, he couldn' ; t, he couldn' ; t get them. So they run around the table like this. And my dad, I' ; ll never forget, he got on the table, he stepped on that mochi. He didn' ; t care. He stepped on the mochi, he jumped and grabbed my broth, my brother, and he punched him real bad. [inaudible] And, uh, ever since then he' ; d always said if I ever seen him, I' ; d kill him. You know, that' ; s the way he talked about. And, uh, uh, anyway, at this service we had when he passed away, all my friends from this as a what and in, uh, they had a Buddhist ceremony there and Reverend Kubose, at the time, says to me, he asked me different things about my dad. I told him the story about him coming in and everything. So anyway, at the eulogy, he spoke in Japanese for a long time and then he spoke in English. He says, how my dad grew up in the Depression time, seven children, one dies and in the back, all born from the 20s and the oldest one born in the youngest one, born in 1933. And here it is where all the hardships and the prejudice and the hard time he had to go through and on and on. And, and my brother next to me, he' ; s the only one that showed up. The one that got beat up. He, he was, he was, the tears are coming out of his eyes, you know, and, and, uh,. INT 2: 33:29 What do you think your father' ; s problem was. SS: 33:30 Yeah INT 2: 33:30 Was it just the Depression? I mean, did he have other problems or was it just a very hard life? SS: 33:35 Yes. That' ; s why they had had a tough time too, you know, he tried to help out, help out. Yeah. Frustrating time. He had just, he was never around, you know. But anyway, after we was, it was over at my brother, he moved to me to sees this, he' ; s glad that he came, you know, he felt better about everything. And um, that, uh, going to an at and his ashes were never taken to a Japan. And so I ended up, uh, one time going to a botanical gardens one, one evening, a buddy and I took it there and I, uh, I guess you' ; re not supposed to go there at all, but they have what they call Spirit Island. And I roll up my pant leg and I walked across, there' ; s no bridge there, you know, you go there to walk into that walk all the way on top of the tree up there, you know, and then just put the ashes there, cause I didn' ; t know where to take them. So every time I go to botanical garden, I see him there. INT 2: 34:52 Do you feel very Japanese? SS: 34:54 Uh, no I don' ; t, but, uh, uh, uh, I feel Japanese, but not real Japanese [inaudible] you know. I' ; m not, I know a friend of mine, he' ; s a, he' ; s in Alphawood, uh, when he was younger, he went to, he went to Japan and, uh, he, uh, uh, was educated there when the war, broke out there, you know, and he, he could remember the bombs and everything, but he came back to the States he was, he was born here. He came back here and he was, he, he was in the service there and everything. And we played golf together and everything. But he' ; s, he' ; s real Japanese, you know, he' ; s, uh, everything is Japanese. INT 2: 35:48 And you feel real American? SS: 35:51 I do. Oh yeah, no question. I mean, I felt at one time, uh, uh, I remember going with my friends to a baseball game and, and uh, uh, Michigan went to, we snuck into a baseball game and they chased me and I remember the guy saying, get that Jap, you know, and I says, I thought I was Irish, you know, hey, you know, all my friends are I' ; m just, I' ; m just, the only Japanese there. But, uh, uh, that' ; s the way I felt. I felt growing up all Irish and German guys, you know what I mean? AT: 36:43 So Steve, uh, I just want to keep track of time before we wrap up. Is there anything that you' ; d like to, to add? Is there' ; s something that we might' ; ve missed? SS: 36:58 No, I don' ; t think my, my story' ; s a different or anything, you know, it just that when you say different, it' ; s that, yeah, uh, uh, we did have a hard time, like most people and most people take, they see all these, what' ; s happening in camp. These poor people, you know what you' ; re really saying. But, uh, yeah, our case, I have to say my case anyway, you know, we had friends there. I got an education there. Yeah. Worked out for us. INT 2: 37:38 When you see, when you read the book and you now come into the exhibit and you see all this interests now that people have, is that changing your thoughts about those years at all? SS: 37:50 Uh, no. Not really. There' ; s a great photographs. Dorothea Lange stuff more so than Ansel Adams, you know. Dorothea Lange is more, there' ; s more human stuff in there. She' ; s terrific. AT: 38:14 Well, thank you so much for, for taking the time to record with us. 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=SakaStephen20170727.xml SakaStephen20170727.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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Saka, Stephen (7/27/2017)
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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.
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
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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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Creator
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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
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Takada, Anna
Interviewee
The person(s) being interviewed
Seeder, Sharon
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/29/2017 Seeder, Sharon (9/29/2017) 1:02:04 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. Seeder, Sharon Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/303131057 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/303131057?h=9606e43f2f" ; 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: 00:00:01 Okay, so this is an interview with Sharon Seeder 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 From Me: Incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII and the Demise of Civil Liberties. Today is September 29 and, uh, we' ; re recording at about 11:15 AM, uh, at the Alphawood Gallery Oral History Studio. Sharon is being interviewed by Anna Takada of Alphawood Gallery. Um, so if we could just start, um, would you mind just stating your, your name? Sharon Seeder: 00:00:45 Yeah, my name is Sharon Seeder, but my name was Sharon Shingu and I was born and raised in Chicago right after the war as one of the postwar babies. And my parents were born in California and after the war they migrated to this area because of jobs and a lot of family also migrated with them. AT: 00:01:14 Where were they from in California? SS: 00:01:15 Los Angeles area. Although, my family owned a little diner in Wilmington, California, which was like a seaport. And I know currently cruise ships often dock at that place, so they cooked um, for, you know, dockworkers and any kind of, um, laborers, sometimes sailors. I know that some of my aunts dated sailors that came in. And it was all, uh, American food, no Japanese food. And matter of fact, Kelly and I were just talking because, uh, my mom did not know how to cook Japanese food. And one of my land lady who' ; s also Japanese American, her mom didn' ; t know how to cook Japanese food. And it' ; s because, you know, they were just taught you need to be American, so you needed to cook American food. They literally had to learn how to cook Japanese food, food through cookbooks and from friends who worked in restaurants and, but they did not know how to, and, and I had to learn from my mom, which was interesting, because she did everything by taste. So that was, that was challenging. AT: 00:02:31 And um, so what do you know about, or how much do you know about your grandparents, when they came to the States? SS: 00:02:40 Well, my grandmother was born in California, so she was pretty Americanized. She rarely spoke any kind of Japanese. And my mom doesn' ; t really know how to speak Japanese, so there might be some words here and there that were scattered. But basically my grandmother was totally American. My great grandparents came from Japan and I don' ; t really know too much about them. I know that they lived with my grandmother in Chicago and my grandfather, um, he liked to raise parakeets and he, we actually had a little koi pond in, in the middle of the city. We had this concrete koi pond, so he kept a lot of, um, uh, things that were familiar and he enjoyed, but really there weren' ; t a lot of, um, things that were very Japanesey, I guess. I don' ; t know too much about my great grandmother because, um, she, she was a little on the mean side, so we didn' ; t talk to her too much. So we mostly hung around. My, my, a great grandfather and my grandmother. They, um, my grandmother really didn' ; t cook Japanese food either except on New Year' ; s Day. Then that still is a tradition where we have, uh, a feast of, you know, sushi and, um, different kinds of dishes. But my grandmother was far more elaborate than my mother. I mean, we, she' ; d cook octopus and other to me, very exotic foods and, and we would, uh, feast on that for New Year' ; s Day. And of course, ozoni soup and I taught my children how to make ozoni soup. So that' ; s, uh, the good luck soup with mochi and spinach and so on. AT: 00:04:43 As long as you' ; re careful not to choke on. SS: 00:04:43 As long as you don' ; t choke on. Uh, yes, as long as you take small bites. AT: 00:04:51 And what about your, your grandfather' ; s parents, did they? SS: 00:04:54 You know, um, my, my grandparents on my dad' ; s side, they, my grandmother stayed in California and the Pasadena Alhambra area with my, uh, with my dad' ; s sisters and his one brother. Uh, my grandfather actually was a Japanese soldier and he stayed in Japan. So he never, I never met him. I' ; ve only seen pictures of him in a uniform. So I, I knew nothing of him. So my dad' ; s side, we' ; d see my Oba chan a couple times a year. Sometimes we' ; d make trips, car trips out to California, and to spend time with, um, my dad' ; s side of the family. And again, they' ; re, they' ; re outside of like having maybe Japanese dishes and a couple of things here and there. It was just very American. Um, the one thing that was interesting, I remember from very early on is that they were not allowed to, even after the war to own property. And so there was some point in time in California when they actually allowed Japanese Americans to own property. And so that was a big deal. Uh, they bought a house and my, um, families bought a hous, houses in Alhambra and Pasadena, but I always thought that was kind of, you know, something I remembered and I' ; m like, why can' ; t you buy a house? Um AT: 00:06:30 Do you know where, how your parents met and when they got married? SS: 00:06:37 They met in Chicago. They, uh, uh, my mom, you know, I guess there was, you know, Japanese communities that hung out in the, in, in Chicago and they met, uh, I' ; m not quite sure how, all you know is I associate bowling with them. I remember that they used to have bowling leagues and I think that' ; s how they met, but I' ; m not quite sure. And then, um, oh, while we were growing up, there was a big Club Wai, Club Waikiki that was off of the Lake Shore Drive and Wilson and Lawrence area. It sorta stood out by, by itself around the Weiss Memorial area right now. And although it' ; s, it was supposed to be like catering to a Hawaiians, a lot of Japanese Americans of course hung out there and my dad was a bartender there. When my, after my mom had me then she used to make paper leis and a different things at, at the bar. But it was very exotic. We used to go there once in awhile, I' ; ll watch my dad work and then there was a radio show that was hosted out of, um, of Club Waikiki. So that, those are some of my memories, but I don' ; t know how they actually met and AT: 00:08:01 Do you know what the radio show was called? SS: 00:08:03 No, it was a local radio show. Uh, I probably could dig up some things on it. I know that, uh, on the web, somebody had collected pictures of napkins and then there were hula dancers and there was, um, there was, uh, an exotic male dancer who used to throw spears and stuff in the air and, and, uh, we get pictures taken when we were kids, pictures taken with them. So I, I did find some, not pictures with us, pictures of them on, on the web. Uh, so that' ; s, you know, then my dad opened up his own bar. It was called Ken' ; s Lounge and it was on Broadway, kind of in the, uh, Uptown area now. And there was a little Japanese diner that was next door. So he decorated the place, there were booths set, had large pillows where you could sit down at as well as a regular bar. And so he used to bring in Japanese food from the, the place next door. And that was, I thought, I always thought that was kind of, you know, cool and different. Uh, so he, he had that bar for a while and then, uh, my parents split up. So my mom though, when she first came to Chicago, she was working for a publishing house called McClurg' ; s and I guess they hired a lot of Japanese Americans and she had various jobs. But that' ; s the one I remember the most her talking about. I think there they published like Spiegel catalogs and think things that of course didn' ; t, don' ; t exist anymore. And uh, my grandmother worked for a manufacturing company called Seng, s e n, g and so did my aunts. Uh, and they were very good to us cause I remember the company had big Christmas parties and we used to go to those Christmas parties. So I didn' ; t know any difference between Caucasian and Japanese American or, or whatever at that time. I just remember having a good time cause we all used to go to those Christmas parties and they would have picnics. So that company, I don' ; t know how long they stayed in business, but they were obviously very good to Japanese Americans. Um AT: 00:10:30 Um, before we get a little bit more into kind of life in Chicago with your family, can you tell me a little bit more about, um, where, uh, your parents' ; families were during the War? And um, what happened when the Evacuation Orders went out? So before, just life, pre-Chicago? Kelly: 00:10:54 You can talk about MIS. SS: 00:11:01 So my second father who my mom married and he adopted us, which I consider my, my dad during most of my years. He was in, um, Awahoo and he was there as a teenager. Of course when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Um, I remember my aunts telling stories about them getting upset because my dad and his brothers actually flocked to that side. I, I guess they drove or whatever so they could see what was going on. It was very exciting to them as teenagers. Of course, very dangerous where everybody uh. And then he joined the services, and was in the Air Force for awhile. Um, he got into trouble because he went AWOL to visit a girlfriend. And somehow or another he got placed into the military intelligence service, MIS and, um, posthumously use, uh, awarded the Congressional Medal of honor for his, his work. He didn' ; t talk about it too much, but I know he did a lot of translations and things, things like that. My first dad, my, my biological dad, he was in the 442. He was, um, his family, I don' ; t know what camp they were relocated to, but my dad joined the service I know pretty quickly along with many of my uncles. AT: 00:12:34 So he must have been around 18 at the time? SS: 00:12:36 Yeah, he was, he was actually a couple of years younger than my mom. So my mom was born in ' ; 25 and he was born in ' ; 27. So he, so, yes. And he, uh, he remembers in, during the service, but my dad' ; s family didn' ; t talk about the camps that much. It was my mom' ; s family. My Dad' ; s family stayed in, the two dads, they stayed in Hawai' ; i, in California, and my mom' ; s family all migrated to Chicago. Uh, my mom talked a lot about California and her working in the diner quite a bit. I think it was just kind of, uh, you know, it was a difficult life. She didn' ; t complain about it, but I know that they had to do a lot of washing and catering to customers. And I remember her actually having an accident where she fell into a vat of boiling water that they were, um, and she was okay, but you know, there are lots of, probably non OSHA stuff, that happened at the time. Uh, she went to a primarily Caucasian high school and I remember my aunts dating a lot of, um, Caucasian guys. My mom, she didn' ; t talk about dating any of them, but I know she, in her high school yearbook, there are several girlfriends that were not Japanese. And then when she got into Camp, you know, that' ; s, um, when she sorta went boy crazy and dated. And then, uh, you know, both of my dads are Japanese. And I know that that was important to her because my, um, the father and my, and my children is Caucasian and that my parents did not like that at all. They did not want me to marry anybody, but another Japanese, Japanese American. They didn' ; t even wanted me to marry any other Asian, uh, uh, nationalities. They had their own line of prejudices. AT: 00:14:57 Did you have, um, did, were there conversations about that or did they express why or was it just SS: 00:15:05 They were there probably little nasty conversations of different, um, you know, different things with trust and other very weird things that were in their brains and they really, yeah, they, they really gave my first husband a hard time um AT: 00:15:27 And um, your, your parents, um, well, first I want to ask about your, your mom' ; s, I wanna know more about the, the diner, um, because I feel like in our conversation with her, it was brought up for a second, um. But did she talk about it a lot? Like, do you know a bit about the family' ; s business? SS: 00:15:55 Yeah, not too much. It was just basically a diner. They served American food. It was obviously in a, not fancy because they catered a lot to dock workers, and you know, basically laborers and they lost that business. I don' ; t recall. And my mother doesn' ; t either, whether they sold it or they just had to give it up. Kelly: 00:16:28 Auntie said they gave it up. SS: 00:16:28 Yeah. So apparently they just had to give it up. And then, uh, I just remember they didn' ; t really have a house cause my mom talked about sleeping with your sisters, don' ; t backroom of the diner. So it wasn' ; t a large place that they spent time, time there. And my mom never really talked about having a house or an apartment. She talked about sleeping at the diner. So I don' ; t know the living arrangements or you know, if my grandmother and grandparents slept there or not. But I know that the girls slept there. They uh, yeah, they really didn' ; t talk too much about it. And I know, all I know is that they cooked American food. And my mom also knew how to cook some Spanish food. I mean we were probably the first kids in Chicago that knew what Tacos were like. So we used to have tacos and enchiladas and, and they were all homemade Kelly: 00:17:36 Tamales SS: 00:17:36 Tamales, yeah, all homemade. Um, so, you know, my, my, my aunts and grandmother would get things from scratch and then make their own tortillas and tamales. And uh, my mom made the most delicious tacos. And so they knew how to make things like that. So they must' ; ve been some Hispanic workers also, that they, uh, that they knew. AT: 00:18:05 And then, um, as far as like your family' ; s war time experiences, was that something that your parents were open about with you or how did you learn about, their experiences? SS: 00:18:20 No, I, I learned, on some in bits and pieces when things would come up. But my dad, my second dad who I, you know, basically who raised me, wouldn' ; t let my mother speak about the war. I mean, he basically flat out told her to shut up. I, there are a couple reasons. This, my dad' ; s family in Hawai' ; i, they were wealthy. So when my dad married my mom, they considered low marrying below his class, even though my dad was like the black sheep of the family. Um, my other two uncles are doctors and my dad, you know, never got a college degree. So he felt embarrassed by some of the those war stories also. And he just would not let her talk about it. So we could only get bits and pieces from like my, my one aunt, my Auntie Masa, not even my grandmother talked about it that much. Um, it' ; s kinda like, you know, they just sort of put it behind them. But my Auntie Masa had a scrapbook and she used to keep like ration cards and things like that and apparently it was lost. Uh, after she passed away, one of her caregivers got rid of it, unfortunately. So a lot of things like that. But I remember going to her house and kind of sneaking and looking around it at some of the stuff. They talk about rationing, you know, rationing sugar and um, flour and items like that. And I think that impacted us because one, my grandmother, my, my grandmother got hit by the Depression and second, the war. So it kind of fostered this hoarding mentality, you know, getting a little packs sugar or jam or whatever and stuffing pockets with at restaurants and making. Actually I' ; m laughing cause my, my daughter Kelly was trying to learn how to make sweet and sour sauce and my mom and you know, as you' ; re writing different things down and when it came to like part of the recipe my grand, my mom was saying, well you need so many packs of apricot jelly, because she was Kelly: 00:20:48 It was two servings of apricot jelly. And I said, what' ; s a serving? And it was the packets and I said, " ; That' ; s not a serving that' ; s you stealing." ; SS: 00:20:57 So I just remember, uh, you know a lot of that, oh we need to, we need to save this, we need to collect this, we need to to, I remember being at a restaurant and my mom would, we were in the lobby of the restaurant and my mom just stuffing fruit like apples and oranges in everybody' ; s pocket to take home. Kelly: 00:21:23 The public baths, that always horrified me. SS: 00:21:25 Oh yeah. That' ; s the, so apparently in camp also, they, they have public facilities and they were rationing water for bathtubs. So you would take a bath and then your sister would take a bath or your family member. So you take a bath in the same water. And when we were growing up and we did the same thing, it was, we didn' ; t know as kids, but when you talk about now it' ; s, it' ; s kind of disgusting. This thing sat we, we did because you know, a lot of soap and grind would be we were kids, we played in the dirt. We really didn' ; t have grass when we were growing up. So we played in the dirt a lot and then you kind of like just skim all the dirt off the top and the next person would take her bath. And that' ; s how she grew up in the, you know, that' ; s what happened with camps. So she didn' ; t talk about a lot, but there were, there were behaviors that lead you to um, excuse me. That led you to under, understand some of what happened. And the hoarding too, the hoarding and looking for bargains. I mean, we used to, I was in my mom' ; s basement a few years ago because there was tinsel that she used to save off of Christmas trees. So after we took down our tree, I was saving all the tinsel and she said, put it in the basement against this wall. Well, there was, I don' ; t know, maybe about three, four dozen packets, of unopen tinsel, but still she wanted it. So she collected it because she was afraid she wouldn' ; t have it. And then she also wanted to save the tinsel. So some of that I, I' ; m pretty sure it happened because of the war. Um AT: 00:23:32 And do you know what year her family came to Chicago? SS: 00:23:38 Uh, I know I was born in ' ; 49. They got married in February ' ; 49 and I was in November ' ; 49. So I know around that, I think it was right after the war. AT: 00:23:56 And, um, how about your dad' ; s, your biological father? SS: 00:24:00 Same. Well, he came, my, his, the rest of his family stayed in California, he was the only one who came here. He had, um, a brother and two sisters and they stayed in California. And he' ; s the only one who came here. AT: 00:24:14 And what kind of work he was doing? SS: 00:24:17 He was doing bartending, uh at. And then he was doing odd jobs too. I remember seeing pictures of him selling, you know, like Venetian blinds. And so there he was doing odd jobs to supplement, um, the bartending. But, uh, he didn' ; t really have any steady profession. I think when he moved out to he moved back out to California, he was still bartending. Kelly: 00:24:47 [inaudible] SS: 00:24:47 And then my, yeah, my second dad, he was a cab driver. Uh, he almost finished college with an accounting degree. So he, uh, he got, he became friendly with people at the American Cab Company, and I don' ; t know that exists anymore, but it was an independent cab company owned by Italians, Italian Americans. So he became their bookkeeper, uh, after, you know, he decided not to try the cab anymore. Uh, and he became pretty close to, you know, that organization. AT: 00:25:29 And um, do you know what your, uh, your, your parents met your second time? SS: 00:25:37 Okay. Well they met because my dad' ; s were best friends and it was around the time when my, my parents are splitting and he was splitting with his first wife. I think that was around when I was um, about eight or nine. And I know they got married in ' ; 50, ' ; 59, but they, I think they started dating in ' ; 58 cause I know that they sort of waited a little while. They said they waited a year or so, around ' ; 57, ' ; 58. I think they was when the spl, their divorces were there, it was like at the same time they were getting divorces. AT: 00:26:21 So, um, any, um, when, when your parents came to Chicago, um, what neighborhoods were they settling in? SS: 00:26:42 They were in the Lincoln Park area, because a lot of the streets now that are very trendy like Hampton Court and Burling and Orchard, they were all in that area. We lived in a coup, on a couple of those streets. But we ended up on Vine Street, which was on North Avenue on Larrabee. And there were two, two flats that were back to back. They were not Burke, they were wood and they were connected by a porch. So we lived on the for front top. My grandmother and grandfather and my aunt lived on the bottom. And then my, my, my aunt and her husband lived on the top back and my mom' ; s sister and her family lived on the bottom half. So we were all like one big nuclear family. And I said nuclear, nuclear, nuclear family that were, you know, all connected. Now, what had happened was the first mayor Daley was coming through with this urban renewal program and he basically tore down that whole street. My aunt was the last to leave. She was literally, it was the only house left and she was forced out of there. They gave her $10,000 for that property. So yeah, she did not want to leave, that' ; s Auntie Masa. Kelly: 00:28:06 Sounds like it SS: 00:28:06 Yeah. Uh, so that whole street is gone now. AT: 00:28:12 And do you have siblings? SS: 00:28:14 I have a sister and two brothers and my sister lives in the, the city. And my youngest brother lives in the city and my other brother lives in Woodstock. So they, and they' ; ve stayed in the city? They have not moved anywhere else. AT: 00:28:29 And uh, everyone was born here. SS: 00:28:32 Yes. Everyone was born here. AT: 00:28:34 And um, so then most of your childhood was that spent in Lincoln Park then? SS: 00:28:42 Yes. Yeah, they had a, I went to Waller High School, which was now Lincoln Park High School. At the time, it wasn' ; t such a great high school. We had probably a lot of civil rights violations cause we would have locker checks and pat downs and one of the teachers was actually knifed in the gymnasium. So it was, um, it was a mixed neighborhood. There were, and I think a lot of people, immigrants after the Second World War, cause there were Germans, there were Italians, there were what do you call it? Gypsies, I guess their Serbians or Croatians now. Um Polish. So it was a very few, uh, African-Americans. Primarily Catholic, all going to Saint Michael' ; s School, uh, School. Um, and that School but Church. And then there was Catechism on like once, Tuesday, Wednesday afternoons. It was just me and this little African American girl that were left in the and in school cause everybody else was off on Catechism. So it was primarily Caucasian. Again, but mostly immigrants. And uh, um, of course that neighborhood' ; s changed quite a bit now. Kelly: 00:30:01 That' ; s not where you graduated from. SS: 00:30:01 I graduated from Amundson because Waller allowed started to allow what they call it, permissive transfer programs. So if you had an IQ and grades of a certain, you were allowed to transfer. So my parents chose Amundsen for me and I took two buses to get there and my sister chose Senn for my sister, so my sister took buses to get there. Um, my brothers went to Lane Tech. AT: 00:30:28 At that time, was it still all boys? SS: 00:30:31 Yes, at the time it was still all boys. Yeah. AT: 00:30:34 And, um, was your family religious at all? SS: 00:30:39 No. No. Uh, I think I' ; m the, well, my brother in Woodstock, I believe his wife took the kids to church, but I think I' ; m the, the only one who, no, actually went to church and took the kids to church and stuff. AT: 00:30:57 And, and so growing up you all were in affiliated with any church. SS: 00:31:02 No, no. AT: 00:31:03 Um, and given that, um, Lincoln Park at that time, was so diverse and lots of different people, did you ever experience any kind of discrimination growing up? SS: 00:31:22 I, I didn' ; t feel it so much or I think I maybe I just got used to it. I mean there' ; s typical thing of being called a Jap and things like that, but I didn' ; t feel it from my, from the kids. I know that, um, I was, I was telling my daughter that the discrimination was mostly outside of, uh, the neighborhood. Like when we would take trips to go to California to see my mom' ; s family or my dad' ; s family, um, I remember my dad always sending my mom into the motel cause there were car trips to end, there' ; d be vacancy signs and we' ; d get all excited and then in my mom would come out and there' ; d be no vacancy. And so we kind of figured what that was about. And then when we did stay at a place, my mom was very meticulous about cleaning up the room and making the beds because she said, I don' ; t want any, any other Japanese Americans to be rejected because we left a mess. So on our trips we used always clean their rooms after we were, you know, we, we got up so that we wouldn' ; t leave bad impressions. So, um, so I felt more discrimination as I got older, you know, and it became so commonplace that I' ; d often point out to my friends, I said, you don' ; t even know. You don' ; t even realize it' ; s happening. And I' ; d say, see there, there you go again. And at at work I did because they just assume that if you' ; re Asian, you' ; re going to be docile and compliant. And I' ; m, I soft spoken and I was even more so when I was younger. So they just figured, you know, I was not management material, although I did quite well in my career and, and had mostly management jobs. So, um, a lot of that I had to overcome because my mom always said, you need to be humble. You' ; re not that good. There' ; s always somebody better than you, you know, keep quiet, keep, you know, don' ; t talk. Um, so something that I tried to do with my girls is I wanted them to not be like me and to speak up and to state your opinion. And I think they have, I think they' ; re, I think they have, my oldest daughter is big into animal rights and consumer stuff. And I remember as a teenager she would write to like Proctor and Gamble saying you shouldn' ; t be testing on animals. And then my youngest daughter is very extroverted and she' ; s very diplomatically states her opinion. Kelly: 00:34:23 That' ; s a very diplomatic way of putting it mom. SS: 00:34:23 No you do. I' ; ve seen you at work and, and Kelly: 00:34:38 My mom and I, her last job of her career before she retired, we worked to the same place. SS: 00:34:44 So, you know, I was very proud of her and it wasn' ; t, cause I was a mom is because she' ; s just great to work with. Um, so I don' ; t know if I answered your question or not. I kind of rambled there for a little while. AT: 00:34:59 No, no, but it' ; s all good stuff. Um, one thing I wanted to, I wanted to backtrack a little bit. Um, because um, you seem to know a bit about your parents' ; experiences in Chicago when you first came. And is that just everything that you' ; ve learned from like family stories? SS: 00:35:30 Yeah, family stories. Cause I, I, my parents really weren' ; t talkers that much. They didn' ; t like to talk about themselves. And same with the rest of my family. Not very loud or boisterous, definitely in a fun loving but really not. Oh, Kelly' ; s laughing. Kelly: 00:35:53 I never heard that word used to describe our family. SS: 00:35:56 Well, not my mom so much. My mom was pretty strict, but my grandmother was a lot of fun. My Auntie Masa was a lot of fun. Um, and my um, biological dad was actually very sociable and fun to be around. But so my, my second year was quiet and although my mom would talk whenever you, you know, you' ; d ask her questions and she' ; s very friendly and very engaging on the personal side. They didn' ; t want to have a lot of friends. We were not allowed to bring people over. Um, they' ; re very suspicious of other people, um, gossipy. And so there neither one of them. They had certain close friends but not a community of friends even though, you know, we had a large family outside of the family and outside of a few close friends and Kelly: 00:37:00 That grammy can' ; t go anywhere without running into someone. SS: 00:37:04 She knows a lot of people cause she' ; s friendly and she will, you know, talkative and stuff but behind their backs not so um, not so. Kelly: 00:37:18 The first time when chichan ever talked about the war is when Aaron asked him. SS: 00:37:22 Yeah, my dad didn' ; t really talk about it. And I was sort of surprised that it was uh, of course late in life after Kelly got married that he talked a bit about it. But if we asked him questions, no he wouldn' ; t talk about it. So the things that we, I knew about my family were little snippets here and there and then again from how they, how they behaved. One of the, my mom was always a strong woman and I was proud of her because I remember when she got a divorce when it still wasn' ; t acceptable to get a divorce. And second, she drove like one, one of my aunts still does not a drive, so she' ; d drive us all over the place and my, my dad would actually send her into stores or McDonald' ; s when a, or he' ; d send her in for an order. I always thought that was sort of weird cause you know, the man usually does that at least in the American culture. And you know, it dawned on me that I think that, and it started like with the motel story that he was, um, was afraid of being rejected or embarrassed. So he' ; d always send my mom and who was, you know, didn' ; t really care, um, but my dad was very sensitive about that. I remember my mom telling a story when she walked into Saks and it was when she was, you know making money in Chicago and she wanted to buy something and nobody would wait on her. Nobody would pay attention to her. And she actually went up to a sales lady and said, my money is as good as anybody else' ; s money. And that' ; s how feisty my mom was. I had, and I don' ; t think she ever bought anything from there, but I always had that feeling I didn' ; t want to shop at Saks because of that story my mom told. And uh, uh, so I thought again, that was a behavior thing between my mom and dad cause my mom was a feisty fighter. And so was my grandmother. She was, she was, uh, she was funnier than my mom. She was more on the fun side, but, uh, very strong women in my family. And I don' ; t know of that is left over from as far as the men go, you know, very proud. So they don' ; t want to be embarrassed and talk about times that probably were not pleasant I guess. Yeah. I' ; m thinking of my, my uncle Jim who was married to my Auntie Masa and we used to like to hang out with them a lot, cause they were just a lot of fun. And they would, they would tell, my Uncle Jim would tell scary stories, but nothing about the war. I mean we would have to walk from back from one flat to the front of the flat. Of course it was a little dark. And tell us about, you know, people jumping out from the garbage cans and stuff like that. So yeah. But we loved it. We loved it. And nothing, I know he was, um, he was also in the 442. And you know, that was a very decorated battalion, but they didn' ; t really, they don' ; t really talk about it. AT: 00:40:40 And did you in any time in your education, did you ever learn about it in school or class? SS: 00:40:49 No. Nothing. They made a movie with them. Van Johnson, many years ago called Go For Broke. And that' ; s probably the closest I ever saw. Kelly: 00:41:02 They' ; re remaking it. SS: 00:41:02 Are they? Kelly: 00:41:02 It' ; s coming out soon. SS: 00:41:04 Yeah. That was the only thing. And uh, you know, he was telling Kelly, it still bothers me as far as prejudice goes. Like we were walking inside the building and there was a Caucasian man and he started to speak Japanese to me and I said, I don' ; t speak Japanese. And he continued to speak Japanese to me in, it' ; s like, it just made me, so it made me angry. And I know, you know, people would always do this, like, " ; Where are you from?" ; This happened to me last month, a friend' ; s answer, where are you from? I said, " ; Chicago." ; And they could tell I have no accent whatsoever for anything. I have a Chicago accent. And she says, " ; No, where are you really from?" ; I said, Chicago. And then she says, well, what' ; s your nationality? I said, " ; Japanese, but I' ; m, I' ; m fourth generation" ; and my mom was born in here, my, my grandmother' ; s born here. And she says, well, where' ; s your husband from? And so I just said, I' ; m divorced, you know, it' ; s kinda like let it go. Kelly: 00:42:10 Welcome to the Hapa experience. SS: 00:42:14 Yeah. I honestly, AT: 00:42:16 I' ; m sorry you had to SS: 00:42:16 Well, you know, with not it' ; s just people, right? And they still, they see, they see you or, and they make certain assumptions. And, you know, I' ; m not, I had to hold myself back from being self righteous because my family had a pecking order of prejudices that I still feel now. And I have to think about. So we' ; re all, we all have our, well, we all have our biases and our prejudices for whatever reason. Nothing very logical. Some not based on fact at all. It' ; s just, AT: 00:43:01 If you don' ; t mind me asking, um, could you, um, describe that a little bit more? SS: 00:43:10 How embarrassing! AT: 00:43:13 I' ; m bringing this up a little bit selfishly, just because I think, um, in the Japanese American community, there' ; s a lot of work to be done. You know, and it can be, not to like bring my own opinions and thoughts into this too much, but, um, you know, I think so often we return to this story and this experience because this was a huge example of uh, racism and um, just all kinds of prejudice, um, in which our community was targeted. And yet there' ; s a lot of Kelly: 00:43:54 Our last trip to Hawai' ; i, astrophysical, I remember she wouldn' ; t go into any of the stores. SS: 00:43:58 Yeah. So some of the Japanese that obviously are the top. And I would say there' ; s probably a tie between Caucasian and Chinese. Probably a tie. Neither one of them very acceptable. Um, and then there' ; s probably Filipino, Korean, absolutely. I mean, they wouldn' ; t even go into Korean restaurants. I just totally not Korean. AT: 00:44:32 So like not even, so it' ; s very much like ethnic prejudice that you' ; ve experienced. SS: 00:44:38 Yeah. And then everybody else was kind of equal, whether you' ; re Muslim, Indian, Black, those are all kind of like at the, I hate to say it, but that the lower tier. But, uh, I remember my, you know, of course I married somebody Caucasian that was just not, that was just not good. And my sister, she was dating somebody at Senn High School and they were so afraid that she was dating cause she was very mysterious. They were so afraid that she was, uh, dating, um, a Hispanic person that they were relieved when he was Cauasian. So she got off, she got kind of good because I was married to somebody and then she. And then my brother was dating as a several, my youngest brother who was the favorite. So they definitely wanted him to marry somebody. Japanese American, he' ; s dating his series of Japanese American women. And then he dated a Filipino girl that, and she was really nice, but that was my parents made his life miserable. He ended up marrying a Japanese American woman and they only were together for a year. And now he' ; s been living with a Caucasian woman for, I don' ; t know, twenty some years, a long time, but they won' ; t, they won' ; t marry. Kelly: 00:46:09 No one in their generation married Japanese. SS: 00:46:13 No, and actually we had a great big family reunion in July of, um, of my mom' ; s side and really no one married any other Japanese Americans. We all married Caucasian people and we all had children who uh Caucasian people. And yeah, so a lot of, I don' ; t like to use the word hapa, but that' ; s what they were. And then so there was like this, this family, they' ; re joking around. It' ; s like there' ; s this core Japanese Americans and then Caucasians and you know, half Japanese, half, half Caucasians. AT: 00:46:58 And uh, and is this like cousins and so, but it sounds like, um, they' ; re probably also from Chicago? SS: 00:47:05 Yeah. All Chicago. AT: 00:47:10 Which the Japanese American community is pretty, it' ; s not huge here. SS: 00:47:12 No, no. Kelly: 00:47:15 You probably know some connection. SS: 00:47:17 Yeah. Yeah. We were just lamenting the demise of Japanese homestyle Japanese restaurants in Chicago and Japanese grocery stores and things like that. There used to be, you know, a few and now they' ; re all like disappearing Kelly: 00:47:32 [inaudible] Sunshine. SS: 00:47:33 Oh my gosh. That was a sad one. Kelly: 00:47:41 One of our family friend' ; s owned. That' ; s like our spot. SS: 00:47:41 Danny, Daniel. AT: 00:47:42 Oh yep, he' ; s great. Kelly: 00:47:42 He' ; s my uncle' ; s best friend. They live in the same building. SS: 00:47:48 They live in the same building Kelly: 00:47:48 He helps take care of my grannie. AT: 00:47:52 Well, I' ; ll ask you about how he' ; s doing. SS: 00:47:54 Yeah. AT: 00:47:58 Um, well to that point, um, when you were growing up, do you remember? You mentioned the Japanese diner next to Ken' ; s lounge. Um, what other kinds of, did your family go to Japanese restaurants? SS: 00:48:12 No, we were kind of poor. So going to, going out to eat was a luxury, you know, going to a McDonald' ; s was like a big deal. Having a can of pop was a big deal. Yeah. We are. Or even for, we used to go crazy over fresh fruit because we used to get things out of cans so when we would have grapes, we used to fight over grapes. So when we didn' ; t go out to eat a lot. Was only when we were a bit older that we could, the family could afford to go out to eat more. AT: 00:48:49 And um, one thing I wanted to be sure to ask living in Lincoln Park and then having that, uh, you mentioned that you' ; d gone to Ken' ; s Lounge, that you had been over there. Um, was that a frequent commute or did you only do that a couple of times? SS: 00:49:08 Just a few times, because we were little. And your were, we weren' ; t allowed to hang around in bars. So my mom would take us there to see my dad when he was working during the day, you know, and there weren' ; t very many customers, if at all. And then once in awhile we would uh, we would be allowed to play in the booths and we' ; d go next door. And, uh, mostly the Japanese food that we had, my mom cooked. And I wasn' ; t until later that I realized that she learned a lot of cookbooks and from, you know, friends because she, she didn' ; t know how. I know, it' ; s like a revelation when I found out then another family friend, her mom was the same way, which I thought was sort of interesting. You know, you wanted to be, um, American so much that it' ; s sort of a shame that we lost a lot of our culture. So I mean there' ; s still a lot that' ; s here, thanks to like Japanese American Service Committee and so on. But a lot of it was lost in our, you know, quest to be American. Kelly: 00:50:21 I just thought of, made a parallel of you bringing me to rainbow when I was a kid. Running around Rainbow. SS: 00:50:26 Yeah. My sister owns two bars in city. AT: 00:50:29 Currently? SS: 00:50:32 Yeah. Yeah. Rainbow Club on Damon and Division and Skylark on 22nd and Halsted. AT: 00:50:38 Oh wow. SS: 00:50:39 Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, so yeah, it' ; s a, I can' ; t think of other things because you know, they' ; re just all these little bits and pieces that pop up and there' ; s no like, wonderful story line that Kelly: 00:51:01 You' ; re doing really well. AT: 00:51:01 This is great. Kelly: 00:51:02 What was it like having kids and being Japanese? Hapa kids? SS: 00:51:10 Well, it was kind of strange because we were in Northbrook and Northbrook, uh, you know, I thought the schools would be better and the community would be better in Northbrook. And I just thought that Eurasian children are just the most beautiful kids and ever, and you' ; re still, it' ; s like you see a Eurasian person, you know, man or woman, and they' ; re just like beautiful. So I, so I thought that the two of you, and I thought giving you a good education. I know that, that they were, both of you, both you and Julie were bullied in school. So I know that that was difficult, but I know that both, um, my oldest daughter, uh, as well as my youngest daughter were bullied. And I, um, had to go to the school with my oldest daughter, several times to point out to the principal. And I don' ; t think they knew what to do at the time, you know, like, um, somebody stole, my oldest daughter' ; s jacket of her locker and they were, you know, picking on her. Um, and I told the principal and that, and he pretty much said, well, you know, I' ; ll look out for her, but that' ; s kind of how kids are. And it' ; s like, no, that' ; s not how kids are. Um, and then I, I, uh, and she was a good student, so they often, sometimes teachers would say, well, she' ; s quiet. And I said, well, just because she' ; s quiet doesn' ; t mean she' ; s not smart. She' ; s obviously smart. Um, Kel was a bit more boisterous and so she would get check marks for talking and handwriting. I remember going to the school to, with their first grade teacher saying, you know, please come to me. Just don' ; t put a check mark on there and let me find out about it. And she' ; d make some little nasty comments like, um, well, when I was divorced and being divorced in Northbrook wasn' ; t a good thing so that she made comments about me being divorced, and working. And then she would say, well, you know, if, if she Kelly cared about me, she, her handwriting would be better. It' ; s like, why she care about you? And then I said, well, you know, when we' ; re adults, all of our handwriting' ; s bad anyway. I suppose she didn' ; t like that too much. You know, hand writing, what' ; s the big deal? Why would you make a big deal about that? AT: 00:53:39 So where there not, um, many other Japanese Americans families? SS: 00:53:44 No. No. And it wasn' ; t until probably maybe the kids were in junior high or something, there were Korean families that moved into the, the community. But there weren' ; t a lot of Asians period in Northbrook. AT: 00:54:02 Um, when did you move? What year did you move to Northbrook? SS: 00:54:05 Oh gosh, I moved, um, see Julie was born there in ' ; 76 I think we moved there in ' ; 74 a couple of years before she was born. Yeah. Oh, ' ; 74. So that was there for a long time throughout, you know, their high school educations and college. And um, and I, yeah, I have to admit that now it' ; s, it' ; s pretty sterile environment and I' ; m glad I moved back to the city. But uh, yeah, I I thought it was doing well for the girls cause the school system and everything, but maybe not on the social scale. AT: 00:54:50 And where in the city are you living now? SS: 00:54:52 Uh, I' ; m living in Andersonville, Clark and Foster. It' ; s a, it' ; s a great neighborhood. Uh, so I really am happy I moved back. Yeah. I almost, I almost bought a condo in Northbrook and it just like my girls were gone, I was by myself and it' ; s like, no, this is just not, this is just not feeling right. Kelly: 00:55:15 Oh, I had to pull you to the city, tooth and nail right? SS: 00:55:16 So I' ; m happy, I' ; m happy I made that decision. AT: 00:55:26 And I think we can, um, start wrapping up. SS: 00:55:31 Okay. AT: 00:55:33 But um, just a couple more questions. Well, one I wanted to ask, um, as far as, uh, your family' ; s history and background, um, when, by the time you had your own children, was that a story that you were sharing with them or SS: 00:55:53 I think I did talk about it and I showed the picture of my mom that' ; s in the gallery now. And so we, we did talk about it a little bit. I mean, as as not like a big event though, it was just more like part of our family. Kelly: 00:56:11 I mean you were scared of your mom, so I would ask all the questions. I sort of became the family historian. SS: 00:56:11 Yes, my, my daughter did. Yeah. Um, yeah. And I definitely was afraid of my father. So I, my father said you didn' ; t talk about it then, you didn' ; t talk about it. But some of those, some of the things still passed down. Like I remember we had a family meeting about finances and wills and like my parents were, I don' ; t know, maybe in their early sixties and they sat the four of us down and they said that they left the insurance policies and stuff to my two brothers. Now my sister was single, I was divorced at the time raising two kids and they said, because we know that you' ; ll always be taken care of by husband or other men. And my sister was furious. And I always like, oh, whatever. Cause I, you know, I had a good career. I didn' ; t really need anybody to take care of me, but that' ; s just my parents. But my sister was so mad, you know, and I think that' ; s, that' ; s an Asian thing. Um, so here' ; s a, I kind of counter to what my parent, how my parents raised us. I try to raise like girls to be pretty independent and not be dependent on any, anybody, whether it man or woman or whatever. Because of how my parents had raised us. Kelly: 00:57:54 Were you surprised when I got married so young then? SS: 00:57:56 Not when you got married so young, cause I got married at 18. How could I judge anybody? I mean I had no position to judge but um. I, uh, I was, uh, surprised that you had made a decision so quickly and I' ; m not against it. I just, that it was another thing is I nev, I never wanted to impose the same judgments on my daughter' ; s relationships as I, my parents imposed on us. It' ; s a hard sometimes, but. AT: 00:58:32 And if you could leave your, your children and your grandchildren some kind of legacy or message, what would you want them to know? SS: 00:58:42 I think that it, it goes back to my mom and said, we' ; re as good as anybody else at that, uh, you know, try to have tolerance even though it' ; s hard. You, you know, cause again, we' ; re all built in with our own biases. The, this whole Muslim thing is very disturbing to me because just it does bring back, you know, discrimination without any basis whatsoever. And so I think that that is to try to have an open mind, uh, even fighting those impulses that you may have, like you decided to cross the street cause you strictly based on race or how somebody is dressed to just fight that, you know, just, I remember being on the L and they all has lot of sketchy people, but there' ; s a workman there and he was really kind of dirty and people were avoiding him. And I just said, looks like he had a hard day and he was really nice, you know? And so like I try to fight those images also. He' ; s just a hard working guy that was really dirty. But he had, you know, that people were avoiding him. So I try to fight that also. Cause I, you know, I think I' ; m hoping that that' ; s what, how, um, you and Julie feel. AT: 01:00:06 And were there any other stories or things we might have missed? Um, the conversation that you' ; d like to add? Kelly: 01:00:16 I just remember, only thing I remember growing up was when people used to think you were our nanny. That would really piss me off. SS: 01:00:22 Yeah. Kelly: 01:00:29 I don' ; t like they come into my head now with my own stories. I' ; m feeling got mad, I have to do it. SS: 01:00:35 Yeah. Or when I' ; d be speaking and they still think that I spoke with an accent or I wasn' ; t from here. It' ; s like, well what accent is that? I said, " ; Chicago." ; " ; Well, no, you have some kind of accent." ; " ; Well maybe it' ; s Hawaiian or because my dad kind of booked broken Hawaiian you know?" ; No, I have no accent. I was born here. But, but yeah, so it' ; s, it' ; s still still happens. Like I was telling you, walking in the building. But I' ; m glad though that younger generations, they don' ; t make assumptions like that. It doesn' ; t seem like they make assumptions like that. Like they just assumed that when they see somebody that you can' ; t speak English well for you in United States, maybe you' ; ve immigrated and you can speak broken English, but generally people speak English and they don' ; t assume that you don' ; t right away. So I am glad to see that. And there' ; s more tolerance for, um, you know, mixture of friendships and relationships and, and you know, I look, get my granddaughter, I just, she' ; s just the most beautiful granddaughter in the world. And you know, I see her playing with all sorts of different people and it' ; s like, you know, that just this wonderful to me. And it doesn' ; t matter, what you are. AT: 01:01:56 Well, thank you so much for coming in and speaking with me. SS: 01:01:59 Yeah. Thank you for suggesting. Kelly: 01:02:01 Mom, it was great, see! 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=SeederSharon20170929.xml SeederSharon20170929.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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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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Takada, Anna
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Shikami, Lois
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5.4 10/25/2017 Shikami, Lois (10/25/2017) 1:23:57 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. Shikami, Lois Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/299398707 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/299398707?h=7f159742b2" ; 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? Lois Shikami: 00:00:03 My name is Lois Shikami. Um AT: 00:00:05 And um, Mrs. Shikami, where, where, and when were you born? LS: 00:00:13 Where, I' ; m sorry? AT: 00:00:15 Where and when were you born? LS: 00:00:16 I was born in Seattle, Washington on August 25th, 1931. AT: 00:00:26 And can you tell me a little bit about, um, what Seattle was like when you were growing up? LS: 00:00:33 Ah yes, for a 10 year old girl, it was a wonderful place. I had a wonderful family. There were six of us children and my mom and dad had come from Japan. Well they were 10 years apart, so my dad was born in 1885 and my mom was born 1895 and my dad came over, I believe he was about 17 years old and so they had been there quite a bit. I was the second from the bottom of my family. So my parents had been there quite some time. I just, I loved my childhood. I think my whole family was absolutely wonderful and my parents are very religious. So we attended the Episcopal, Japanese American of Episcopal Church and our whole life seems to revolve around the church and uh, so our friends were from church except for some from school, but basically our family life revolved around our church and its activities. AT: 00:01:54 And what um, I guess first I' ; d love to hear a little bit more about your parents, um where they were from in Japan and what they did? LS: 00:02:07 My dad came first and he was from a place called Hongomachi in Hiroshima. He wasn' ; t like the typical, like second son or so who had to get out on his own because of farm, you know, that they were never going to inherit anything. My father was born to a very fine family. My nephew looked it up and they were from a Samurai background and, in fact, we went to visit, Jim and I went, my husband, and I went to visit. Ah, to see what it was like and it was still there, they' ; re still there. The cousins are in the home in it. And at that time it was 240 years old. It was a beautiful grand home. And my father came because my, I think his father was killed in, I' ; m not sure, the Manchurian War and his mother was about to marry ah I' ; ll get another husband and he wanted no part of it. And they had in mind for him to become a school teacher and that' ; s not what he wanted. He wanted something completely different. So he came over and he spoke no English, but he was, um, it was sort of a fun loving person. And um, he went to work as a school boy and he learned how to speak English and apparently he learned how to cook because eventually he became ah, the chef for the general manager of the Great Northern Railroad, which had its home office I believe in St. Paul. So he would travel with him every week back and forth from Seattle to a St. Paul. So as a father we didn' ; t get to see him very much because when he was home, he also had a part time job. Um working at the tennis club in Seattle. I thought I always thought he was a waiter, but I find out, you know, not too long ago that he was a busboy, but no matter, he was very busy and in between times if he had any moment to spare he would be playing tennis. He loved tennis. So. But before that, after don' ; t know how many years he was here before he went back to Japan for an arranged marriage with my mother, my mother came from the city part of ah Hiroshima from a very fine family. And I won' ; t say it was love at first sight, but they got along really well and my father called all the shots and my mother, you know, took care of him, put out his socks and his underwear every day and, and just agreed with everything, you know. He said she was very sweet and kind, you know. AT: 00:05:43 Do you have a sense of at what point they came, or that he came back to the US and that she moved to the US? LS: 00:05:51 At what point that came back? It became soon after. AT: 00:05:56 Okay. LS: 00:05:56 Yeah. If I don' ; t, I don' ; t hear too well. AT: 00:06:03 Oh no, that' ; s not a problem. LS: 00:06:03 Okay. AT: 00:06:03 And so there' ; s six of you. With your, between you and your siblings. And um, and what, um, did, besides school and Church, did you do any activities or anything for fun? LS: 00:06:25 Um, no, I, I, I remember at one time I was going to be taking Japanese dance class a class and I was thrilled. I mean, I, this was the girl who really wanted to learn things and, and for some reason before I got started it stopped. So I remember being very disappointed and everyone in our family took some sort of music lessons, but I think it was about my time to begin because my sister right above me, I had started taking violin lessons and the two older sisters took piano lessons and I believe it was my time to start piano and then the war came and so I just really missed it because I loved music and I, and we all loved dancing. Our family loved dancing. We practiced at home a lot and I got to learn early because my older sister and brother were really into it. So on Saturday nights, if they were home, we would practice dancing in the living room. AT: 00:07:46 And, um, can you tell me a little bit more about that, your like your home and the area that you grew up in? LS: 00:08:00 I didn' ; t know, um, until years later that we were actually living in a ghetto. All, it never occurred to me that all my, most of my neighbors were Japanese and in school we were a Japanese, Filipino, Chinese have a very few Blacks and a few whites. But, you know, uh, to me it was normal and I liked school. I loved school. AT: 00:08:39 And did you speak Japanese at home? LS: 00:08:42 Um, my mother spoke very little English so we would speak sort of a broken English to her and she would respond in Japanese and we understood each other very well and we' ; d, oh, we went to Japanese school and ah up until well, about two years, until the war came. AT: 00:09:12 And so do you remember the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked? LS: 00:09:23 Oh yeah, very clearly, although now that I think of it, it was a Sunday and I can' ; t remember if I heard it at church or my sister and I went to a neighbor' ; s house which was sort of across the street from church because I remember my little friend and her mother talked about it and she got hysterical and my sister and I were on the quiet side and we just listened. But we became really worried because her mother, well, the little girl wanted to know what, what happens in a war? And her mother said, well, they' ; ll be fighting each other and there might be bombs and, and saying things that really scared the three of us. So my sister and I thought we' ; d better hurry home. So then when we got home, my family was, was there and they were very worried, very, very worried because my mother and father had a lot of relatives, sisters and brothers and parents and back in Japan. And you know, the thought of that really worried. AT: 00:10:45 The family that you were with when you got the news, were they Japanese Americans? LS: 00:10:52 Yes, they were fellow church members and very close friends of my parents. Yeah. AT: 00:11:01 And do you remember any of the, the conversation, were there conversations in your family about it or LS: 00:11:11 Yeah, they worried a lot. And that first day, they only were really worried about their relatives. What would happen in the whole idea of fighting against your own family members, you know, that are worried them a lot. But in the days that came after, there were so many rumors that were swirling around the community and the friends and they would always sort of be whispering about what things are happening. And one thing that happened started almost immediately was that the FBI came to all our friends homes to investigate. And they were looking for people who had men, fathers who had connections with Japan and um, they were uh, searching homes for any, anything that had to do with Japanese relations and they, they took them away. Um, the men, the fathers and the husbands, they took them away and they never said where they were taking them to. So the families were deathly afraid of what was going to become of all the rest of us and my fath, my sister, my older sister happened to mention just last week or so, how my father had a suitcase ready to go in case they took him away and I don' ; t remember when they came, but my sister remembers that they asked him a lot of questions, but they decided that he was not one that they were interested in. So we were relieved. Yeah. AT: 00:13:09 Did your father, um, have any kind of um affiliations with any organizations besides the church or was that LS: 00:13:21 I think it was basically the church. As I described his job and his part time jobs. He never had time except for friends gathering with them, but he never joined any, any, uh, clubs. I don' ; t think. AT: 00:13:46 And you described that there were a lot of rumors going around about what was going to happen. Do you remember what any of those words did you hear about them as a 10 year-old? LS: 00:13:56 You know, I don' ; t think anyone at first thought of that we would ever be gathered up and put into camps. But little by little it came out that yes, we were going to be put somewhere and they started to give us shots, inoculation. I remember typhoid and um, I mean I was deathly afraid of shots and so I was very afraid and sure enough, can' ; t remember where we got them. Um, maybe at church or wherever there were groups of Japanese we started to be inoculated so we knew something was going to happen to us. But as a kid, um, you know, just so I was with my family, I guess it didn' ; t scare me as much, but it wasn' ; t long before we were told that, yes, indeed you are going to be taken away and you have two weeks or I forgot what time it was. Pack up, uh, you know, clothing, bedding, um a cook, eating utensils. No, well, you could take radios. Don' ; t take knives or cameras, you know. So we knew about all of that. As a kid I worried about could I take any of my toys? And I believe I took one, what I call dy dee doll, one of my favorite dolls that I received at Christmas that drank a, you could drip feed of water, you could change the diapers. I managed to put that into my suitcase. Yeah. AT: 00:15:59 And as far as the shots, was that um, was that something that the government had ordered or LS: 00:16:07 Oh yes. All of it was coming down from the government. And um, it was frightening because, I mean...We were told, well, it--what, it actually happened, they had a curfew and every night at 8:00 we all had to be home and I believe we had to pull the shades down and wherever you were, well you couldn' ; t go anywhere because you had to be home by 8. And my sister and I and a neighbor who lived two doors away, a little girl, we' ; d be jump roping outside and then when the siren went off, you know, we' ; d run for home. I remember my older brother, he was like, maybe he was about like 18 years old. He had a girlfriend that lived two doors away and he would sneak out the back and climb two fences to get to her place and spend the evening, but us little ones were scared to death. AT: 00:17:17 Do you remember any other ways that your life as a 10 year old had a change? LS: 00:17:23 Yeah. Um, we had friends in school who were Chinese and, and suddenly they started to wear little signs, you know, on their lapels that said I am Chinese. And I remember feeling really hurt that, you know, our friends would do such a thing but that they didn' ; t want to be mistaken for you know, the enemy. So that really hurt. But my, my best friends were Japanese, so we were all sharing the same problems. AT: 00:18:09 And um, can you tell me about when your family got word the evacuation orders and what that process was like if you, what you can remember? LS: 00:18:21 Yeah. Well, I' ; m not sure, but I think we were probably given two, two weeks. I think probably instead of. I know they had signs posted in our neighborhood and everyone read them and so everyone heard about it, but I' ; m sure at church it must have been discussed more in detail. Um, so of, the thing was, we didn' ; t have to sell a house because we didn' ; t own the house. We rented a house and the owner of the house was especially kind and so he told my parents that we could just leave everything except our own, um, a private belongings and store them in the basement and he was going to rewrite the house and leave our furnishings out and every month he would send us a check to pay for the rental of our furniture. And I thought that was really, really nice of him. And he did, he sent us a monthly check for, I don' ; t know how long, um, but, but he was really kind. This was a house we had moved to maybe two years before. Before that, because the house I was born in a was in a completely Japanese area right near Japantown. And they were going to tear up the whole neighborhood to make housing for defense workers. And I thought later on thinking how did they know that they needed defense workers, you know? But anyway, that' ; s what I remember that we were told we had to move. So we moved to this house that had been remodeled, so it was a fairly nice house. In fact, it' ; s still standing. I go to see it and when we go to Seattle. So uh the other house was big and old and I thought it was wonderful. But, you know, it was old. AT: 00:20:38 So where, um, where was your family assigned to go? LS: 00:20:44 We were told that we were going to be going to Puallyup, Washington. To the old, I believe it was a fair grounds, um, in, um, uh, w, I believe we had been there before. Anyway, under happier circumstances. And so we were told we had to meet the bus, uh, after those two weeks with our belongings. We didn' ; t necessarily have suitcases. We had, I think they call them kayode, I see them on display here, the wicker baskets, um, straw baskets. And um, uh, that became our dressers because after we got to camp, we kept our clothes in there and flipped them under the cots. We did that for three years actually. Um, I forgot what question you asked. AT: 00:21:53 What umm, so I think this is actually the first time I' ; ve spoken to someone where the assembly center was somewhere that you had been to before. LS: 00:22:08 Yeah, I' ; m not sure because my dad didn' ; t drive so we didn' ; t have a car. So we went where our friends took us, you know. The only reason I say that I felt like we had been there is every summer my mother would take the younger kids to the farm, a friend' ; s farm and she worked and the older kids worked to pick crops. And I was too little to be picking crops so they let me just play around and I just sort of remember the, the midway. But I could be wrong and I remember some of the rides and whether we saw them somewhere else or not, but I couldn' ; t swear by that. In fact, I' ; m going to have to ask my older sister. I have one sister has passed away, but the second oldest sister is still living and she remembers things when she' ; s six years older than I am, so I' ; ll have to ask her that. AT: 00:23:18 And um as a, as a 10 year old. Do you remember your reaction to that was going to be the new living space? LS: 00:23:31 It was, um, it was a shock. It was a shock because when we, the buses went in through the gates, there were soldiers and barbed wire fences everywhere. And then when they let us off the bus and we walked to our barrack, it was built under the rollercoaster of the fairgrounds and I thought, wow, you know, that' ; s really something. It was one room for the eight of us. And it was wood, just sorta hastily put together in a long barrack. And the walls went up towards the ceiling, but it didn' ; t cover the area under the roof. The eaves. So we could hear everybody, you know, everyone was sort of angry and families weren' ; t thrilled, you know, to be there. So you could hear everyone talking. We had a no win, I don' ; t think we had any windows, we just had a wooden door. Not a real door, just a made door and um, I think we had the, the end ah...end room. But the only thing in there was our stuff and the eight cots. We had to make our own mattresses too, so suddenly to be put into that kind of thing was just a horrible shock. But as a kid to be there with my whole family was comforting. AT: 00:25:25 You said you had to make your own mattresses? LS: 00:25:28 Yeah, they gave ah, we had to go to a place where they had bags and we were told to stuff them with a straw that they had. So everyone had to do their own. I guess as kids we sort of probably liked it. I just don' ; t remember the exact process. And, and I was a real picky eater and to go to a place like that, I really worried about what they were, what we were going to eat, you know. So our first meal, we had to go to this, what they called the mess hall. It was an old barn and line up and my mother had bought, since we were told to bring you utensils she had brought plastic divided dishes for each of us and I was thinking, you know, this is sort of fun, you know, it' ; d be like picnics, you know. But it wasn' ; t fun though. It was a crew behind the the line and they just slop the, slop the food on, um, I think it was potatoes and Vienna sausages and the Vienna sausages were just dreadful, you know, soft and mushy and ew uh just hated it. And so I knew right away this was not going to be fun, we had to eat like that. AT: 00:27:04 And where are you going to, did you continue in school at the assembly center? LS: 00:27:11 And this happened in May. It was May 10th and so school was over for us. And um, uh, so for the next couple months that we were there, we really had no school. We sort of played all day. The next day after we arrived, my sister and I walked around to the other barracks near us and we were, we found some friends from our old neighborhood in Seattle. And we were thrilled to meet them and this one girl, she had older sisters and they came prepared they had a hot plate. They brought rice and pot and one pot, I think, and they made their own rice and so they, they let us share the rice and they had butter so they put butter on the rice and it tasted like popcorn. And we were so thrilled to be eating something that we liked, you know, we didn' ; t think of bringing any kind of food. And so I don' ; t think at that point there were snack shops or anything, you know, just ate what they gave you, period. But the one thing that thrilled us was as we were roaming around on our own, somebody said, hey, the fun houses open. You know, they actually, they sort of whispered it. The fun house is open. So we went running over and sure enough it was the midway and, and the door was left open and when we went in, uh kids were already in there. And there was a, that' ; s why I sort of think I must have been there because there was a, a big barrel. And you could walk through it, but it all and the electricity or whatever it wasn' ; t on, of course, but it would sway back and forth as kids ran, you know, or stayed in there, we go rock it. And we had so much fun. We were laughing and carrying on. And then there was a room with a slanted floor and banisters that went across. And so you had to walk sort of at an angle through this room. And we just thought that was so much fun and they had the crazy mirrors you know. So I thought, wow, this is going to be a neat place, you know. So the next day when we went back, it was all locked up and that was it. It was, we were the kind of children that would never have thought to break the lock to get back in. I mean, you know, we' ; re law abiding citizens. So that was the end of that. AT: 00:30:27 And so you entered May 10th, you said, um, the at the assembly center. And then how long was your family there? LS: 00:30:42 Um, it was, it was either late August or early September. When we were told ah pack up your stuff, we' ; re going to be taking a train to Idaho and so, by then you know, you' ; re used to being imprisoned and this is one more bad thing that was going to happen to us. We' ; re not going back home, we' ; re going to someplace that they think is more permanent and it might be better, you know, so I think maybe, I' ; m not sure, but I think the family was a little bit hopeful that things would be better. But so we, they pulled out, I think the railroad pulled out old trains from somewhere. They were really old and dirty and dusty. They took us by bus to the train station. I think I just remember it was filthy dirty. And but my sister remembers that the food we had was in the dining car. So we got to sit at a regular dining tables to eat our meals and she remembers that it was pretty nice, better than the camp food. And so I think it took either one night or two nights to get to Idaho. I would think two nights. But I remember being really dirty, dusty, grimy, yeah. AT: 00:32:32 And, um, and then can you tell me about what you remember? Um entering Minidoka? LS: 00:32:43 Yeah, this, this camp um, Minidoka, had a big canal that ran in front of the gate because I remember we had to cross the canal and this place was even more permanent. You know, they had taller fences and, and he' ; s more soldiers and a tall century tower. It just looked more foreboding, big gate. And um, I don' ; t know, I just thought, oh my gosh, this, this is even worse than the other place, you know. But um, they took us, um, I don' ; t know if it was my truck, I think it was by truck to our place. Of, the camp had I think 44 blocks and we were blocked five. So it was fairly close to the gate, I believe. And um, it was, the room was larger but, and it had windows, had a potbelly stove and this time they had cots, the kind that it was a metal cot with springs and I believe there was a thin mattress and that' ; s all it had with eight of those and the potbelly stove and dust everywhere because they built it in a desolate place and always had seen coming there with sage brush just all over. That was it. The scenery was horrible. And the camp itself that was dust blowing around blowing around everywhere. AT: 00:34:42 So your oldest sibling you had, it was a brother? He was the oldest? LS: 00:34:47 We had a, my oldest sister at that time was, um, she' ; s 16 years older than I was, so she was 26 and then six years later it was my brother. And then two years later was another sister. And then the sister that was closest to me, she was 13 years older. Masako, she and I were close and then I had one younger brother who' ; s two years younger, so we had like a family of a, of older kids, three of them. And then there are three younger kids. So when, when the older kids did things, we were not part of it that the three kids, younger ones did things together. Yeah. AT: 00:35:43 And the, the younger ones. Did you go to school? LS: 00:35:48 Yeah, um in September. Maybe October uh school started right in the barracks. Not too far away, grade school and um, I think all of us kids loved going to school because it gave us structure, you know, something to do every day. And as kids we just love learning. And um, at the beginning we had a, our teachers were college graduates who sort of took over the younger grades and it was, I mean we learned, you know, we had, um, that was, I was in sixth grade at that time and I just remembered maybe there are a couple of sixth grade rooms, but I remember school, as being fun. I remember they, I got to be a patrol girl and they had a pith helmet for us and, and a wooden, a flag plywood. It was painted red and it said stop on it. And we stood on the corner when it was our turn and the truck traffic was a truck, you know, delivering something, you know, but it made me feel really important. I just loved that job. AT: 00:37:22 Was your, was there any kind of church, in the CamC? LS: 00:37:26 Yeah, our, our, um, our priest, our Episcopal priest actually came into camp with us and a deacon and so they carried on their Episcopal mission in the church, you know, just like I guess they, they were expected to uh, so, uh, my parents were really happy because they were very religious. Us kids and you know, I didn' ; t really enjoy going to our church that much. But on Sundays I guess we went, my problem was that my friends didn' ; t belong. They belong to the Baptist Church, which was the most popular. And in those days, you know, so it was okay. I mean, yeah, we were expected to go to church. AT: 00:38:23 Um one thing I want to ask you, because you had kind of alluded to you, you had mentioned, you know, that you were in prison, you know, at the assembly center listed in, you' ; re still going to be going to prison but it might be better. Um, was that something as a, as a 10 year old that you were aware of or you know, like the fact that you and your family who was incarcerated, did you feel. How did you feel as a child? Did you understand or? LS: 00:39:10 I didn' ; t like it, but at that age being, being with my whole family, that meant a great deal and with my friends and their families, even if none of us really wanted to be there, we' ; d rather be outside of camp, I think there was a feeling of security, um, and it was sort of, I must say it was fun, you know, for us kids, we knew it was not a good place for the fam, for anyone, to have to be behind bars. But um, but they did take care of us. I, um, but I think the family thing was most important, even if it meant being in one room and as a 10 year old going onto you stayed there til I was 13. I hated the lack of privacy. Everyone together all the time. And um, but it got better and better as my older siblings left camp to, um, to work or to go to school. And so the weren' ; t as many of us, but still that was not a proper way to grow up. But I loved being with my friends all the time. You just have to go out the door and you' ; re with somebody, one of your friends. And as I was getting aware, becoming aware of boys and by 12 years old, you know, now I was in junior high and we used to have school dances and um, and we' ; d get permission I guess, and we shove all the, desks to the logs and somebody would bring, I don' ; t know where they got it, but what they call spangle and it made the floor slippery and somebody else, someone would bring records and um, and we played the popular tunes and we danced, you know, we had a wonderful dances on a Saturday night. So it was fun for us kids, you know, we played Monopoly a lot in the laundry rooms. We would listen to hit parade on Saturday nights and, and somebody would be able to buy, um, a weekly magazine about hit parade and they' ; d have words to songs and then we' ; d memorize them on the latest school and back and in the laundry room. And we' ; d sing all the time. Well, you know, it was like being away at a, at a fun camp for us kids, but you know, but we knew that there was a heavier side to it and I know because my mother was telling me about things and we would hear from others that my, one of my classmate' ; s mother killed herself. She was depressed and and there was a woman next door who used to come over, I don' ; t know for how long of a period, but she would come over and cry and moan to my mother and my mother would patiently sit and listen to her. My mother had a, had a piecework job sewing for a company that made Indian, Indian jackets with tassels and beading and she would sit at the sewing machine and this woman would come every day, knock on the door, come in and talk about her problems. And my mother would patiently sit there and listen to her. So I saw that going on. No, things were not all good. And then when they passed, maybe it was the second year they passed out those forms that families had to sign side their loyalty. And that was, it didn' ; t happen to any of my immediate friends, but it happened to a lot of families where the kids didn' ; t want to go to Japan and yet the parents insisted so they had to leave our camp to go to Tule Lake. And that was horrible. Horrible for the families. If they didn' ; t all agree, you know, if they all agreed it was one thing, but families were torn up and even as kids we realized that you know. And to find out later that yes indeed they did go back. They were sent back during the war. Horrible. AT: 00:44:43 So you had mentioned that your older siblings were kind of moving out for different reasons. Can you tell me a little bit more about where folks went? LS: 00:44:53 Yeah. My oldest sister left first and she came to Chicago to work. She had a, I think you had to have a sponsor. And so she worked. She came and she got a job in accounting and she stayed in--at first, I think she stayed in a home where she sort of Babysat and earned a little bit of spending money. And then she also had a job, I don' ; t know when she was working for Edgewater Beach Hotel, but that was one job that she had. AT: 00:45:39 Do you know what she was doing there? LS: 00:45:41 Accounting. The horrible thing was that she couldn' ; t find decent housing. So she and her friends, well, at first, you know, they stayed at people' ; s homes where they babysat, but when they went on their own to look for apartments, nothing was open to them because of their Japanese, you know, ancestry. So they--I remember when we came out of camp, her basement apartment was just dreadful. I remember going to the bathroom and you could hear the rats in the walls, you know, scampering. Oh my gosh. It was just horrible. Oh. And then that was my oldest sister. My brother ah, went to, came out, to go to the University of Cincinnati. And our friends from our church were helped by our, our pastor, his name was father Joe Tagawa. And he was instrumental in pulling teenagers out of camp, finding them scholarships to attend University of Chicago where he himself ended up. But he thought it was a horrible thing to happen to teenagers. And so he worked very hard and so he got my brother out and I believe he had, he also about my second older sister out and she went to Denver to go to a business college Barnes Business College. And then I think then she found a job also, but she loved living with her girlfriends from camp. Um in Denver. So she, she liked getting out. So the three of us were sort of stuck there. All three kids. I mean, I didn' ; t really want to leave unless I could leave with my mom and dad and my friends are still there. But there came a time when they said, well, we' ; re going to close. And oh I forgot to mention my brother eventually was drafted from his schooling. So he eventually ended up in Japan as an interpreter. Just bef, just as the war was ending so he didn' ; t have to fight. Um, so anyway, um, after we were there in our third year, so now we' ; re up to 1945. Um, they said the camps are closing. Then, was that a knock on the door? LS: 00:48:52 No AT: 00:48:52 Um, they said the camps were closing my father was and my mother were desperately worried what was going to become of them, you know, where was he going to get a job? You know, where were they, where were we going to live? We had no money. They had run through all their savings all those three years. And my father asked me to write a business letter, you know, I was an eighth grader and I was asked to write a business letter to his former employers, the Great Northern Railroad to see if he could possibly come back to work. And I said, no, they' ; re sorry, you know, they have nothing for him. So there we were only old people and the young stocking cap without a place to go. Well, my father had a fam, a friend of the family who ventured out and came to Chicago. His name was Henry Suru and he was younger than my dad, maybe about 10 years younger. He came out and he went to the employment agency downtown and found out that there' ; s a resort up in Wisconsin called Lake Lawn, that we' ; re desperate for cooks because um all the eligible men were gone serving in the armed forces. And um, so Henry Suru went up there and he found that he liked it and the owner said, um, if you have other people please invite them to come. So he wrote to my dad and said, there' ; s a place for you up in Wisconsin, so come out. So he came out and he went there and it was a, it was a beautiful resort, not that his place to stay it was going to be beautiful, but it was a nice place. So he called for my mother and the three younger ones to come there. So I, I guess my family was relieved to have a place to go. But as a 13 year old I was not happy to be going to a place in Wisconsin that I had no idea what it was gonna be like and all my friends are still in camp and there was talk that they would go back to Seattle. I wanted it to go where they went and not way off by myself, but you know, had to do it. So I remember I really cried when I left. This is not what I wanted. But anyway, there I was with my sister and my brother and my mother. We were all scared to death, getting on a train, arriving in Chicago, you know, unknown future, scared to death. Well, when we got to Union Station, got off the train and there was no one to meet us because my sister wasn' ; t there as she had promised. And my mother told my sister and I go to the telephone and call her good friend who was living on the South Side of Chicago. So, um, my sister and I, we hadn' ; t used her telephone in three years and we had never used a payphone. We hardly knew what to do, but we finally figured it out and got ahold of Mrs Tahara. And she said, no problem. You just catch the IC train and, and we' ; ll meet you. We had no idea what a, do you catch a train in Chicago? You know. So we' ; re standing there figuring out what to do. And then my sister and her friends came running towards us and I was so glad to see her. We were all relieved that we didn' ; t have to figure out a way to get to the South Side of Chicago and um, and so she got us a room two rooms on, in a awful hotel. It was on Ainslie, I believe it was on Ainslie near Broadway, right off Broadway on the North Side and my sister and I had a room upstairs and my brother and my mother had a room downstairs. We were frightened it to be in such a desolate place and there was a cloth covering for the closet and we were sure bad men, we' ; re going to come out of there. So during the night we found our way down to my mother' ; s room and the four of us slept in one bed and then I believe, uh, soon after we went to Delavan. Wisconsin? Yeah. AT: 00:54:37 Where was your sister' ; s apartment or wherever she lived in? Your sister? LS: 00:54:43 It was on, I believe it was 4843 North Winthrop, which is around the corner, around the corner from the Aragon Ballroom. And it, no, that' ; s not the exact address because they lived across the street from there in the basement. It was called Bobby and Apartments. I' ; m sure it' ; s no longer there. It was bad then. Just awful. And had an owner that didn' ; t like it when we came to visit. So he would be sneaking around looking to see how many were visiting and it was awful. It' ; s just awful. I think you might have charged a little extra, but the lights were really dim, he didn' ; t allow bright laps and just really dim lights and so on. We used to come to visit her after we got to Delavan. I didn' ; t like it at all. Thought it was a dreadful place, Chicago. AT: 00:55:58 Um, and how many nights were you at that hotel? LS: 00:56:03 I don' ; t know if it was one night or two nights. I remember, I think it had to be more than one night because I remember the first thing we did the next day was go to a corner drugstore. And I noticed that they sold candy bars. I mean we hadn' ; t seen real candy all that time in camp. I was so delighted. So we bought candy bars to send back to my girlfriends. I don' ; t even know how we managed to send it, but I remember they wrote thank you letters. So I know we sent them, but that was my first contact with my friends. Here we are out of camp: enjoy some candy bars, a Baby Ruth and Hershey' ; s or something. AT: 00:56:58 And um, so it sounds like you weren' ; t in Chicago for very long before meeting your father. LS: 00:57:04 Yeah. Oh yeah. It was just temporary. We had to hurry up and get. My father was waiting for us in, in Delavan. So we took the train and I believe he just, met met us at the railroad station at Delavan, yeah. AT: 00:57:26 And um, so can you tell me more about that? How long were you there? And then LS: 00:57:31 Um, I got there as a freshman in high school and I could tell you about the school, of course. Well at the resort with mom, there were no kids because it was the workers and the people, the guests at the hotel and, and there were cottages there for rent for families. So as I met kids once in awhile, you know, they' ; d be out at the lake and I would get to know them, I had to know them quickly because in a week they' ; re gone and it was really sad for me because then I' ; d meet somebody I really liked and then they have to believe from Saturday to Saturday, but I didn' ; t have a little fun. But after that it was four years of high school. Luckily the first day of school I met a girl, her name was Doris and she and I became best friends for four years. So I was delighted to have, you know, a friend to myself and she was happy to have me and I still see her. She' ; s up in Milwaukee. But um, it was so different because in camp, you know, we were all Japanese and I knew everybody and everybody liked me and I liked everybody. But you go to a town of all Caucasians and not everybody is your best friend. Little by little, being a small town, I uh, 60 of us in our class, you know, I got to know pretty much everybody, but I knew that I was different and I was never completely accepted. I had friends, they were kind but I was not accepted in the same way that others of the same race would have been. AT: 00:59:43 And how long were you there? LS: 00:59:45 I was at that school for four years and then towards, at the end of the school, I don' ; t think college was in the works for me. I don' ; t know what my parents were thinking that they would send me somewhere for schooling but not especially a university life. But at at graduation I was given the scholarship to the University of Wisconsin and suddenly my father, I think maybe my mother in the back of her head was sort of dreaming of good things for me. But my father being a, a Japanese man, you know, he wasn' ; t thinking of college for the girls, he was thinking of a business school or something. But when I got that scholarship, suddenly my father and my mother were enthused about sending me off to Madison and so I got to go to four years of college, which my, none of my siblings, sisters were able to do. So I consider myself my placement in the family and the fact that I, I guess I did all right at school in spite of camp, you know, I was privileged to go to college so it changed my whole life. It did. AT: 01:01:12 And um, how long were you in Madison? LS: 01:01:17 Um, I was there four years and then I was, um, I was in Home Ec. I was in a Clothing of the, Fabrics and Clothing- is not the real name, I just can' ; t think of it right now. But because of it I went into it because I was thinking what kind of job am I going to have after I graduate, because in those days girls didn' ; t necessarily have a choice of jobs and I was thinking of becoming a Home Ec teacher maybe. But as I went along I decided I didn' ; t want to be in a small town in Wisconsin, the only Japanese, I was still interested in needing Japanese people after being in camp. I didn' ; t want to be off in a small town in Wisconsin. So I was, I was thinking then of merchandising. So when I chose that major at the end, um, someone came from Carson Pirie Scott to recruit and I became, so they recruited me to join the, um, it was a junior executive training program and as a buyer. So I thought it was a chance to be with my sisters who were by then, they were all in Chicago. So that' ; s why I became the first Asian person to be working in that position I think ever because they, at that point, the whole, it was the aim of the, um, of the Carson' ; s to expand their working staff. So I think maybe a year after I joined the program, there was a Black girl who was also chosen, so at Brotherhood Week time were carted out to show people that indeed they were integrated. But I was there for three years when along came Jim, my husband. And so, um, uh, he became part of that program and then he was there for a year when he realized that that was no, we decided to get married, we' ; d match it, you know, people want to know, have you met that new person? Have you met him? Said no, no, no. And when we did meet it was, it was destined, we were destined to become a pair. And he knew that that was not a place to be making enough money for a married person. So he left. AT: 01:04:33 And so when you came to live in Chicago, where were you living? LS: 01:04:40 Well then I joined my sister' ; s at their place and it was a three story apartment place. So they were living in different apartments, but they were all in that same building. And so I joined them and I got a single room there. AT: 01:05:01 Was that the one across from the Aragon? LS: 01:05:04 Yeah, or around the corner from it. AT: 01:05:06 And, and where was Carson Pirie Scott or where was work? LS: 01:05:12 It was downtown. Yeah. Um, I mean it was a big deal, you know, I loved that job. I got dressed up every morning and take the L downtown, you know, always had breakfast down there and, and I liked the work very much. Uh, and so I was there four years and then, um, a year after we were married we had our first child, so I just stayed home for 18 years. AT: 01:05:45 And where were you living? LS: 01:05:48 We lived at on Melrose off of Broadway in a one bedroom apartment. And we stayed there for, until our, after our third child was born. I mean we were way too crowded. We had kids sleeping in the dining room and one in the living room, one in the bedroom with us, but we were saving to buy a house and the rent was really reasonable and it was uh, you know, we liked the apartment and the neighborhood, but then we were ready to move. So we moved to a Lunt, Rogers Park and um into a big house so it was worth a squeezing ourselves for awhile because now our fourth, fourth child, we had three boys and now our fourth child, a girl was born. So we were happy in that neighborhood for awhile and until we were worried about schools, so then we look for a house in the suburbs and ended up in Glenview in the New Church District. And so that' ; s where our kids grew up. AT: 01:07:19 So the year that you came to Chicago, after college, what year do you think it was? LS: 01:07:33 It was 1953. 1953, I came to Chicago and it for three years, it was great fun. I had always wanted to be in a Japanese community but I never had a chance. And um, and I really didn' ; t know anyone except my sisters and their close knit group, but all they did was play poker every, well, that' ; s what I thought. All they did was play poker and, and go bowling and you know, and my mother didn' ; t want me to come because she didn' ; t want me to become a poker player. And so she really, I had a, I had a job, actually had the job up in Minneapolis for the same type of position up in Minneapolis, and I was ready to go there when I was recruited from Chicago. But um, so my mother really had hopes for me up in Minneapolis, but anyway, I ended up in Chicago and I only knew my sisters, but for some reason or another I, I kept meeting people every time I' ; d go anywhere I' ; d meet somebody who wanted to go somewhere together and these are men. And so every weekend after that I was busy having fun. So those are happy years. AT: 01:09:13 You mentioned that the Japanese American community in Chicago, um, what, what was that Is that like at that time here in Chicago from what you LS: 01:09:30 Yeah. Um, during the time I was in Delavan I kept hearing about all the fun that the young people were having who came out of camp, you know, they had basketball games together and, and lots of dances and they would have picnics and I was so envious and I, there I was in Del, really, I was sad about that, but by the time I came, a lot of the young people were married and having their families and I somehow attended the, a Christ Church that was called something else at that point, Congregational Church. It was on, um, it was near my, it was off Broadway, um, and when I went there I met some single women, so I did a couple things with them and then I met more fellows and then I was on that sort of merry-go-round. It was wonderful. You know one thing after another. So but they had picnics and church outings and stuff like that. I got involved in some of that. AT: 01:11:09 Do you remember, were there any Japanese American owned businesses or restaurants or LS: 01:11:16 Uh, yeah, as soon as we got married and we lived on Melrose, we used to go to Star Market and there were um, restaurants, uh, Matsuya and Naniwa, Sen, Senko. Yeah, that Clark Street area was filled with different businesses. Yeah. I really liked that. I used to put the kids in a stroller, one stroller held one child and one hitched a ride in the back and then I' ; d have one at that point, one kid holding on and we walked everywhere. We walked to the beach, or walk to the lake, walk to the lake. Those are happy times. AT: 01:12:20 And how did it, um, when you were living in Glenview, how did that compare to your experiences in Roger' ; s park or LS: 01:12:34 Um, when I first got there, it was something my parents are working all the time. Um, my mother worked as a housekeeper in the hotel. My dad was a chef in the, um, uh, in the restaurant. They were busy all the time. Um, I, as soon as I was old enough, at, when I was 15, I babysat for one of the bosses and that soon as I turned 16, they let me work, I really enjoyed it. I, um, they let me work in the snack shop, you know serving hamburgers and ice cream cones and then they let me work in the coffee shop. And then when I came home from a, during vacations, I got to work banquets as a waitress. And then at that point we started to get other workers who were from Hawaii. They came there because they couldn' ; t afford to go back to Hawaii during vacations. So they came there to work. Uh, they, they only got to work as dishwashers, but at least they were there. And we had a lot of fun on Wednesday nights, was employee nights at the great ballroom on the lake, you know, they had real orchestras and um, we used to go there dancing or we used to go have a picnics after work, like we would have a midnight picnic and they use to borrow food from the kitchen and we' ; d have a fire at along the lake. And those are really fun times that continued all through my college years. AT: 01:14:44 And I' ; m so sorry, I was um asking about Glenview in the suburbs and how that compared to uh LS: 01:14:54 Oh yeah, I' ; m sorry. AT: 01:14:55 Here in Chicago? LS: 01:14:57 Okay. Glenview, AT: 01:15:01 Is that where you' ; re living now? Where do you live now? LS: 01:15:05 We live in Glenview. Um, so you' ; re asking how living there was? Well, you know, as, as we get older and the kids tell stories. Actually I did not like exposing my kids to that, that type of environment, especially New Trier where it' ; s upper class, you know, and we were sort of struggling when we got. Because you know, we' ; re probably living beyond our means. But we did it for the kids' ; schooling and I couldn' ; t, we couldn' ; t afford the best clothes and so I sort of worried about it might' ; ve been tough for them and once in a while my sons would say something that indicated that life wasn' ; t all that great for them. And plus they' ; re small, they' ; re just small build like us and, and these are, you know, I don' ; t know, I just have a feeling high school wasn' ; t the best, but they had good schooling, you know, it really got them. They became educated. So as I hear now other parents out there saying, you know, New Trier isn' ; t all that great for our kids and these are Caucasians saying that. So if it was tough for their kids, I thought, oh my god, what my kids went through. Um, as far as our neighbors, we lived in an, it' ; s not the fanciest neighborhood, but it was nice, nice middle class neighbors. And when we got there they were all friendly. One family in particular, came from England and they knew what it was to come to a new neighborhood. So they were especially kind to us taking us shopping and inviting us over for parties and things and, and we, we were invited to all the neighborhood parties and we got to know everyone. But then as time went on, and the kids were not especially good friends of our neighbors, they had their friends from outside of the neighborhood, but they did okay. But um now the neighborhood has really changed and everyone is young and the children are young and now the homes in the area have gotten so expensive that only the professionals could live there. So it' ; s a whole different place. We' ; re one of two older families who are still there. Everyone else has gone. AT: 01:18:03 And so we can start to wrap up a little bit, um, but one thing that I like to ask people is, um, if you could pass down some kind of legacy or, or message to your children and maybe grandchildren, what, what would you want to leave them with? Or what would you want them to know? LS: 01:18:36 You know, um, recently, just few days ago, actually, my younger brother just lost his wife and um, since then, but they live so far away in New York City, in the not New York Ci, New York State out in the boondocks. So he' ; s never been, after he got married, he' ; s never been with Japanese and, and so we' ; ve been talking quite a bit and even he has said, and I was really surprised, that camp was, uh awful and, but I mean it was not a good thing, but he was even younger than I was. So he enjoyed it too. But it has, he hopes that it has taught the country that they should never do such a thing to others. You know, and I think that' ; s my feeling too, if we learned a big lesson that we are, we should never point out people as being different and to exclude them, uh, from our, uh, uh, a friendship or whatever at um, right now we see that, you know, there are efforts to try to point out differences and that we should always work to try to be inclusive. And I think my children have learned that lesson. Not directly from talking, but they see the way we are and I hope that they will always be inclusive and um, just be kind to everyone. I, I really believe in kindness and I can see as my children grow up that they are each one, each one they' ; re especially kind and thoughtful people. And if I, I know my husband is also, but if we taught them together, always been considerate of others, you know, that we' ; ve done our job. AT: 01:21:22 Well, before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like to add or that I might' ; ve missed in this conversation? LS: 01:21:31 No. I mean I haven' ; t really gone through the whole exhibit here because both times we were with groups and today I' ; m hoping to go through the whole thing. And I think just having this wonderful exhibit is a huge lesson for, for the general public who I never talked about things to anybody until, until it was 1988 when I finally wrote about it. Never talked to our neighbors about our experience. And I don' ; t know, I wasn' ; t ashamed, but I thought, how could you ever explain such a big influence on my life? It was until I wrote a story about it for my class at Northeastern. I was going for my Masters and I was asked to write about something that I had never told anyone. And I thought, well this is the time and I, that' ; s why I wrote it. And I sent it eventually to my, one of my classmates from Delavan, I said, did you ever wonder where I came from? You know, suddenly there' ; s one Japanese person their class, well, in freshman year, in a small town, they come from various country schools, so I wasn' ; t the only new person. So they said, they heard I was from somewhere in Idaho, but that was it. So then I sent them my story and they were astounded. They knew nothing about the camps. So to have this exhibit here, exhibit here, to teach us everyone about it, that there was such a thing and that we must never do such, such an injustice to anyone, any American, anyone who comes to this country, you know, that' ; s a good, wonderful thing. AT: 01:23:53 Thank you so much for sharing and for speaking. 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=ShikamiLois20171025.xml ShikamiLois20171025.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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Shikami, Lois (10/25/2017)
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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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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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Shimizu, Midori
OHMS Object Text
5.4 10/14/2017 Shimizu, Midori (10/14/2017) 0:42:22 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. Shimizu, Midori Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/299359224 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/299359224?h=004cf57f2c" ; 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 This is an interview with me, Midori Shimizu, as part of Alphawood Gallery 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 Two and the demise of civil liberties. Today is October 14th at about 2:35 PM and we are recording at the Alphawood Gallery Oral history studio. Midori Shimizu is being interviewed by Anna Takada of Alphawood Gallery. Midori Shimizu: 00:34 Anna Sakado? AT: 00:35 Takada MS: 00:37 Sakada? AT: 00:37 Takada. Um, so now that that' ; s out of the way, can you just start by stating your full name? MS: 00:44 Pardon? AT: 00:45 Can you start, uh, state your full name? MS: 00:49 Midori Shimizu, that' ; s my full name. AT: 00:51 Okay. MS: 00:51 I have no English name or anything. AT: 00:54 Sure. And, uh, can you tell me a little bit about where you were born and when? MS: 00:59 I was born in Vallejo, California. It' ; s 50 mile east, northeast west, I don' ; t know, from San Francisco. Um, it' ; s a nice little quiet town and that' ; s about it. AT: 01:17 And, and how would you, um, describe the town? What was it like when you were growing up there? MS: 01:24 Uh, very quiet. No, um, I knew nothing about, what' ; s the word I want em. I knew I was Japanese, but it didn' ; t make any difference that I was, my best girlfriend was a American girl blonde. Uh, I forgot her name already. She was a nice friend that was in Vallejo. AT: 02:01 And um, what kind was that, like a rural area or was it? MS: 02:06 Very small town, about 50 miles north east, south west. I don' ; t know from San Francisco. And my aunt and uncle lived in San Francisco and they thought it would be good for me to go live in San Francisco and go to school there so that I could meet other Japanese children. And uh, I went to Japanese school but I didn' ; t learn anything there. And, uh, Wrapper Will [?] was the name of my grammar school. And Miss Rooney was my first grade teacher. Ms. Thompson was my second grade teacher and third grade I had another teacher, very nice old lady, Ms. Johnson. I think it was AT: 03:06 That' ; s a very impressive memory [laughing sound]. Um, and uh, your parents what, what did they do for a living? MS: 03:14 They, uh, my uncle and aunt owned a cleaning business and they went back to Japan. So my parents took over the cleaning business and that' ; s how I lived with them, of course, in, I went to school in San Francisco. Then the, when the war broke out we were all sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. AT: 03:42 And do you have any siblings? MS: 03:45 I have an older sister, five years older than I am and uh, she be, she was a nurse in camp while I went to school. MS: 04:01 And, AT: 04:02 And, do you know, uh, AT: 04:05 Where your, did your parents come to the US or were they born here? MS: 04:09 My father was born in Wakayama, came to America when he was 17, I believe. My mother was born in Saga, Japan and my fa, grandfather, her father was living in Vallejo, California, working in a restaurant with three other men two Japanese men and one Chinese man. The four of them owned a restaurant in Vallejo, California. And that' ; s how we came out when I was eight or nine caughing], excuse me. And I went to grammar school in San Francisco [caughing], started when I was nine. I started in the fourth or fifth grade and I worked myself up and I more or less caught up, I, maybe I was, I might' ; ve been a year behind and I finished high school. AT: 05:30 And um, you mentioned your, your aunt and uncle went back to Japan. MS: 05:37 They did. And My mother and father took over the cleaning business after that and then, the war broke out and we were sent into camp and we happened to go to Pomona assembly camp, which was in California. And from there we were sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming. AT: 06:01 And um, so when, when Pearl Harbor broke out, can you or was attacked, um, do you remember that day maybe what you were doing or where you were MS: 06:13 The day that the war broke out? AT: 06:15 Or that, the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked, MS: 06:20 I knew nothing about, oh, it was on a Sunday and I came out of the movie house downtown in San Francisco and I didn' ; t know what was going on. I really did not know until a day or two later. And I couldn' ; t believe Japan would attack. AT: 06:50 How old were you? Do you remember? MS: 06:52 I think I was nine. Yeah. AT: 06:56 Did any things AT: 06:58 Change for you at all, whether in your family or in school? MS: 07:02 No, No. It' ; s just that I couldn' ; t believe that Japan would attack. I just could not believe it. It was just very strange to me, like unbelievable, so. AT: 07:29 Did you, Were there conversations within your family about it? Did you talk to your parents about it? MS: 07:38 Not really. I just, I was in a world of my own, I guess, at that time. AT: 07:47 And, and what about when the evacuation orders went out? Do you remember that? MS: 07:53 Oh, well, I just had to go along with what my parents were going through. It just go along with them. I had no say in it. Ummm. I had no idea where we were going. And first we went into Pomona assembly camp, which was still in California, and I can' ; t remember how long we stayed there. Caughing. Then, after that, we were on a long train ride and we ended up in Wyoming and that was like a home to me. Then after that I went to school there, grammar school and high school. And when the war ended I was still, I think I was in sophomore year and my folks came out to Chicago and I went and signed up at Hyde Park high school and started with freshman year, went four years there. AT: 09:09 And um, before we, we get into what life was like in Chicago. Um, I' ; d like to hear a little bit more about your experiences that come up in Pomona and then, um, heart mountain. Do you, do you remember your, your first reactions or feelings when you arrived to Pomona Assembly Center as a child? MS: 09:37 Pomona, I had a, a neighbor. We had a neighbor I grew attached to because I' ; ve always loved babies and my neighbor had a little baby and I used to go over there next door all the time and play with the baby and they became our close family friends and they went into block one and we were way up in block 27. I would go all the way to block one just to see the baby. I loved that baby. His name was Yutaka and my uncle' ; s name was Yutaka, but I never made that connection at that time, you know? But uh, oh, I adored that baby. AT: 10:29 Do you remember how long that walk was from block one to block 27? MS: 10:34 Oh, was a long, long walk because black 27 is up here and block one would be, I think it was right across that way. We have to go through how many blocks to get to that a block one. But I didn' ; t care. I went there every day. I love that baby. AT: 11:03 Um hum, what else do you remember from, from Pomona? Did you go to school there? MS: 11:08 I went to school. Uh, I was in grammar school at the time, so we were in barracks and then after I graduated, then I went into the big building, uh, as a freshman. I guess that' ; s where we started. That' ; s all I remember. And I can' ; t remember when we came out of the camp, but I started with freshman year again in Hyde Park. I guess I just wanted to cover myself. So I was always a year behind because I kept covering myself to make sure I learned everything. AT: 11:55 And um, so you said it was a long train ride from, you said it was a long train ride from uh, Pomona Assembly Center to Heart Mountain? MS: 12:06 Yes, it was. AT: 12:07 Can you tell me about that trip? MS: 12:11 I can' ; t remember it at all. Nothing. I just cannot remember it. All I know is I was there. AT: 12:23 And, and what about, um, Heart Mountain? Was it very different from Pomona? MS: 12:30 It was a much bigger camp and we were able to go out of the camp. I can' ; t remember where. We only used to go to Shoshone River. I, it' ; s part of the Colorado River, I believe. And we used to go swimming, wading, playing in the water. AT: 12:52 Was there anyone there that you had known from back home or? MS: 12:55 No, no, no. MS: 13:01 And, my mother worked in the mess hall, so she would make us, nigiri, you know, rice bowl. And we take that and we go out of the camp and go to the Shoshone river. I don' ; t know what we did, nothing really, but it was just being out of the camp and that was it. I don' ; t remember anything bad or good or anything about it. I was just ... a living. AT: 13:42 And um, so in camp were you living with your parents and your sister? MS: 13:49 Yes. AT: 13:50 In the same room? MS: 13:53 Yes. The Barrack had six apartment. The two ends were four couples, then the one next to it. The same entrance was for bigger families. Five were more, then the one in the center was for family of four, five would have been tight. So ours was a family of four, my sister and I, my mother and my father. And it was perfect for that for us. AT: 14:32 Do you have any other memories of, of Heart Mountain that stick out to you? MS: 14:38 Ice Skating almost every day, every night after school. MS: 14:49 Um, MS: 14:51 What was the climate like there? MS: 14:54 During the winter, it was very cold, very, very cold. You had to have peacoked and uh, summer was okay. It was just a summer. We used to go to a swimming hole, I remember. I didn' ; t know how to swim, but we just waited in the water. That' ; s about it then. We had a big, I think our camp was the only one that had a huge building, high school building. I' ; ve never heard of any other camps having any high school building. And I went to high school there for a year. Then we came out of the camp when I, then uh, I did go finish off. I was in high school already, but I went into grammar school to finish off. I just wanted to make sure I graduated from high, our grammar school. Then I went into Hyde Park and went the four years there. AT: 16:17 So can you tell me more about um, how that works of your family moving to Chicago? Did your parents have to find a job or [?] a house or how did you leave after the end of the war? MS: 16:31 My sister came out to Chicago first and then my father decided maybe it' ; s time to go out of the camp now, you know, and he wasn' ; t really our cousin. Somehow we were related. His aunt was my mother' ; s aunt. I mean he is, he was a younger man. My mother of course was older woman, but it was the same woman that was both the aunt and so with her in mind, we went out to Chicago and my father found a job. My mother worked downtown, uh, MS: 17:24 I' ; ve gone to her place of work from after school. AT: 17:29 What were they doing for work? It seemed like they were folding cards and stuffing cards into an envelope or, I can' ; t remember exactly what it was, but it was a manual labor. AT: 17:48 And um, so where in Hyde Park did your family settle? MS: 17:54 We were not in hype park. We were in a 43rd and two blocks east of cottage grove. I don' ; t know if you know where cottage grove is. We were on Lake Park and the 39th bridge was over there in the expressway was underneath that bridge. So we weren' ; t too far from the express way. In fact, we' ; re just, the expressway will be here and work on this first street down the street, but you have to go to 39 to get to my apart our apartment MS: 18:40 And, AT: 18:43 And how old would you have been when you moved? MS: 18:47 I was, did I go to high school? I don' ; t think I went, oh, I went part of the, uh, part of the grammar school and then I went into high school and finished four years of it in Hyde Park. AT: 19:13 Do you remember, was that the first time that you had been in Chicago? Do you remember your reactions to the city? Was it very different from any place you' ; ve been or, MS: 19:25 Oh, MS: 19:28 drom San Francisco it was different. I dunno, I dunno how to describe it to you. San Francisco, I could walk all the way to downtown in San Francisco and in Chicago I don' ; t think I could walk all the way to downtown Chicago. I' ; d have to take the L or the subway to go downtown, you know. So it, it seems like maybe it was a bigger city, Chicago was, although San Francisco is a pretty big city too. And yet it didn' ; t seem that big to me MS: 20:22 at the time. AT: 20:23 And how about the, the demographics of the area at that time MS: 20:28 Of what? AT: 20:28 Of where the neighborhood where you were MS: 20:31 Chicago? AT: 20:35 Were there other Japanese American families or? MS: 20:38 There were some, they were starting to move into that area. There were a lot of blacks. We lived among the blacks, but the black, uh, the Japanese were starting to move into different areas there in that proximate area. It almost became a Japanese town almost. And there was a north side that was a, like a Japanese town also, because, MS: 21:10 Uh, MS: 21:13 North of diversity, division or was it diversity, division I think. Was another Japanese town, but that' ; s north. AT: 21:25 Did you ever go out there? I, Clark and division is one that people often MS: 21:30 Talk about? Yeah. Yeah. Once in a while, you know, we used to go to different dances. It, the Japanese group gave dances here and there. We used to go to different dances. AT: 21:48 Um, those dances you' ; re talking about, were they related to the clubs? The boys and girls? MS: 21:53 Yes. AT: 21:54 Were you afraid of any club? MS: 21:57 Jollenade[?] was one of them. AT: 22:00 What, what were some of the other ones that you remember? MS: 22:03 I can' ; t remember. Silhouette. I think there was a club name silhouettes. And I can' ; t remember any of the boys club, any of their names or anything. AT: 22:19 So, um, when you were in school, what would you be doing? MS: 22:25 What was I doing? AT: 22:27 Ummm, for fun or for fun or with family? MS: 22:35 Uh, school was school. I just went to school because you had to go to school and I tried to learn everything I can. MS: 22:46 And, that' ; s about it. I liked school. Was a fun time for me. I think it' ; s a fun time for all kids. It should be a fun time for all kids. AT: 23:05 Um, as far as those dances, do you remember where they were held? Were they on the south side or? MS: 23:13 Oh, there was a, most of them were on the north side, but there was some in the south side that we would crash into. But the, most of the dances were up in the north side I think. Then I went to. AT: 23:33 And how would for for someone who never experienced those dances, uh, how would you describe them? What were they like? MS: 23:44 Umm. AT: 23:45 Who was there? MS: 23:47 Young people, all your teenage people. And, uh, the music was the music that was popular at the time and I can' ; t remember what some of the songs were anymore. I' ; m just getting so old [laughing] AT: 24:10 Were people actually dancing? MS: 24:12 Sure! All the floors will be crowded. AT: 24:18 And, um, was your, was your family involved in any, um, churches or temples? No? MS: 24:27 No. I wasn' ; t. Bad girl, I' ; m bad girl. I didn' ; t go to church at all, hardly. AT: 24:38 And um, and what about, uh, were, were there any, um, Japanese grocery stores or businesses that you recall in those .... ? MS: 24:53 Oh, there was some, I remember there was one of them on north side, but then I lived on the south side. So, uh, once in a blue moon I went to that grocery store, but it was rare. And then, south side there was, I' ; m 55th street. My girlfriend' ; s parents owned the grocery store. MS: 25:20 Um, 55th. And what was that? Dorchester? It was on 55th. And I frequented that, that grocery store because my girlfriend' ; s parents owned it. You know. AT: 25:41 Did your family eat together at home? MS: 25:45 Um hum, AT: 25:45 Someone would cook food. MS: 25:47 My Mother did all the cooking. AT: 25:49 What kind of food did she cook? MS: 25:51 Mostly Japanese, but once in a while we have pork chops and steaks, potato, uh, baked potato, fried potato. AT: 26:01 And where, when you' ; re at home, would you speak Japanese with your parents? MS: 26:05 Yes, mostly, especially to my mother. She spoke hardly any English. I used to be angry with her. You' ; re living in the states, you should learn to speak English. But it was hard for her. I realized that now, so I was almost asking for the impossibilities. AT: 26:35 Did she ever tell you, did you ever talk about it or? MS: 26:40 With her? AT: 26:40 Yeah, MS: 26:42 Not really, no, but I, it was hard for her to learn English, I guess, and I grew up using both English and Japanese, so it was easy for me but not for her. AT: 27:09 And so after you, you completed high school at Hyde Park, where did you go from there? MS: 27:17 I had no desire to go to college, did not even enter my mind. So I got a part time job and that became my full time job. And, AT: 27:38 Where were you working? MS: 27:43 Oh, it was, not quite downtown and yet it felt like it was close to downtown. Superior I think was one of the street. AT: 28:02 And what kind of work was it? MS: 28:08 It seemed like it was piecework. We have to work pretty fast. I think it was piecework. I really can' ; t remember. It was so long ago. I' ; m old. AT: 28:25 And um, when, so your sister was here as well, um, was she out of school? MS: 28:34 Who? AT: 28:35 Your sister! MS: 28:36 My sister ... I think she went to school at least couple of years I thought. I' ; m not sure. Then, she became a nurse' ; s aide like she worked in the hospital. AT: 29:00 Do you up, remember where that was? Which hospital? MS: 29:06 Oh, by the lake area. I don' ; t know which hospital it would have been. She was living out of the house already. She was with her girlfriend, which is now her sister in law. She married her, her girlfriend' ; s brother, Bill. And ... so that was her sister in law that she was living with before she got married. And I guess through her, she must have met Bill. AT: 29:50 So you had been living along with your parents then, is that right? MS: 29:54 Yes. AT: 29:58 And um, do you remember the apartment that you were staying in the wall [?] with your parents? MS: 30:07 South side. 37 Lake Park Avenue. AT: 30:14 Oops, sorry. MS: 30:15 Then we moved to 43rd. Uh, was it Ellis? I think 43rd and Ellis. And from there it' ; s a blank to me where we went. And after I graduated, I don' ; t know what happened. AT: 30:45 Did you move to the north side? MS: 30:48 I really can' ; t remember when I moved to the north side with my parents or how I got to the north side. It wasn' ; t with my sister. AT: 31:09 Where on the north side did you live? MS: 31:16 Oh, I almost had that. It' ; s not 47th. It' ; s at 47th or 49? Oh my goodness! It' ; s all, AT: 31:37 .... [inaudible] taken you way back. MS: 31:39 It' ; s all jumbled up. AT: 31:41 Hmm, and where are you living now? MS: 31:47 Uh, I' ; m living way up north. Where am I living right now? Anonymous Speak: 32:00 Roger' ; s Park AT: 32:00 Where? IN 2: 32:01 Roger' ; s park. MS: 32:03 Rogers Park. Yeah. Thank you. AT: 32:06 And um, how long have you been up there? MS: 32:10 Oh, seems like a long, long, long, long time. AT: 32:15 And did you ever get married? MS: 32:18 Yeah, I only married once to Pat Shimizu. AT: 32:26 And where, where did you meet him? MS: 32:32 I don' ; t know if I met him at a dance or I really can' ; t remember. It was so long ago and he' ; s been gone for quite a while now. And my son is gone too. I had two daughters, Karen and Laurie and my son Dale. And Dale, I think he passed away when he was very young. AT: 33:10 And you were raising your family in Chicago? MS: 33:13 Yes. AT: 33:16 Did you ever think about moving back to the west coast or were moving anywhere else? MS: 33:25 I don' ; t know where I would go in the west coast area. I don' ; t think I' ; d want to go to San Francisco. If I do move to the California, I guess it would be cali, uh, Los Angeles. But, Chicago is my home. It' ; s my home. I' ; ve been here since I was, I believe I was about 16. So Chicago is my home, I think. AT: 34:02 What do you, what do you like about Chicago? MS: 34:06 You have your summer, you have your spring, you have your winter, you have your fall. You have all the four seasons. Or California. I don' ; t know. You don' ; t have the four season, summer, spring, summer, spring, summer, spring. I think that' ; s about it. But Chicago, you have all four seasons. AT: 34:37 Uh, one thing I want, I wanted to ask you about, ummm. When you had moved to Chicago as a, a young woman, uh, did young people talk about the, the camps? Because I imagine a lot of folks were, had been coming from the camps MS: 34:56 We never talked about it. Isn' ; t that funny? That is strange. I don' ; t know what camp they even belonged to. We never talked about camp. We just talked about the now. AT: 35:18 And how about when you were raising a family? Did you ever share about it with your family? MS: 35:25 About my camp life and stuff? Not really. They never questioned me and I never ... one or two or had any interest in telling them about it. They want to know, I' ; ll tell him. But, I guess they have no interest in wanting to know about my past either. I' ; m just a mommy. That' ; s all [laughing]. AT: 36:06 And, and um, you said that you think that you just weren' ; t interested or, or didn' ; t want to talk about it. Um, do you, was there any particular reason or? MS: 36:21 No. Life goes on, you just, why waste your time looking back? It just keeps going on. Why hinder yourself, you know, from going, moving on and on ... Just in your own memory, you could go back. But I don' ; t think my children really would be interested or my friends or anyone who would be interested, you know, just for now leave for now, AT: 37:24 This is a, a more random question, but what, what has been one of the happiest moments of your life so far? MS: 37:35 Happiest moment of my life? I guess, the carefree moments of my teenage years. Carefree. Totally. AT: 37:55 And if you could pass on a message or a legacy to your children, your grandchildren, your great grandchildren, what, what would you like to leave them with or what do you want them to know? MS: 38:12 Oh, they should live their own life. They should live their own life. I' ; ve lived my own, they should live their own life too. Why meddle into mine? MS: 38:28 [Smiling] AT: 38:32 As we wrap up here, is there anything that uh, I may have missed or that you would want to add? MS: 38:42 You seem to have covered quite a bit. AT: 38:45 Any, any questions from over here? IN 2: 38:49 Um, I remember you saying like you' ; re, was it either pat or your dad, [inaudible] didn' ; t they hang out at some bar in the north side a lot? MS: 39:02 Pat, my husband. IN 2: 39:05 Yes. MS: 39:05 He lived in the bar. IN 2: 39:07 What were, was that bar? MS: 39:10 Nisei. IN 2: 39:10 Nisei? MS: 39:11 Yeah. IN 2: 39:11 So, it was a bar that was specifically Japanese. MS: 39:14 All Japanese. Very. You' ; d rarely, rarely saw any white man was all Japanese. No, Chinese, no Filipino, was mainly all Japanese Speaker 1: 39:32 Is Nisei lounge? MS: 39:33 Yeah. IN 2: 39:35 Now I think it' ; s like a hipster lounge. MS: 39:38 There' ; s another bar over on Sheffield. IN 2: 39:42 ... [inaudible] yeah, right exactly, there was a legit Japanese [inaudible]. MS: 39:44 Yeah. There is another bar over on Sheffield. That was all Japanese too, but I can' ; t recall the name of the bar right now. But that was all Japanese too. There was quite a few here and there. That was all Japanese. I guess they just felt more comfortable among their own. AT: 40:09 Did you, did you ever go to any bars or? MS: 40:13 Oh, Nisei bar? Yeah. And I went to the one over on Sheffield, very few bars other than that, so I' ; m not that much of a drinker because just few drinks and I am drunk out of my gourd, [loudly laughing]. Don' ; t know what I' ; m doing. I might be getting into trouble. IN 2: 40:46 So, so pat was Japanese American as well? MS: 40:50 Yes. IN 2: 40:50 So was, were you just attracted to Japanese American specifically? MS: 40:57 Yeah, IN 2: 40:57 Because I always thought it was interesting that you chose to marry a Japanese American. Karen, his, her daughter married a Japanese American and well, her son married a Korean American [laughing] ,but still there' ; s kind of that thread of MS: 41:13 Well, Lori married an American man. IN 2: 41:15 That' ; s true. MS: 41:16 Yeah, IN 2: 41:16 That' ; s true. MS: 41:17 She wasn' ; t drawn to Japanese people. IN 2: 41:19 Yeah, MS: 41:21 Her friends were all different nationalities. MS: 41:26 And did you care? MS: 41:27 No, I didn' ; t care. She had her own life. IN 2: 41:30 But for you, did you want to marry a Japanese American or just happened to be? MS: 41:36 I think I would prefer to marry a Japanese person. IN 2: 41:41 Um humm MS: 41:41 Yeah. And uh, in fact, all my friends were Japanese, handful [?] here and there. I had white girlfriend, Jewish girlfriends. I even had black girlfriends, couple of them, Dorothy and Donna, that was in grammar school. IN 2: 42:03 Wow, MS: 42:03 So I wasn' ; t picky [laughing together]. IN 2: 42:14 I know, I know. AT: 42:14 Alright, that' ; s it AT: 42:14 Thank you so much for taking the time. MS: 42:17 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=ShimizuMidori20171014.xml ShimizuMidori20171014.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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Shimizu, Midori (10/14/2017)
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2017-10-14
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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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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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Weiss, Kelly
Interviewee
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Taira, Mary
OHMS Object Text
5.4 8/12/2017 Taira, Mary (8/12/2017) 0:37:47 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. Taira, Mary Weiss, Kelly video 0 https://vimeo.com/302006577 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/302006577?h=46b8d6c792" ; 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.] Kelly Weiss: 00:02 Okay Gram, what is your name? Mary Taira: 00:04 Mary. KW: 00:05 Mary. What' ; s your last name? MT: 00:08 Taira. KW: 00:09 What was your name when you were born? MT: 00:11 Coachee. KW: 00:11 Koji. Mary Koji. Do you have a middle name? KW: 00:15 Fumiko KW: 00:17 So, Mary Fumiko Koji. MT: 00:20 There you go. KW: 00:21 Did you know, do you remember that my middle name is Fumiko? MT: 00:25 No. KW: 00:26 [laughs] Yeah, that mom named me after you. MT: 00:29 I didn' ; t know that. If I did, I forgot. KW: 00:32 You forgot. KW: 00:33 Where were you born? MT: 00:38 Los Angeles. KW: 00:40 In California? MT: 00:41 California. KW: 00:43 And when, how old were you when you went to the camp? MT: 00:49 Hmm, I think I was about 15. KW: 00:51 About 15? MT: 00:53 I think so. KW: 00:54 Did you go to school in the camps? MT: 00:56 Yes. KW: 00:56 And what was school like? MT: 01:00 Fun. KW: 01:01 What was fun about it? MT: 01:03 Boys. KW: 01:06 Okay, tell me more and describe it a little bit more. MT: 01:13 Yeah, I liked the teachers. Teachers. Very kind. You bring, uh, no animosity towards us when we, there were some that Kinda had a, I don' ; t know, but yeah, they were all nice teachers. KW: 01:35 Did you go to class all day and all day? MT: 01:40 Not all day. When I mean regular school hours. KW: 01:44 Did you have a school house? Was there a school building? MT: 01:48 No, we had our own, an old school building? Yes. Yeah. Separate from the, our house. KW: 01:55 Separate from your house. MT: 01:56 and from our camp anyway. KW: 01:58 Who lived with you in your space in the camp? MT: 02:01 My mom, my stepfather. KW: 02:04 Your mom and your stepfather. MT: 02:05 And my sisters. KW: 02:06 How many sisters? MT: 02:07 Two KW: 02:08 Two sisters. And all of you are in the same, MT: 02:12 Same room. KW: 02:14 Just one room? MT: 02:15 One big room. KW: 02:18 Can you describe the room a little bit? MT: 02:20 Well, it was partitioned off from my, my parents and um, like myself and my sisters, we had the three little cots that we had as our beds. And that' ; s about all. KW: 02:38 What else was in there with you? Did, wasn' ; t there a little kitchen? Was there a desk? Anything? MT: 02:43 Where the kitchen was, we had to go to a main, main building to eat. We didn' ; t have no kitchen in our room. We weren' ; t allowed to have any, anything. KW: 02:58 What was the food like? MT: 03:02 Wasn' ; t bad. It was edible. KW: 03:05 What about bathrooms? Bathrooms. MT: 03:09 Oh, we had to go into a, uh, they have a separate, uh, building for men and for, for women we had to go to, we didn' ; t have our own bathroom, we had to go to another room. Um, kind of a house? Yeah. KW: 03:30 Were there stalls for showers or were the showers open? MT: 03:33 No showers, stalls for showers. KW: 03:37 Was it dusty, did you have to shower a lot? Cause you were in the, you were in a muck too, right? Was it really dusty there? MT: 03:46 Yeah, I had a lot of dust storms there. Yeah. KW: 03:49 What were the dust storms like? MT: 03:50 Dust storms? storms? Dust. KW: 03:55 Well did you have to protect yourself or go inside or did you, MT: 03:59 you know, we stayed inside and we always had to have a kerchief over our nose in order to go do lunch in for your, uh, for dinner or lunch and dinner, you had to have a scarf so we can at least breathe. KW: 04:16 And were you and your sisters in the same class and in school? MT: 04:21 Not In the same class, no, but the same school. Yes. KW: 04:26 And did you, did you graduate high school in the camps? MT: 04:32 Well, I don' ; t remember. I think so, yeah. So long ago. KW: 04:41 Do you remember what your favorite subject in school was? MT: 04:45 Recess. KW: 04:48 Did you play any sports when you were in the camp? MT: 04:52 Baseball. KW: 04:54 What position did you play in baseball. MT: 04:57 Pitcher. KW: 04:58 You were a pitcher? MT: 04:59 Yeah. KW: 05:00 I didn' ; t know that! I thought I remember you saying you used to play volleyball. MT: 05:05 Well, I played volleyball too, but at least I liked to play baseball. KW: 05:10 Yeah. KW: 05:12 Do you have any favorite memories from the camps? Anything that stands out? MT: 05:19 Boys. KW: 05:22 How many boyfriends did you have? MT: 05:24 Only one. KW: 05:27 What was his name? MT: 05:29 Yeah, come to think of it. I don' ; t remember. It' ; s been so long ago. KW: 05:35 And do you remember, um, leaving the camps? MT: 05:41 Vaguely. KW: 05:43 What do you remember about leaving the camp? MT: 05:46 Waving goodbye. KW: 05:49 To who? MT: 05:51 Anybody that I could wave out the train window. Well some of my friends came too. KW: 06:01 Yeah. Were your parents with you? Your mom and your stepfather? MT: 06:06 Yes. KW: 06:08 Your whole family left at the same time? MT: 06:10 No. KW: 06:13 Who left when? MT: 06:15 I don' ; t remember. It' ; s been so long ago. KW: 06:19 Where did you go after the camp? MT: 06:22 Chicago. KW: 06:25 What did you do when you got here? MT: 06:28 Where? Speaker 3: 06:31 He' ; s the one who answered the job. What kind of job did you have, Mom? What kind of job did you have? MT: 06:36 I see. MT: 06:39 I had so many jobs. I forgot. I mostly work in the office. KW: 06:47 What about your job working in the school cafeteria? Do you remember? MT: 06:53 Not very much. I used to work. It should be the bots. KW: 06:59 and how many kids do you have? MT: 07:02 Three. Oh, it' ; s four. KW: 07:06 Yes, you have four. Sharon, MT: 07:09 Thee, Bruce and Paul. KW: 07:14 Yeah, well, what did you get to bring with you to the camps? Do you remember? MT: 07:19 One suitcase. KW: 07:20 What was in your suitcase? MT: 07:22 Like panties. [laughs] KW: 07:28 Well, let me rephrase the question. What was something special that you brought with you to the camps that you didn' ; t want to leave behind? MT: 07:37 Right. Who remember? KW: 07:41 And were there any family heirlooms? MT: 07:45 No, I don' ; t remember. KW: 07:47 Do you think your mom brought any of those things? MT: 07:51 That, she originally probably did, but I don' ; t remember. KW: 07:54 So tell me about your mom. What was your mom like? MT: 07:59 She was pretty, always dating. Lots of fun. KW: 08:09 Was she born in California too? Was your grandmother born in California? MT: 08:15 No. KW: 08:16 So your mom was the first one? MT: 08:19 Yes, she was the oldest. KW: 08:23 and when did you meet Ji-Chan? MT: 08:27 I don' ; t remember. KW: 08:30 Okay. Let' ; s try and find some other questions. MT: 08:34 I don' ; t. KW: 08:35 What do you like about living in Chicago? MT: 08:38 I don' ; t. KW: 08:40 You don' ; t like living in Chicago? Where would you rather live? MT: 08:43 California. KW: 08:45 You want to go back? MT: 08:46 I would like to. KW: 08:47 What did you like about living in California? Speaker 3: 08:51 Everything. My childhood. KW: 08:56 Tell me about your childhood. What was your life like before the camps? MT: 09:00 Fun. KW: 09:02 Why? MT: 09:03 Why? Yeah, a little young. Yeah. Okay. I didn' ; t know any better. KW: 09:08 What kinds of stuff did you do? MT: 09:12 Everything. Played dance, sing, everything. KW: 09:21 What did your, um, what did your parents do? MT: 09:27 Well she worked, and my mom worked in the restaurant and that my grandfather owned. KW: 09:31 He owned the restaurant? And what happened to the restaurant when you guys went to the camp? MT: 09:37 Well, we had to close down. Do you know who got the restaurant? Have you been back to the restaurant? Did any of you ever go back? MT: 09:52 I don' ; t remember. MT: 09:53 I think I went back to see what it looked like. But it' ; s not the same. KW: 10:00 Not the same. MT: 10:03 Surprising. The name was called the New York cafe. KW: 10:08 When you were a little girl, the cafe was called the New York cafe? I bet that' ; s new information. I' ; ve never heard that before. Why was it called The New York Cafe? MT: 10:19 I guess my grandfather, liked New York. KW: 10:24 Do you know when your grandfather came to the United States? MT: 10:26 No. No. KW: 10:27 Was he born in Japan? MT: 10:30 Yes. KW: 10:31 Did you speak Japanese growing up? MT: 10:34 No. KW: 10:35 Why not? MT: 10:36 Because I didn' ; t learn. KW: 10:38 Did your mom speak Japanese? MT: 10:39 Oh yes. KW: 10:41 But she taught you English, or she wanted you to speak English? MT: 10:46 Oh, I learned English on my own. When you' ; re kids, you just pick up things then you' ; re on your own. KW: 10:56 Do you read, do you do understand Japanese when you were little? MT: 11:02 Yes, KW: 11:05 But I remember you don' ; t understand Japanese now though, right? MT: 11:10 Little bit. MT: 11:11 When someone talks to me, it depends on what they say. I can understand some of it. KW: 11:21 What makes you the most happy every day? What makes you the most happy every day? MT: 11:27 Being alive. KW: 11:29 Do you remember how old you are? MT: 11:32 No. I think I' ; m in the eighties someplace or in the nineties somewhere around there. KW: 11:37 You are. You' ; re 91. MT: 11:39 Oh yeah, am I? Surprised myself. KW: 11:45 Do you remember any of your childhood friends? MT: 11:51 No. KW: 11:53 And you said you had two sisters, right? MT: 11:57 Youne and Baby. KW: 11:59 Were they older or younger? MT: 12:01 I' ; m the oldest in the family. KW: 12:05 And so, um, KW: 12:08 you were 14 when, when the war broke out? MT: 12:12 Somewhere around there. Daughter: 12:13 She was born in 1925. KW: 12:17 And do you, do you remember when uh, Pearl Harbor was attacked. MT: 12:24 41. KW: 12:24 do you remember that day or hearing about it? MT: 12:32 Um, MT: 12:33 no, really because I didn' ; t care that much then fine. Then I was finally realize I was Japanese. KW: 12:43 You were just a typical American kid, right? MT: 12:46 Going to school, seeing my friends. KW: 12:50 Did you, did you know other or did you grow up with other Japanese American kids or? MT: 12:56 Not too much. There were some that went to school with me, but I mostly my friends were American. KW: 13:06 And uh, what about your, your parents or, or your mom and your Stepdad? MT: 13:10 Well you know, my mom was born in Los Angeles. My father, I don' ; t, probably was in Japan. I don' ; t even remember any of my father, just my stepfather. KW: 13:23 When did your father pass away? MT: 13:25 I don' ; t remember that either. I don' ; t even know he died. KW: 13:34 So, um, KW: 13:36 Did you expect mom to marry Japanese person? MT: 13:42 No. I wasn' ; t born there. So I didn' ; t know. KW: 13:44 No, your, my mom. MT: 13:46 Oh, your mom. You didn' ; t say your mom. New Speaker: 13:48 I' ; m sorry. Let me restate the question again. Did you expect Sharon to marry a Japanese man? MT: 13:55 Not really. KW: 13:56 No? MT: 13:57 No. D: 13:59 Why not? MT: 14:01 I didn' ; t really remember her going around with any Japanese men. You didn' ; t! D: 14:09 Well because there were not around. MT: 14:11 See? So. KW: 14:11 So, in Chicago, did you have a lot of Japanese friends when you moved to Chicago? MT: 14:19 Not too many. It' ; s a, I didn' ; t associate too much with Japanese too much. KW: 14:26 Why not? MT: 14:26 I had mostly American friends I went around, ' ; cause the kids, school was all American. MT: 14:32 Well you kinda... MT: 14:36 The Japanese at that time, we didn' ; t associate them much and mostly all American friends. KW: 14:45 Do you remember in the 1980s when President Reagan apologized for camps? MT: 14:51 No, I didn' ; t care. KW: 14:55 You didn' ; t care? Because the family got the money. Do you remember getting the money? MT: 15:01 I did. I don' ; t remember getting any of it. KW: 15:05 Why didn' ; t you care that he apologized? MT: 15:08 ' ; Cause at that time I was too young to care, to matter, that even realize anything happened. Except that I was in camp. KW: 15:20 Well, this apology came 40 years later in the 1980s. MT: 15:26 What you mean? I was still too young to know. KW: 15:31 that mean. Yeah, too little. Too late. Maybe. D: 15:36 Where did you move to when you came to Chicago? Which, which neighborhood or, or what part of Chicago did you come to first? KW: 15:49 I forgot, I think it was in Uptown. D: 15:55 We lived on Hampton court. Do you remember Hampton Court? MT: 15:59 Not too much. Well, where was Hampton Court? D: 16:05 We lived at, that' ; s where I was born, and then we moved to Burling. You remember Burling? That' ; s where Auntie Chiyo was there and Auntie Margaret when we lived on the third floor. MT: 16:18 No, those things is so past in my mind. I don' ; t want to remember. D: 16:22 There, there was a big three flat and the different families lived in a three flat at the different floors. MT: 16:28 I don' ; t even remember that. KW: 16:35 Well, when you think about your memories, what' ; s one of your favorite memories? MT: 16:42 Hmm, let' ; s see. I only have too many favorite memories except going to the dances. You meeting boys? No, I don' ; t really remember too much. Except I had fun when I went to go dances because I love to dance at that time. The jitterbug. Remember the jitterbug? Yeah. You don' ; t know what the jitterbug is. KW: 17:12 I do know what the jitterbug is! I' ; m just trying to picture you doing the jitterbug. [laughs] KW: 17:18 What about being a mom? What do you like the most about being a mom? MT: 17:23 Having kids. KW: 17:25 What do you like about having kids? I know you love kids. What do you like about kids? MT: 17:30 Oh, that' ; s kinda hard to say, was kind of rough, but it was, I like it. I think the kids. KW: 17:39 Yeah. KW: 17:40 What' ; s your favorite part about being a mom? MT: 17:44 Being a Mom. KW: 17:44 Yeah. KW: 17:49 And you were around kids when you worked in the cafeteria. Do kids make you happy? MT: 17:54 Yeah, there were. We had a good time working in the cafeteria, meeting the kids, seeing what they ate, be sure they ate. KW: 18:03 Was that a school cafeteria or can you talk a little bit more about that? MT: 18:10 No. The school cafe-- was a camp cafeteria, but the school kids came there to eat. You know the family. It was a family style cafeteria, so. KW: 18:22 Well, when you got out of the camps, you spent most of your career working in school cafeterias. MT: 18:30 I don' ; t remember. All I remember is working. D: 18:33 You were a lunchroom manager, mom. MT: 18:37 That, that part I remember either, but I remember what working, um, for uh, help to used to write books I forgot it was, I forgot the name. It' ; s been so long ago. Anyway, that' ; s where all the Japanese got a job and that got a job just like dad. D: 19:13 R. R. Donnelley? Oh, was it Donnelley? MT: 19:17 Uh, the name is familiar, but I don' ; t remember if it' ; s the name or not. D: 19:23 Yeah it was one of the few places that hired Japanese-Americans. New Speaker: 19:26 Yeah, very few. In fact it was about the only place at the time. KW: 19:34 How would you describe yourself? MT: 19:38 What? Then? KW: 19:39 No, just in general. If you were going to pick some words to describe your personality. What is your personality like? What are you like? MT: 19:48 Old. Grouchy. D: 19:53 That' ; s not true. Sassy. [laughs] MT: 19:58 That' ; s how I feel like. A grouchy old lady. KW: 20:03 [laughs] Well, what were you like when you were young then? MT: 20:07 Oh, I don' ; t remember being happy. Happy that was having a nice mother. I know I didn' ; t have a father very long. I didn' ; t like my stepfather, so I guess I was okay. KW: 20:27 What was your mother' ; s name? MT: 20:27 Hana. KW: 20:32 And did she have family too? Did she have sisters or brothers? MT: 20:37 Yeah, she had sisters. Um, two sisters and a brother. KW: 20:44 And did you know them? MT: 20:47 Auntie Matsuko and Auntie Margaret. Uncle Chiyo. Oh, Auntie Chiyo and Uncle Charlie. Auntie Matsa. D: 20:58 Yes she had more than two sisters. KW: 21:00 Were your mother' ; s sisters and brothers with you in the camps? Were you all in the same camp? MT: 21:07 Mm, no. KW: 21:09 Do you know where they went? No. KW: 21:12 Who was with you in the camps other than your mother and your stepfather and your sisters. Who else was with you guys in the camp? MT: 21:19 That' ; s about it. KW: 21:22 So none of your aunties came with you? MT: 21:25 You know, I don' ; t remember. It' ; s been so long ago. KW: 21:29 What about your grandmother? Who' ; s in the picture that we were looking at in front of the trains, you' ; re there with your aunties and your grandmother. MT: 21:41 I didn' ; t like my grandmother so much. KW: 21:43 Why not? New Speaker: 21:45 She' ; s kind of mean. KW: 21:49 Do you have any stories of her being mean? MT: 21:53 Just be mean. KW: 21:56 Was she in the camp with you? MT: 21:59 I don' ; t know. Not In the same campus as I was. KW: 22:04 So did your, if your family split up into different camps, how did you guys find each other again after the camps? MT: 22:14 I don' ; t remember that either. I know one person had a place and we' ; d all come together to live there, at that, but I don' ; t know which one was my Auntie Babe or Auntie Youne. That' ; s about it. I don' ; t remember. KW: 22:34 So somebody left first and set up a house and then you guys all went to that house after the camps? MT: 22:42 No, no, no. I don' ; t remember. Yeah. I had to sit back and think about it. I don' ; t remember it. This one was gone and you' ; d probably... huh? D: 23:00 Go ahead. MT: 23:02 No. KW: 23:04 Okay. MT: 23:06 No, it isn' ; t ok, when your mind is gone. I don' ; t remember, who are you? KW: 23:13 You remember who I am. See, this is her stand up. Yeah. D: 23:17 You remember who I am? MT: 23:20 Ohh. D: 23:20 Do you remember becoming a grandmother? MT: 23:23 No. D: 23:24 Did you like having grandkids? No, he didn' ; t have Julie and Kelly and was good and she said, yeah, that' ; s just very, you' ; re being smart at like, yeah. What do you like about being grandmother? MT: 23:42 I don' ; t remember because I don' ; t remember being a grandmother. D: 23:45 Do you remember being a great grandmother? Nope. What' ; s your great granddaughter' ; s name? D: 23:52 My daughter. What' ; s her name? MT: 23:55 I don' ; t know why, I don' ; t remember. D: 23:56 Cora. Does that sound familiar? MT: 23:58 I don' ; t see her. D: 24:00 She' ; s right outside. MT: 24:01 She is? D: 24:03 She' ; s right out there. MT: 24:08 I don' ; t remember what she looks like. KW: 24:14 Uh, so where do you live now in Chicago? MT: 24:20 Steels 3631 North Pine Street. D: 24:24 Francisco 3631 North Francisco. MT: 24:27 Oh, North Francisco. Yeah. I think of Vine street all the time. Yeah. I don' ; t know why I think of Vine street. KW: 24:35 Did you live on a place called Pine Street? MT: 24:38 Yeah. Didn' ; t I live on Vine street someplace? KW: 24:42 When did you live on Vine Street? MT: 24:43 I don' ; t remember. She' ; ll remember more than I would. D: 24:45 When, we lived there for a long time Mom, when I was in grammar school. MT: 24:53 And what was the hybrids? D: 24:56 1661. MT: 24:57 Oh, that' ; s right. D: 25:00 And I went to high school at Waller and I transferred Amundsen, Thee transferred to Senn and then we moved. Paul went to Lane Tech. MT: 25:17 I don' ; t remember. D: 25:17 You went to Newport. You remember 918 Newport? Well that' ; s where we lived with when Paul was little. Anna Takada: 25:29 You said that when you moved to Chicago, you enjoyed the, the dances. Can you tell us what, what were the dances. MT: 25:37 Well, those were the dances that the, yeah, they would have, um, dances for the Japanese American and used to go, I used to, forgot what, I would with stag with her. Had a friend at the time. [laughs] There was a time I would go by myself, one year with some girlfriends and we' ; d all go sit on the side and be some wallflowers. D: 26:10 Where did you meet our dad? MT: 26:11 You know what, I don' ; t remember. D: 26:15 Wasn' ; t it Club Waikiki? Was it at Club Waikiki? MT: 26:15 No, I don' ; t think so. KW: 26:24 Do you remember Club Waikiki? What do you remember about Club Waikiki? Tell me a really good story about Club Waikiki. MT: 26:32 You know, when you sit and ask me, I don' ; t remember. I didn' ; t know I had a good time. AT: 26:40 What, what is Club Waikiki? MT: 26:43 It used to be a club for all the Hawaiian boys, or Hawaiian people used to go to. In my, at that time, my husband was a bartender there. AT: 26:58 And so would you go to visit him at the bar? MT: 27:02 I don' ; t remember. I don' ; t think so. D: 27:05 We did. My mom used to make crepe paper leis. MT: 27:08 Oh that' ; s right. I used to make leis to sell. They used to sell there. D: 27:13 And that' ; s where my mom met my second dad, my first and second ever best friend. That sounds bad, but [laughs] we used to go as kids when the, when the bar wasn' ; t open. But yeah, I had a lot of Japanese-American friends as well. KW: 27:39 So you did hang out with other Japanese people! You did hang out with other Japanese people at Club Waikiki. MT: 27:47 At the time, but not anymore. I don' ; t have that many friends. KW: 27:52 Yeah. But at the time it was all Hawaiian boys. There must' ; ve been a lot of Japanese people at Club Waikiki. MT: 27:59 Yeah, second-generation, no third generation, no third generation. She' ; s third generation so it was always second-generation boys. A lot of Hawaiian boys, all mostly all home from Hawaii. AT: 28:18 And when you came to Chicago, where are you only working or were you going to school as well? MT: 28:23 I was going to, I was pretty young then I was going to school. AT: 28:31 Do you remember where? MT: 28:33 No. KW: 28:33 I don' ; t think you went to college. MT: 28:36 I didn' ; t. I went to junior college but not for very long. KW: 28:42 Oh, you went to junior college? I didn' ; t know that. AT: 28:45 And what about your, your sisters? They came to Chicago too? MT: 28:48 We all came together with my mom and stepfather. AT: 28:54 And were they they were probably young enough to still be in school? MT: 28:57 Oh yeah. In fact they were. Yeah. D: 29:05 So your sister Kim was born in the camps, right? So what was it like to have a baby in the camps? Did you help take care of your baby? Help the baby? Did your mom leave the camps to have the baby or did your mom have the baby actually still in the camp? Do you remember? MT: 29:28 I don' ; t think Kim was born in camp. D and KW: 29:30 Yeah. Yeah, she was. MT: 29:34 She did, I don' ; t even remember because at that time I didn' ; t care that much as all the boys. AT: 29:43 Do you remember feeling like or how you felt um, as a teenager when your family got the evacuation notice? MT: 29:53 You know at that time all I know is we knew that we had to go to camp and when I went to Camp I had a pretty good time there. KW: 30:07 Were you ever angry that you had to leave your house and your friends? MT: 30:13 No. KW: 30:14 Why weren' ; t you angry? MT: 30:16 ' ; Cause I was too young to realize what was happening, really. KW: 30:22 Did you ever get angry later when you thought back on what had happened to you? MT: 30:27 No, not really cause I had some pretty good times there D: 30:33 Ever since I can remember you always said, you know when I was little that you had a good time. MT: 30:40 Yeah, I think that, I made a lot of good friends and a lot of the activities that I went with the time and a lot of boys. KW: 30:55 What kind of activities did you do? Arts and crafts or did you sew or? MT: 31:00 No, a while I did a lot was not that much sewing, but I worked in the lunch room a lot more. Mostly with the cafe, with the lunch room ' ; cause I became the lunchroom manager. D: 31:15 You were a good bowler. I remember you bowled a lot. You did bowling. MT: 31:20 Oh yeah, I bowled a lot. KW: 31:22 What do you like about bowling? MT: 31:24 What do I like about bowling? It' ; s fun. KW: 31:29 So in the picture from the trains, you' ; re wearing a hat and Auntie You thinks that' ; s her hat. MT: 31:37 No, that was my hat. I always wore a hat. She always says it' ; s her, but it was me. KW: 31:46 Why do you think Auntie Yo thinks it' ; s her hat? MT: 31:50 I don' ; t know. KW: 31:53 Why did you always wear a hat? MT: 31:55 At that time we, we knew we were going new to someplace sunny, so we all bought a hat. So that was one of my hats and my only hat and I thought I was kind of smart. The thing with the hat, so I wore in the back of my head and sit on top. AT: 32:17 How does it feel to see that photograph up in a, in an exhibition? MT: 32:24 Sad. ' ; Cause I remember the time we had to go on the train, but I don' ; t remember anything else except sitting in the train and looking out when we pulled up on station. And where are we in that? Yeah, I don' ; t remember that. I don' ; t really want to remember actually, ' ; cause I had a fun time. D: 32:59 You didn' ; t go to the camp right away though, right? MT: 33:02 Uh, no, not right away. I think they took us in sections. D: 33:10 Where did you go before the camp? MT: 33:12 Santa Anita Racetrack. D: 33:16 And you slept in the horse stalls? MT: 33:18 Horse stalls. We all slept in those quarters. So had to make our own, had to clean the, oh hay out of that place and made our own beds. Had cots and the bell would ring for lunch and dinner and breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh I had the lineup. That' ; s about all I can really remember. KW: 33:50 I think that' ; s a lot Gram. I think you remember a lot. MT: 33:53 Yeah, I guess so. But when you asked me the question right now, I don' ; t remember a thing [laughs]. AT: 34:00 When when you had children, did you tell them about your experiences growing up and then camp? MT: 34:08 No. D: 34:08 When we were growing up. My dad didn' ; t want to tell the stories. AT: 34:12 Hmh. D: 34:12 It was like an embarrassment that they were there. KW: 34:23 Do you remember when I was in high school in the 1990s you came to my high school and you gave a talk about the camps? MT: 34:32 I did. I did? KW: 34:35 Yeah. And you brought a bunch of stuff that you' ; d kept from the camps. You had little wooden birds and you had other things that you kept and you brought them to my high school and you told your story. I wish I would have recorded it. And you told your story and you, you told my whole high school class about what it was like to be in the camps. MT: 34:58 I don' ; t remember those things anymore. KW: 35:01 Do you know my friend' ; s now, still 20 years later, they still talk about that? MT: 35:06 Really? KW: 35:09 It made a real big difference in their lives. MT: 35:14 Well, made a big difference in mine. KW: 35:18 But I want you to know that that that still means a lot to me all these years later. Am I right? That still means glad to my friends to. MT: 35:25 Really? Oh, that' ; s good. All I remember is I had a good time. It was a sad time, but I had a good time. ' ; Cause I met boys and went to dance. School was really not a school, but it was fun going to school. MT: 35:57 And all the boys I' ; ve never met before. KW: 36:01 What do you think about the way Japanese people are treated in America? MT: 36:08 Now? KW: 36:09 Now or then? Either way. New Speaker: 36:11 What? Well, when I was a kid, I don' ; t really don' ; t really remember it all, I was a kid, but even now, I don' ; t know ' ; cause I just lived my life as I live it. If people like me, that' ; s fine and they don' ; t. I don' ; t care. [laughs] AT: 36:31 If you could leave any, any message or or legacy for your children and grandchildren, what, what would you want them to know? MT: 36:41 Well, they know everything. I told them everything they. Needs to know KW: 36:46 What' ; s the life lesson. My daughter Cora, she' ; s seven years old. What do you, what life lesson do you want to pass to Cora? MT: 36:55 I don' ; t know. Just grew up and be smart. KW: 37:02 And have fun and meet boys. MT: 37:04 Expect that they have fun with the boys. KW: 37:09 Okay. I think that' ; s good.don' ; t AT: 37:12 Is there any last thing that you might want to add or that we may have missed? MT: 37:18 I don' ; t think so. I think she' ; s caught everything that that needs to be known about me. Right? KW: 37:27 Well, we could never know as enough about you, Gram. You' ; re a pretty fascinating person. MT: 37:32 Well, ask me and I' ; ll tell ya. AT: 37:37 Thank you so much for recording with us. D and KW: 37:40 No, thank you. MT: 37:41 Oh, well, what' ; s this recording for? KW: 37:45 It' ; s so that we always have it. 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=TairaMary20170812.xml TairaMary20170812.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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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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Takada, Anna
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Takehara, Joe
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5.4 11/15/2017 Takehara, Joe (11/15/2017) 1:33:58 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. Takehara, Joe Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/299323324 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/299323324?h=310f92ce6d" ; 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? Joe Takehara: 00:00:03 I' ; m Joe Takehara. AT: 00:00:05 And uh, where and when were you born? JT: 00:00:08 I was born April 2nd, 1942 in San Diego, California. Exact street is 1118 West Cannery Street. It was right across from the West Gate Cannery. AT: 00:00:21 And what did your parents do? JT: 00:00:24 My father was a fisherman. Came as a farmer first. He came, became uh, uh, fishermen lost his boat in the Depression. He' ; s pretty much of an entrepreneur. AT: 00:00:40 And um, did your parents, where were they from originally? JT: 00:00:45 They, both parents were from Japan Wakayama, Shingu. AT: 00:00:52 Umm and then, do you know when they came to the US? JT: 00:00:59 My grandfather came to the US first, I don' ; t know, if they, and the two sons followed him. He went back and the two boys stayed. Since my father I think was 16, 17 years old and supposedly I think he went to high school here, night school. AT: 00:01:18 And was that in San Diego? JT: 00:01:20 Yeah. That was it. I assume or San Diego or Chula Vista or one of those. It was San Diego I think. AT: 00:01:27 And how about your mom? JT: 00:01:29 My mom came later. She was 18 years old and it wasn' ; t really a war bride picture bride rather because they were from the same hometown. They knew each other. So it was a little bit unusual. A lot of them were picture brides, so. AT: 00:01:50 Um, do you, do you have siblings? Did you grow up with siblings? JT: 00:01:56 I' ; m the youngest child of eight. There' ; s four boys and four girls. AT: 00:02:04 And can you tell me a little bit about what it was like growing up in San Diego, what kind of neighborhood you grew up in? JT: 00:02:12 Well, we lived right across the street from the Westgate Cannery. That' ; s where my mother worked. And just on the other side of it was it train tracks. In Santa Fe, we used to look at the train, it was a big thing, we saw the new train called the Zephyr. I remember that. And so we grew up playing ball. We did a lot of fishing, it was very unusual. My father passed while he was killed in a hit and run accident when I was three. And so basically my mother brought us up eight kids and so it was pretty tough. So she worked at the cannery and then at the cannery when the fishing boats came in with mackerel, mackerel, mackerel would come around to the neighborhoods and then she would, no matter what time of day it was night or what, she would go there and they would, they would prepare the mackerel. What it did was it cut the head, chop the head off and gutted the macro and that was piece where it needs to put them in boxes and that' ; s where she did. My father was a fisherman. He lost his boat and the Depression and he had a couple of boats. So and my older brother' ; s telling me when he was a kid about might have only been eight, nine years, he used to go with my dad sometimes short trips, it wasn' ; t a big boat, it was smaller one. He tells me that he used to have to take an oil can, and oil the pistons, because those days you had to do it and he said it was terrible because the smell, the odor. But that' ; s, that' ; s the early part, my brother. AT: 00:04:05 Would you mind just putting that? Thank you. JT: 00:04:10 Okay AT: 00:04:10 Um, and what was the, the age range between you and your sib? How old was the oldest, compared to the youngest, or to you? JT: 00:04:20 This was surprised. It was only about ten, ten years apart between the eight of us. I think the biggest gap was between myself and my sister right above me. In fact, uh, my older sister and brothers were born the same year. Yeah. My brother was born end of December, I think just before Christmas. But he was a premature baby and so yeah, he didn' ; t develop too much in this physical thing because at that time my parents were farming and those days they would just leave them in the crib. So he never learned how to walk. All he did was stand up. So we used to kid him about that. That' ; s why we would say he' ; s a little slow. But anyway, yeah, that was the first part and then later on. Funny story is my dad, I don' ; t know if you can believe, I was almost three. He took me to the boat, to the canneries there and they have a wharf where all the fishing boats are, the dock. And one day they were the Japanese fisherman would fix their nets, they were sew their bamboo, a needle, large needle and a pair of fishing nets. That they would catch bait fish with, anchovies. And so he took me there and I guess he decided to go fishing, I mean swimming. So he went swimming and left me there. And the story is, I don' ; t know if I remember it now are they just keep telling me, but I' ; m, I' ; m only about three years old. I picked up his clothes and I came home and I brought it home and it wasn' ; t far, it was just right across at that time it was highway 101 right across that area where we live is not, it isn' ; t there anymore. They fill, it' ; s all filled in. And that was just, just one side of [Lindberg?], [Lindberg Garfield?], which is the very large standing. And that' ; s where we were. AT: 00:06:34 Um, when you were growing up and I' ; m going to school, um, what kind of school did you go to? Were there a lot of students? JT: 00:06:45 I can' ; t recall. The school was Washington School. Yeah. Before that, my sister, just a little older than me, after my father passed, we didn' ; t care for the babysitter. So we used to go across the street. Now that' ; s how we went around. It wasn' ; t a busy highway then, but we' ; d go see my mom at the cannery and I guess the foreman knew our family and knew about our, we had no father and all these kids, I don' ; t know, if you could believe it, they would bring a little box and the tools and sit there all day, not move, very disciplined kid until my mom finished and we' ; d come home. The other thing is, unfortunately, when my sister started kindergarten, there was no one babysit me. So I was one of the pre, first preschoolers, I went to kindergarten with my sister. So I flunked first kindergarten. Right. I did it twice, but I was pretty good kid discipline and I would get a piece of paper and draw and I spent the whole day there. AT: 00:07:58 Yeah. So, um, and so with your, with your father' ; s death, um, you said it was a hit and run? JT: 00:08:12 Yes, AT: 00:08:14 So did anything come of it? JT: 00:08:14 No, just my, one of my nephew was found that later in the archives in San Diego, this paper and I just had a little bit, little blip, saying that Jap fishermen or someone was killed. That' ; s all. There is no follow up with police or anything. And I think that happened that night when, I can' ; t remember it, but that' ; s when somebody came in, woke up my mom. My brother, remembers that. But that was how, that' ; s why I ended up, my mother brought up eight of us. And at that time, being from Japan, she didn' ; t, she didn' ; t trust the government I guess, so she wouldn' ; t take public aid at that. Anyway they would come and say, want to help her and she, she wouldn' ; t accept it. And so, so that' ; s why she worked hard and we were little kids when she come home from work all day, cutting fish, we would take turns massaging her back and we use our hands and pound her neck and all the kids would take turns. So basically I grew up without a father and my mother was hardly home, she was always working over home. And so I kind of grew up, uh, with my brothers having to babysit me, so I matured quite rapidly because they had take me every place, they went, they had to take me. So I grew up, you know, and they were playing ball and they were pretty athletic and so all was, I was a gofer, you know, chase the ball and do all of those kinds of things. I had better, friends named Oliver, he, I think he was part Indian and Mexican or anyway, his father when he was 16, he quit school. And so it' ; s thing about it, that' ; s when I' ; m still very young, three, four years old. And uh, he was a big, strong guy, but his father had a, uh, this is spear fish, sword fish fisherman. The tip of the boat had a long, I don' ; t know what you call a [inaudible] where you spear the fish. He was strong and feared. He had a pole, and so he used to get me by the ankles and hold me over the wharf like this I was a scared that he' ; s going to drop me. But that' ; s how I grew up so you can see how, how I grew up. So I was kind of a rascal because I was always, the older kids were always teasing me and so I grew up and matured fast. AT: 00:11:04 Did you, besides, so you went to school and you started early, because you' ; re going with your sister. JT: 00:11:15 Yeah. AT: 00:11:17 Um, what kind of, did you do any activities outside of school? JT: 00:11:22 I was always playing around. I learned how to ride a bicycle that was too big for me. I put my feet between the, not, I couldn' ; t get on the seat or handlebar, so I would get between my legs through and put that bike at an angle and pump. And that' ; s, I learned myself that way. When I got older, I was riding the bike, you know, I got older and I see people all over the place. I used to go to Balboa Park, come home, go to the Navy ship yard and boats and come home. And I was always pretty scared, but still, I used to do that. That was all by myself, I guess at that time I was probably nine, ten years old when I was doing all this so. AT: 00:12:09 As far as the people that you' ; re spending time with it, um, in addition to your family, were there other Japanese American families in San Diego at that time? JT: 00:12:24 Yes, there were, but they were, a lot of them were in downtown San Diego. There was a restaurant, I don' ; t know, Sunshine, Favorite Sun, something. We never went there. And so we were always back in the neighborhood and we did fishing in the bay and uh, my brother just have two rowboats, we used to call them skiffs. They have along, that we used to go to the bay and we used to net fish, cork on the top, sinker on the bottom. And made two circles and pull them in and that' ; s how we were catching fish. And apparently my brothers were selling some of the fish and there was sharks and thing like that was to a cut the tail off. I remember there was some kind of warehouse close, and we used to cut the tails warehouse line em up. So that' ; s how I grew up. He' ; s a fish underneath the wharf and the fish used to come in the cannery and they cut mackerel, they threw all the heads and stuff into the water so all of the fish would come. So we' ; d be out on little planks fishing underneath the cannery and put ' ; em in gunnysacks and bring them home. AT: 00:13:46 And um JT: 00:13:46 The netting was illegal. I think the coastguard just let us kind of turned, I mean they kind of let us do it. I think they just knew the family. It' ; s a small community, so I think they would just turn, what' ; s the word? Just letters. Turn. Let us go, I can' ; t, I don' ; t know the right word, but anyway. AT: 00:14:20 Um, so the, the war broke out and 40 of them. JT: 00:14:26 Right. AT: 00:14:27 Um, and I, I' ; m sorry, what year were you born again? JT: 00:14:34 42' ; AT: 00:14:36 So you were born in 42' ; JT: 00:14:38 I was 11, I guess. Huh? AT: 00:14:41 32' ; or? JT: 00:14:43 32' ; AT: 00:14:44 32' ; . Um, do you remember like the day that Pearl Harbor was attacked? JT: 00:14:54 Not really. I had, there was a lot of commotion. I remember that because in the cannery and there were two barracks and in between the two barracks where we lived, there was kind of like a deck. We lived on one side, we had, I guess half a barrack. And then, yeah, two rooms, two Issei fishermen used to live there too. We used to share the bathroom. And then the neighbor across the way, was a well known captain of a fishing boat called called West Gate that was the West Gate Cannery. It was one of the better captains for fishing tuna. And so we, they had most of one barrack and on the end they had a one room we had, we had a Japanese ofuro that' ; s where we took our bath, I guess redwood and how you heat up the water by the tank underneath and you put water in it. It was big enough that we used to kind of play in it. And so that' ; s, so the commotion was a lot, when that happened, they first came to their house and ransacked it, the way I understand. AT: 00:16:21 The FBI? JT: 00:16:21 Well, I guess, yeah. Yeah. Because they were at that time in the war, broke out. My oldest brother was fishing. He was on a tuna boat down toward the Gulf of Mexico, I guess. That' ; s when the war broke out. And uh, of course those days, those boats don' ; t move that fast. So it took a while for them to get back to port in San Diego, I guess. My brother was taken in and uh, I guess they' ; re interrogated. I mean they feed them or anything. So I guess it came home the next morning and the way he tells me he came home barefooted. And so that' ; s the way they treated him. So he' ; s, he' ; s an American citizen. The War I think affected my older siblings, because they were just out of high school and stuff. They knew what, you know, that their rights were taken away. So at that age I was smaller and I didn' ; t know, but I remember in the school we went to school, there was a teacher, Mr. Brown, I remember that he treated us very good. And so when that, because we lived across the bay and the cannery was close, you know, the Navy shipyard with all the boats were and, and so we had to move inland. So I can' ; t remember why, but right away we had to move in-land and then we moved to a town called Sunnyside, I guess the next to Chula Vista and we stayed there for some while until the Evacuation when we had to leave and that AT: 00:18:19 So was that, um, I imagine that wasn' ; t just your family then of folks JT: 00:18:29 So that' ; s why we left. That' ; s the date. AT: 00:18:36 How far is Sunnyside, San Diego or from where you were JT: 00:18:42 At that time it' ; s far right? Today, distance is nothing, but I can' ; t remember where it was. Picture Chula Vista, close to Chula Vista so. So I got to the date here that uh, it was April 8th when we went to Santa Anita. That was the date we left San Diego. But our family unit, so we have to move. AT: 00:19:12 So did your mom leave the cannery then? JT: 00:19:15 Yes, she had. Everyone was, we had to go to Sunnyside. They want to work, late around that' ; s when we, the order came out. We' ; ll go to the Santa, Santa Fe Depot. We didn' ; t know where we were going. So we were on a train and lines were drawn and you can only take what you can carry. I remember as a little kid that we had a little suitcase and they were packing it, with different things weight wise to see how much I can carry. I was eleven years old I guess. So at that time you can only take what you can carry. Supposedly, but I guess it wasn' ; t that way. We got there, they couldn' ; t see how many bags you had or that' ; s my interpretation. They couldn' ; t inspect all the bags that were there. They just took them and threw them into the baggage compartment, what I understand. But uh, one of my older brothers, he was a second, second brother and the third, third sibling, sibling. And he was very good in high school. He could, he won contests in making sail boats and dressers and things like that. And so he kind of, he kind of knew what was going on, I guess, what would happen. So the way the story goes, he would, he took was a, since my father was also a carpenter, he took all the carpenter tools, Japanese planes and saw like that, which is, and it wasn' ; t confiscated so, so he, so he was, he was thinking pretty good but more than most people, and he was shocked. He was good man I think. He was, my brother was a Southern California wrestling champion. AT: 00:21:22 What was his name? JT: 00:21:22 Keo, his name was Kioshi. And I, the way I understand that we lived among a lot of Mexican workers and some Italians, there weren' ; t Jap, that many Japanese in West Cannery that lives in the cannery barracks. But uh, so he, yeah, he' ; s the one that took the tools and he did well in school, but all my brothers were pretty athletic. AT: 00:22:04 Um, so do you have any idea how long you all were in Sunnyside before going to Santa Anita. JT: 00:22:14 I can' ; t recall. It must have been a few months. AT: 00:22:19 Do you remember, do you remember Sunnyside, what it was like? JT: 00:22:24 Yeah I remember Sunnyside. The first thing that I remember doing, there were some pecan trees, I guess we don' ; t want supposed to go there, but you know, it was like everybody had a big yard and it was an orange grove over there. So I remember taking the oranges, good oranges, navel oranges, and the pecan trees. We used to go up there and shake the trees and get the pecans. That' ; s the only thing I have to, I think the owner, the, the home that we stayed in, I think was, I think there' ; s a dairy there. And I think that was where we lived. AT: 00:23:02 There was a? JT: 00:23:02 Dairy, cows. But anyways I, I' ; m not sure, but it wasn' ; t much of a building right as, I guess it was buildings like for migrant workers that we ended up in. AT: 00:23:17 How did that can compared to the living situation and the Cannery Barracks?, JT: 00:23:25 Well, the Cannery wasn' ; t bad and before we knew it, when we went to Sant, we ended up in Santa Anita, Santa Anita Racetrack. And I have, found it. And we were in district 54 unit 20. And those were, I guess set up part, sections of the horse stables. That' ; s what we lived in. So the horse stables were separated too. Nothing, no wall. The wall was, you know how you have a horse stable, you get, they have a height and you can just see where the head comes out. Well, that' ; s, that' ; s that kind of a gate was, what I called the dividing of the room. We just have one room with that said. There was eight of us, and so. AT: 00:24:26 Nine with your mom? JT: 00:24:26 Yes. AT: 00:24:38 So you went to Santa Anita and you' ; re living in one of the horse stalls. Do you remember as an 11 year olds your own reactions to the move? JT: 00:24:49 Yes. I remember. AT: 00:24:49 For the orders? JT: 00:24:49 Yeah I remember, because you know, I was little kid, but I remember filling up the mattress with hay. I guess we had our cots and it was an asphalt for cots sinking into the asphalt. I remember stories about people saying, well they got a knot hole,yYou can see it across the way. Because the barracks are back to back, the stalls. We used to kid that about, you could see the other side. I know, right? Yeah. The old people talking like that. As a kid I used to go up to the grandstand, San Diego, San Anita Racetrack grandstand. We used to go around climbing the, up the stairs, things like that. And those days they used to have the uh, conduits, I guess the little pipe like things. The older kids would make a little arrow out of it and twist it and shoot him. I always wanted one but I can never get it. That' ; s what we used to do. Or try to do, we were just playing. And at that time, one of the things that we did, you know, we used to do sumo, we used to have sumo contests. So we used to have sumo in our block. That' ; s the main thing I remember was doing sumo and just playing in the grandstands. And I have at home, a meal ticket, which is punched that says number two. And I have a red button with a two on it. So I guess you went to that mess number two, red mess hall number two was the time you go in that period. So I actually have that card that was punched so that the meal ticket that we went. AT: 00:26:48 Yeah. Um, and do you know anyone from back home? Um, that was also in Santa Anita folks your age? JT: 00:27:03 No. I didn' ; t know anybody. AT: 00:27:06 And did you have to go to school at Santa Anita? JT: 00:27:09 I can' ; t remember going to school. I really can' ; t. I don' ; t think we did. I can' ; t remember going to school. They probably had school but we didn' ; t stay there long. It was only about four months. That was in April. I can' ; t recall. I think he went to Poston in August. August the 8th. AT: 00:27:30 August 8th, you went to Poston? JT: 00:27:44 I think so. AT: 00:27:47 Do you remember how you got there? JT: 00:27:48 Went by bus. AT: 00:27:54 And um, how did Poston, compare to Santa Anita? JT: 00:27:58 Poston was very hot. Poston was, is in Arizona. I think it was, Poston was an Indian Reservation, the tribe Poston. It was close to the Colorado River, which is a few miles down, I guess about a mile or so from camp. It was very hot and I was in Poston and I had as a kid I had a lot of fun. We play basketball, they had a hoop. We played softball. And I was one of the few that used to go to Colorado River and fish and swim. Just a couple of us because my friend who lived right across the street and the barrack next to us, was an old Japanese farmer that lives with the family. He was an Issei, I guess he was a bachelor, so he was kind of a outgoing guy and I guess. Along the Colorado River he made a mud hut. He made a hut. And most people didn' ; t go there, so we as kids, we used to go there and into the stay there and in that area of fish, swim. We used to catch carp. AT: 00:29:26 Did you leave camp to do that? JT: 00:29:26 Yeah, we were leaving camp. We kind of walked. Sometimes they used to have, I kind of remember, they used have a tractor with a little trailer behind it. Box, it used to be a trash truck, I think. Sometimes they used to take people that are swimming there, group. But most people didn' ; t go by themselves. We used to go there all the time. I used to go out to the, I guess you can' ; t call it a forest, it was the desert. And we used to make slingshots and use the, with the marbles, we used to try to hit birds and things like that. And a AT: 00:30:20 Did your mom take up work while at Poston? JT: 00:30:20 Yeah, at Poston she did one at one stage, she worked at the mess hall. I think she was cooking or washing dishes. And then one day Poston, when they were building the Poston school, we made Adobe bricks. So then she went to work there, doing basically put I guess hay and clay, Adobe and they put them in boxes and that was how they was the blocks for doing the school. And so she did that for a period. AT: 00:31:00 So your older siblings, were they, they were out of school? JT: 00:31:02 Yeah. Well, I don' ; t know. My older sister did. I think she worked in a mess hall, I can' ; t recall. But uh, uh, brother older brother worked for the fire department, it seemed like then he was also working as a haul trash and the brother be, beneath him I don' ; t know what he did, he passed away. I said we couldn' ; t really talk to him, but all the rest are too young to work. But my older sister while she was in camp. She got married, then she left camp early, as soon as they could leave. She left because you had to get a sponsor and some physician in the north suburbs out of nowhere, probably Keniworth or the bank where she worked. Husband, they both work there as I guess he' ; s house boy and he' ; s, he' ; s and she' ; s a house girl or maid. AT: 00:32:05 What' ; s her name? JT: 00:32:05 My oldest sister' ; s name is Aiko and her husband was Utaka Kida. And he was, he' ; s one of these kids when they' ; re young their parents sent them to Japan for schooling, so he was in school in Japan. He graduated high school. So he was fluent in Japanese reading and writing. So when he came back, I guess they used to call them Kibei' ; s. Right? I think at that time is almost a derogatory term. You' ; re a Kibei. So they used to group together more than the others. They weren' ; t treated too well. AT: 00:32:52 You and your siblings, did you all speak Japanese with your mom? JT: 00:32:57 We spoke Japanese with my mother. She couldn' ; t speak Jap, English very little. I think she knew more Spanish than English because there was a lot of Mexican workers too, so I grew up knowing more Spanish than, than English. I think when I was at before school started, but we all went to school, we learned how to speak English. So as we got old, we were speaking English at home. We didn' ; t speak Japanese among ourselves, just with mom. But yeah, so we went to Japanese school. AT: 00:33:36 In San Diego? JT: 00:33:36 Yeah, it was a Japanese church, they had a Japanese school. Used to go there and somebody from the school used to pick us up, take us to school, who was associated with the church as Christian Church. I think that' ; s how they get you to go to the church, I guess is where is the Japanese school is. And there' ; s a funny story about that too. My father, I guess I don' ; t know what he was Shinto or not, those days, I don' ; t know. But everybody called them Buddhists today. I guess he didn' ; t go along with the program. He' ; s against that' ; s what my brother tells me. One day we all came home and the door' ; s locked. We couldn' ; t get in. You know, he locked the door and left. And so he says you had to crawl to the window to open up the door to get in. Then we said go to school. And I was a kid that used to play hooky all time. Saturday' ; s we went to school, we had to. But on Tuesdays after school program is at the school grammar school, they used to have program, you know you could do sports. I always wanted to do that. So a lot of time on Tue, it was Tuesday' ; s I would play hooky and I would come home about the time that the school was from home. But yeah. So I wasn' ; t a very good student. AT: 00:35:16 And when you were in Poston, you had to go to school there? JT: 00:35:22 Yes. Went to school. I did okay. AT: 00:35:29 What was school like in camp? JT: 00:35:29 Well, all I remember we used to have spelling bees. That' ; s ones of the things and I, I used to be, I used to win a lot of them. They had, there was a music teacher called [Teener?] Miss [Teener?] or something. We tried to play different instruments and I had, I picked up a horn. Didn' ; t really learn how to play, I' ; m not musically inclined, I' ; m tone deaf. I keep saying that as an excuse. So the school was, we had our own chairs and stuff and I had appendicitis when I was in school in camp and so we were, there was three camp post one, two and three. Three is the one we were in. And Poston was I guess the largest camp and that' ; s where the medical center was. So I remember going on, it was a hearse or something, it was on an ambulance and I remember telling my mom that I' ; m dying, I' ; m dying. The next time I knew it, I grew up and I saw it. I saw white ceiling and that' ; s when they had taken my appendix out. And so I don' ; t know how old I was there. I was probably about 12. AT: 00:36:57 Did you have to stay in the hospital? JT: 00:36:59 I remember staying in a hospital. I don' ; t remember. But this it' ; s funny, was an unfortunate thing with my incision kept bothering me and it didn' ; t heal. So I went back and it was a physician. They put a hemostat and I remember that without anesthetic they pulled out some pieces of gauze, some thin gauze on it. And so it' ; s kind of a strange story. Maybe I shouldn' ; t tell them but it' ; s true. But for years that scar bothered me. For some reason it' ; d swell up and look like a mosquito bite and it started to itch. That happened. That was, that went on for about 10 years. And it finally went away. AT: 00:37:46 Did you ever have it checked out by a doctor outside of camp? JT: 00:37:50 No, I never had it checked out, out of camp. That was, that was kind of, I think my sister was one of my sisters was a nurse' ; s aid or something, Poston today. That' ; s what she did. She was in high school and so. At the west mall all we did was play cards. We used to play Pinocchio 500. My sister, sibling, used to do that. I always was running around playing ball or what not. I used go to a I don' ; t know, an excursion or honey thing with the biology teacher. He had an old car and he was a taxidermist I guess. He used to get birds and [inaudible]. So he used to take us. So you can see I was one of these kids that are always doing things one on one that somehow I got to do that. I worked, I used to go to the wood shop. They had a swimming pool in camp. They built a swimming pool in three, a cement one. I think in camp two and just wood and water. And so they had to diving boards with a one meter board, and a three meter board. I was at the pool every day in the summer. I got so dark. Anyway, I used to dive there. There' ; s another guy named Pat Kitaharo. He lived in the next block over, we were good friends. We used to go to the river together too. But he was a terrific diver or I couldn' ; t do what he used to. He used to dive and do one in a halves and things off the three, one meter and I couldn' ; t do it. I could do one maybe and uh, we, we should do a swan dive. But anyways, we used to go off the, uh, the Caucasian, wood shop teacher used to like to dive too. So he would swim so he was always out there, so I got to know him. So he used to let me sneak, sneak into the wood shop. Yeah. Not knowing, I think back on it, it was very dangerous. I say use a blade, used to make tops out of mesquite. I used to make billy clubs and things, all these things. AT: 00:40:15 Tops like spinning tops? JT: 00:40:15 Yeah. And unfortunately I, I had them all the way until we moved in 1952 from the West Side to the, my parents had said you got to get rid of, I don' ; t know why. But I left all those things I have made. I had one thing I made, people don' ; t believe me-- I made a vase out of cottonwood. I cut out the center and I put a can in there and I look at my size and said that' ; s pretty good. I think my daughter has that vase. It' ; s about this high that round. So I used to do all that kind of things. So I was one, you will see I was a kid that was always off there doing things. AT: 00:41:10 And do you remember at what time in camp, you got appendicitis? Cause I imagine you' ; re probably out of commission for a little bit. JT: 00:41:19 Well, there' ; s another story to that too. My uncle was a good carpenter, could make things. In fact, the way it goes, my brother, the tools he took, my uncle, when he came back out of Santa Fe when the Issei were first taken up to North Dakota or I forgot where he was, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Well, then he came back to camp to meet with their families. The way I understand, he borrowed our tools. AT: 00:41:50 So he came to Poston? JT: 00:41:50 Yeah. When he came to Poston he was in another section of Poston, we used to call them [inaudible] one, two and three. And uh, I think he lived in two. But uh, he' ; s a guy that used to give me my haircuts. And when I had my appendicitis we built a, uh, a folding chair with a desk for me, to take to school. He used to make some chairs that, I can' ; t remember the name of it now. AT: 00:42:28 So you could be kind of reclined while? JT: 00:42:28 So I can sit and have a desk there. Mostly just chairs, but this one you could flip over, one you could write on. And so, yeah. AT: 00:42:40 And so you mentioned that um, your oldest sister Iko, went to Chicago with her husband? JT: 00:42:48 Yes. AT: 00:42:49 Um, do you know, would you happen to know what year that was? JT: 00:42:52 I can' ; t recall. AT: 00:42:53 But it was, it was early. JT: 00:42:55 One of the first, when you can leave camp. AT: 00:42:58 And who was she sponsored by? Did they get a sponsor? JT: 00:43:03 Yeah, they had a sponsor. I was a physician. I can' ; t remember their name. That' ; s how they would get out. AT: 00:43:14 And how about the rest of the family? JT: 00:43:18 Well, about that time my brothers were not No-No Boys. They did, I guess they sign it, but they did not volunteer for the draft. My one brother that was sharp, I think was sharp, he was probably the smartest kid in our family, but he was kind of out there, you know. He was a poker player that AT: 00:43:42 What was his name? JT: 00:43:42 Keo, we used to call him Kiyoshi. His name, nickname is coyote. The way I understand it, the people couldn' ; t, couldn' ; t pronounce Kiyoshi so they used to call him coyote. And then my oldest brother, cherry, Ichiro, they couldn' ; t pronounce Ichiro. So they used to call him cherry. So he got the name cherry and it stuck with him, which to this day we call him cherry. My other brother, Keo, who was called coyote, we didn' ; t call him coyote, he gave himself the name Keo, or K. E. O. He had a business and he was saying Keo, K. E. O., that' ; s what he went by. But both of them were here in Chicago. And my brother Keo told me he was trying to dodge the draft. He was against it, you know, because he felt it wasn' ; t fair being incarcerated. So, so he said it was moving around. He was in Chicago or Detroit. But anyway, he was drafted. He went in the service. So both of my two oldest brothers were in the service while in camp. Then my third brother, the one third down, he' ; s about in the middle, his name was Yo. And uh, I guess he did okay in school too, Poston. So he was one of two boys that, would give scholarships. They went to, I think to Mc, McPherson college in McPherson, Kansas. And I think the other name was uh, [inaudible], I forgot what, and my brother was one of them. So he hadn' ; t graduated high school. I think he hadn' ; t finished his senior year, but so he entered, he was able to go to college there. And so he spent a couple of years there, I guess when he hit 18 or something, he was there. Then he spent a couple of years there, then he was drafted too, and so all three of my older brothers, while in camp, they were all in service. AT: 00:46:08 So that means that' ; s four siblings who were out of camp early then, the three were drafted or the scholarship. JT: 00:46:16 Yeah. AT: 00:46:17 And then drafted and then Iko. JT: 00:46:18 Well, they left camp than they were drafted when they were out of of camp. AT: 00:46:25 Oh I see. JT: 00:46:25 Yo was drafted while in school, so. AT: 00:46:26 Um, and then so for that would leave your mom and then? JT: 00:46:38 My mom and my old, my oldest sister, Ukie, she' ; s the fourth child. She left too. She left camp earlier. We used to call them domestics. And I guess back in San Diego they used to call them school girls or something, but uh, she, she worked for some family too AT: 00:47:08 In? JT: 00:47:08 In Chicago because my oldest sister was in Chicago and that' ; s how she came there. I remember she worked for a glass factory. I think it' ; s called [Brennenfeld?] or something. I kind of remember that name and she used to cut glass. AT: 00:47:27 That' ; s Ukie? JT: 00:47:27 Yeah, U. K. I. E. So. Then my other sister Sachi left too when she was older. Yeah. And she left before us. So there were just two of us left. Myself and the sister right above me and my mom. We were the last three and we were, were probably the last persons out of camp. We had no place to go, so my mom just stayed there. Then finally we had to leave. My oldest sister moved, left the uh, her work. They worked for the physician and my brother-in-law got a job at International Harbor. A lot of Japanese worked there. And then they moved to the West Side. It was not even South Marshall. That' ; s the West Side of Chicago. That was right close to the medical center there, right. And uh, so when they moved in, then that' ; s where we moved. We stayed with my sister, the last three. And uh, that' ; s where we all lived. AT: 00:48:44 What was the name of the sister right above you? JT: 00:48:45 Fumiko AT: 00:48:45 Do you know what year that was when you left camp, for Chicago? JT: 00:48:58 August 30th or something, 45' ; . August 8th, I think it was. AT: 00:49:13 And um JT: 00:49:13 August 30th, 30th. I think next few days of school started, right? In September. That' ; s another funny story. AT: 00:49:23 So, okay. JT: 00:49:25 That' ; s what my life changed a lot. AT: 00:49:28 All right. Um, so you, you left camp. How did you all get to Chicago? JT: 00:49:36 We came by bus that I remember and I' ; m 14 and I' ; m the, what do you call them? You might say the man of the family. Right. You have there. So when we' ; re packing in big crates, I was the one that was doing the packing and pounding the crate and put the lid on, stuff like that. I remember that. Yeah. AT: 00:50:00 And can you tell me about, um, what it was like a arriving to Chicago? JT: 00:50:08 I forgot what day it was. I think it was Friday was a few days before school started. The first thing I do is I go outside. She had, he was an Italian kid who was a little bigger than me, I was older, but I was small. He started picking on me. So we start fighting. So I grew up not taking anything from anybody. Because I was always with my older brothers and stuff. I was, I was tough. I had a chip on my shoulder I guess. So we start fighting and I got the best of him. So the problem with that is then the next guy comes, challenging me. So that' ; s the first day, I go walk outside. So I tell my mom I don' ; t want to go to school. I knew what was going to happen. So my sister talks to the lady who had on the first floor, had a son that was older than me and he, I don' ; t know what he was, but I, I think he' ; s doing some shady things because he was dressed nice all the time, nice pants, slick hair, good looking kid. So the mother told him to take me to school. So of course we get two blocks away and he takes off. He' ; s not taking me school. So on the way to school the a big Irish kid who I became friends with, he starts picking on me too. So I pick up a rock and I said, " ; I' ; ll kill you." ; So that ended it, but when I get into school, my gym class, who' ; s there but him again. So he starts fighting with me too, I guess. So the coach says put the gloves on, boxing gloves, and I' ; m getting better. I said I know how to box a little bit. And so if you know a little bit, there' ; s, I mean, there' ; s no contest, right, because most kids don' ; t know how to box. And so, so there happen to be a Mexican kid, he was older, he was 16 and I' ; m 14. And the coach was Mr. Ellis. He has mentoring this kid or trying to straighten him out. He was a dropout school drop out, but he came to see the coach and he saw me. So he' ; d come up to me afterwards. He asked me, where you, where you learn how to box. I didn' ; t know how to box, so I told him in camp. So there' ; s a kid in camp. My good friend who has to go fishing with and everything, his older brother was a boxer from LA he did boxing I guess when he' ; s in LA. And so he kind of showed me how box a little bit, you know how it is when you' ; re in camp. Put them on. So that' ; s how I learned how to box a little bit. So I told him, this guy to challenge me, this guy in camp. So this, this guy, his name is Peter Dias, he says, I know him. So there he used to go to CYO. It used to be the Catholic Youth Organization. It was a big thing for boxing day. It was, I don' ; t know, some Wabash or something like that. So he knew this other kid. They were both at the CYO boxing and and so. So anyway. AT: 00:53:40 Did you have any idea that this kid who taught you some boxing was in Chicago? JT: 00:53:46 No, I didn' ; t know. I kind of knew, I think he came out to Chicago, same time, my, one of my cousins came together and they were going to school together. Anyway, so that' ; s, that' ; s, that' ; s how I learned. So this, this Mexican kid took on, took me under his wing. He kind of protected me. We used to, we used to go play and he, I, he used to drag me along. That' ; s how I learned, that' ; s how I met the other Mexicans. AT: 00:54:20 Was he in school? JT: 00:54:21 No, he was a dropout. I don' ; t know what he was, he' ; s probably doing shady things anyway. AT: 00:54:29 So, and the high school you went to was JT: 00:54:34 I went to Cregier High School, one semester. That was the school I went to when I first got out. AT: 00:54:43 Your first day? JT: 00:54:43 Because I was fighting. I got, it was on the West Side. That was Cregier is a two year branch of McKinley High School is, um, I forgot, it was on the Wood Street, I think it was Wood Street It was close to the medical center. Not Too far away, but that' ; s the school I went to. AT: 00:55:02 I' ; m sorry, what was? JT: 00:55:04 Cregier AT: 00:55:06 And um for the first one, you were just there for a semester? JT: 00:55:13 I went to just for one semester because what happened is this, Peter and the other Mexican friends, I became friends with them. They weren' ; t in my class. I still hang out with them and so, uh, one of them was, they' ; re all boxers. One guy' ; s name was Frank Lopez and the other guy was Richard Guerrero. Let me see, I think Frank Lopez was one year older than me. So I used to hang out with them and the West Side. You know in those days kids used to carry a switch blade and a roll of pennies. Switch blade and roll of pennies. It' ; s fortunate I didn' ; t have to use the switch blade, but I did use the roll of pennies a couple of times, fighting. My parents, my mother didn' ; t know what, my siblings didn' ; t know what I was doing. You know, I was very, I was pretty mature. I used to, I used to, my mom used to give me money and we used to go down to Wieboldt' ; s, it was close to Madison Street and Ashland. I used to, when I was, from when I was 14, I was buying my own clothes. My mother wouldn' ; t take me. I used to by my own clothes. She' ; d give the money, I would buy my own clothes. So I did those things, which is kind of unusual, right? She would give me money. AT: 00:57:05 Um, as far as the, the apartment, so it was um, your eldest sister Eiko and her husband, your mom, you and Fumiko, is that right? JT: 00:57:17 Yeah. So what happened is we lived in this apartment. It was red brick. And uh, it was heated by coal. Yeah, we lived down, my sister lived on the second floor and we all lived there for awhile. Then the first floor family moved out. Then we lived in the first floor, and my mom and my sisters. Then when my brothers came home from service, they also lived in that apartment. So we were all in that one apartment and the coal furnace went out. It wasn' ; t working anymore. Radiat, it wasn' ; t steam heat, it was air blown. Anyway, it went out. So we ended up having a pot belly stove, a big iron stove in the kitchen. It was brown and you feed it with coal. That' ; s all we have. It was very cold. I used to go to sleep with socks, these big wool socks, sweat pants and shirt, wear a hat and I was freezing. I never did like the cold. The windows would be all frosted, iced up. That' ; s how we had to run the water and the toilet, the bathroom, faucet or else it would freeze that was how cold it was during the wintertime. Just that one stove, by the time winter came, it was cold. Later on after my brothers came, then they started having oil stove, so we had an oil stove in the living room. Then we had two things, but then it was a lot more comfortable. But yeah, no, it was cold where we lived. AT: 00:59:13 How long were you in that building? JT: 00:59:13 Well, I was there from 45' ; until 52' ; . 52' ; we left, we moved to the North Side. My brothers were out of service then they started to work. So I guess they accumulated some money and they bought an apartment on Newport. That' ; s just this side of a Wrigley Field, Addison. We, lived between Halsted, Halsted and Clark, Sheffield. Just a few blocks away. Yeah. AT: 00:59:57 Um, so going back to your days at high school, these schools that you were at, what were kind of the, the demographics of the schools? JT: 01:00:11 Well, I think at that time that was a ghetto, where we lived. It was a mixture of the Mexicans, Italians and I think there' ; s some Irish. One of my friends was an Irish kid, he had a paper route. But most, my better friends were Mexicans and uh, like I said, this guy. And so I started school there. I was there for one semester, the reason why, in camp I used, I used to like to read. So I used to read a lot. We didn' ; t have much out, but I used to go to the library and also read Call of the Wild. There' ; s a [inaudible] books Anyway, I used to, I used to, I was a reader. So I went to school. You go to the library and I was the only one reading, everybody else' ; s playing around. But I picked the book and this, I remember the library. I tried to get hold of it later, I couldn' ; t. Her name was Mrs. Young and when she saw me and she saw the friends I was hanging around, what she knew and she kind of knew what was happening. So at that time you really couldn' ; t change schools. You had to stay in your own district. Somehow she got me to go to Lakeview. My sister was going to Lakeview, my sister Sachi. Which is, um, the third from the bottom, she was going to Lakeview High School. So maybe that was a connection, how I got there. AT: 01:01:54 Where was Fumiko? AT: 01:01:54 She went to McKinley High School, that was on the West Side. Here' ; s what happened. That those days, even before, in San Diego, my oldest sister was, used to call them school girl or something. She, she worked from a young age, high school. She worked at, with some family, you know, as a maid. Then from there she went to school and she used to give all the money to my mom. That was the income that she helped. So she did that. So she had a hard life. So when we went to Chicago, my older sister Sachi, while she was going to Lakeview, she did the same thing. She worked for a family as a school girl we used to call them school girls. Then she went to Lakeview. So you can see how hard that is. You go to school and your classmates are siblings of the kids that, the family you' ; re working for. So it' ; s pretty degrading I think. And so my sister Fumi, she' ; s young yet I' ; m, I' ; m in first year in high school. I' ; m 14 so she' ; s 16, so she also got a job there doing that. I think in the same area, Lakeview District that was uh, you know, you go out to the [inaudible] drive and that' ; s where all the wealthy people live. That' ; s where you live. I think a lot of Japanese worked at, I find out they worked at the Edgewater Beach Edgewater Hotel in [inaudible] Beach. And so my sister Fumi, I think she worked for that family for a week or so and she came home. She couldn' ; t do it. She told my mom she couldn' ; t do it. So that' ; s the reason why she brought to Lakeview. I mean McKinley High School, that' ; s where she went to McKinley. AT: 01:04:05 Was there ever an expectation for you to work while in school? JT: 01:04:10 No, never, the never had me. I think I was too young but I did work in high school. I did work. I used to be a busboy at Bismarck Hotel. AT: 01:04:25 Where was that? JT: 01:04:29 I think that was on Randolph. There was another theater there. Oriental Theater was on the same street, I think it was, the LaSalle Hotel was there and worked at the Bismarck at the coffee shop. New Speaker: 01:04:43 So it was downtown? New Speaker: 01:04:43 Yeah, downtown, coffee. I was a bus boy. How I got that job was my, one of my Mexican friends was, he worked there, a guy named Frank Lopez, I became good friends with, he was another guy and he used to be a boxer too, but he used to work. A lot of Mexican kids also had to work. And, uh, he got me the job because he worked there and that' ; s how I got the job working there. And I was working there one time and one of the waitress wasn' ; t giving me the tips, they get tips and they' ; re supposed to give the bus boys so much. And she wasn' ; t paying me. They' ; re supposed to, you have three bucks or two bucks for the day or something. She wasn' ; t giving it to me. She' ; s only giving me a buck or something. So the cook, the chef, one of them was a Japanese guy and uh, we found out. So what happened is when she put the order in for the tables they were slow and she knew what was happening. So she got so upset one day she stepped literally back there and the cooks are, you go back and get the food and the bus boys, she started throwing dishes at me. AT: 01:06:17 At you? JT: 01:06:17 At me. Cause she knew why they were giving her a hard time. But anyway, it turned out good because she start giving me what I supposed to get. AT: 01:06:34 And, um, can you tell me about this transition to, to Lakeview High School, you had to commute quite a bit then, right? JT: 01:06:46 Well, it' ; s, 900 South and the 4000th North. Used to take over an hour on the street car. I used to go there. I went to Lakeview and I first, the first few days I' ; m in the gym and I could do all this. I can' ; t, I wasn' ; t gymnasts or anything, but they put you on the rings you got, I can pull myself up and I can do most of the stuff. I see kids and that gym class, the coaches called Mr. Roth, Rothy, Rody, and he was the athletic director of the gym. And he was an old Turner. Turner was, came from uh, Europe, Germans. They used to do gymnastics and track and field. So he was one of those. So that' ; s why we had the gymnasts apparatus there. They then have then have a gymnastic team, but he' ; s, used to have that and he used, we used to go after school a couple of days a week and we used to, he used to call them rangers and we' ; d be doing gymnastics. And that' ; s how I started once. So a good friend, who became my good friend of mine Carl [Vogel?], He' ; s been doing gymnastics since he been a kid, at the Turner Hall, and so he saw me. So he come up to me. He was, he was in, not in my class just in gym. So he come up and he says, why don' ; t I come go to him to Turner Hall so that' ; s how I started gymnastics. So I started doing gymnastics. Started do it with him and I used to compete with the Turner groups. Yeah, I was, I was pretty strong, pretty athletic. I became a halfway decent gymnast in high school. But we didn' ; t have a gymnastic team, we used to go to gymnastic tournaments from the Germans, we used to go to Sheboygan, Wisconsin up there by Milwaukee, Wisconsin University. And I remember we went up, we traveled to Buffalo, I think it was Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. Gymnastics, we went on a train and we did them. A few of us decided not to come home on the train. So we ended up in New York and went onto the boardwalk and we stayed at YMCA about eight of us in a one room. We went to Radio City. That was a big thing for us. We saw the Radio City, the chorus girls and all of that. Meanwhile, one of the guy' ; s got sick so we all had to go back and you know, we' ; d be most of us, we came back on the bus. AT: 01:09:40 What year were you at this for, at that point? JT: 01:09:45 That was probably my last year in the high school. AT: 01:09:49 So when you started at Lakeview, um, did you have any of the kinds of problems that you did at um? JT: 01:09:58 No, no the people at Lakeview, my friends, they just one guy, two of them knew how it was. They knew my background, but when I went to Lakeview I was quiet. I didn' ; t, I didn' ; t make any, I wasn' ; t getting in trouble or anything, but I' ; d became friends with one guy, we used to play poker at recess and [inaudible?] and stuff like that. But yeah, he became a photographer. Um, but uh, the main thing, Lakeview was, I go there after school to the gym was a couple of times a week, two, three times. Then I had to have to come home late. I' ; d be coming home late at 9, 10 o' ; clock and it' ; d be dark and it wasn' ; t many street cars running. I' ; d come home and when I come home it was about a block, two blocks away from, where I stop. Used to be on Paulina and Polk, I guess. Anyway, I used to come home and I was always watching out. I, I felt somebody looking for me or they want to beat me up. So I never walked on the sidewalk. We always, I always walked in the middle of the street and those, most of those houses are gang based so we saw gang when you' ; re walking. If I saw somebody I' ; de run and I always had my hand one hand with the switch blade. And I mean it' ; s crazy, but I never, no one ever caught me. I never had a problem but one of my friends Frank Lopez got beat up once, but I was wasn' ; t with him. So I was lucky I didn' ; t have much, I didn' ; t really get into with somebody' ; s beating me up, but I moved in gym class. One guy, Black guy, they used to carry razors between their finger like this. Right in gym class he cut up a guy, another guy and just another Italian big guy beat the hell out of later. Yeah, so this, this Italian kid, I knew too, used to play football together. [inaudible] one time [inaudible] So I left, I left the [inaudible] quiet, the gymnastics and everybody knew me there because I was Japanese. There wasn' ; t many. And this kid Vogel that was a gymnast, he was, he was, he was good looking guy, nice build, popular and so he went out, I was with him. But he was always talking off with the girls and everybody and you know well liked. So they all knew me because in Lakeview during the halftime basketball game, we should do hand balancing. He was pretty aggressive and outgoing and they used to have talent show. He talked me into going to a talent show, we do hand balancing and he was beyond the bottom and I' ; d be on the top, you know, some Mickey Mouse, hand balance. We thought we were pretty good. But AT: 01:13:33 In school you said there were some otherJapanese Americans did you hang out with other JT: 01:13:44 No, I didn' ; t. AT: 01:13:48 Is there a reason for that or? JT: 01:13:50 I don' ; t know. They just didn' ; t like me, I guess is, I think there' ; s a problem. They saw me with this guy as popular, I think that' ; s what happens. You know, they get kind of jealous or something. I really don' ; t know. I always had a problem with the other, the Japanese community, I had no contact with them all my high school days, my cousin was part of them, he was, he used to belong to the club named Unknown' ; s. He took me to their to their dance or something. No seemed, you know Japanese are very cliquish. They didn' ; t accept me and so I after a few times I just stopped going. I didn' ; t want anything to do with that anymore. And that' ; s how I stayed in my own group. I used to hang out with the guys on the North Side and one guy named George, he had a bike handle bars like this. We' ; d go down to [inaudible]. I' ; d be on the handlebars and drive take him down. Yeah, it was strange. Most kids didn' ; t do that. He did in that he' ; s used to take me all over the place and I said, yeah. In fact, we rode a bicycle Chicago in my house all the way up to Foster we rode on a bike. That was far. Those days. That was with him. That wasn' ; t bad going, it was coming home we had a long ride. So, but yeah, so that' ; s what I did. So we, so I was mainly doing gymnastics. AT: 01:15:45 And when did you start getting involved in Aikido? JT: 01:15:48 I got involved in Aikido in 62' ; , 60' ; , I really don' ; t know. There was a different date on it. JT: 01:15:49 But after high school? AT: 01:15:49 After high school. A story about, I tell you a story about my friends on the West Side, you know, I used to hang out with them. We used to go to Maxwell Street, and they used to, they used to have things to sell. But I was never with them when they got ahold of these things, you might say. Yeah we used to go [inaudible] Come on man, you want a bike? And I says, no. I knew where the bike was going to come from. And he had a bike with a motor on it. It was unusual. He had that once, so he had all these kind of things, he' ; d somehow picked up. But then the story when I was in college, he got in trouble. Anyway he ended up in jail. I don' ; t know if it was him or his friend, I think was another guy, but I knew, well I didn' ; t care for. He' ; s, I thought he was very bad guy anyway. So anyway, he ended up in prison because he killed somebody. It was a long story, but he was a guy that used to protect me. And I remember when I was young in high school, he' ; d come be in a car and dad' ; s car or something. He showed me a gun, he said look at this Joe and stuff like that. So you can see the type of people that befriended me. But uh, I felt close with him all the time because they' ; re the one that really only, you know, were my friends, like the Mexican guy that I worked for at the Bismarck Hotel, he got me a job and we used to hang out with him. We used to go to [inaudible] and that time it was about [inaudible] that it was called 12th Street Beach, up there, we used to go swimming off the aquarium on that side. That' ; s if they were never paid, was a hanging on the edge of the street car until a conductor would see us and we' ; d get off and go on to the next one. But that' ; s one of the things we did. We used to go swimming there. AT: 01:18:50 We have some time for a few more questions. JT: 01:18:50 Okay. AT: 01:18:58 Oh, I guess one thing I' ; d like to know is, uh, over time and throughout your life, in what ways have you felt connected to your Japanese heritage? JT: 01:19:23 The only connection, which is unusual, I started to have some connection with the Japanese a few when I went to, when I graduated high school, I went to Navy pier. It was a branch of the University of Illinois. That' ; s when I met a few Japanese. One guy was, Yukio Matsumoto He was a wrestler on the wrestling team. Then later on he became, he started doing gymnastics too. I met him. I met another guy, [inaudible] he became, I don' ; t know, a microbiologist or something. He was in my chemistry class. He knew my cousin. He was in the Unknown' ; s too. So I met him. At that time, I wanted to meet the other Japanese people and most of them didn' ; t want anything to do with me. I know now later on they become friends or this at that time, no one, they all kind of knew me. Uh, I, I think a lot of the girls that they kinda just didn' ; t like me, because, my wife was one of them, she went to Navy Pier. She used to say, you know, you thought you were too good for us or something. It was the opposite. I was dying to meet some Nisei' ; s. And so what happened was, my good friend was a Chinese girl and another girl was a Greek girl because they were both athletic. And so I didn' ; t see much, Japanese, but every once in awhile they used to hold, what they called [inaudible] So they used to open up the gym and guys would play badminton, volleyball or basketball and things like that. And there were the gymnastics hardly because the whole gym was taken up with other sports. And so that' ; s how I met these two girls. So, so became good friends of mine. So I think that created another problem. They see me hanging around with them. You know they have this thing Japanese, he thinks he' ; s too good for us and I' ; m dying to to met them, I met my wife later and that' ; s what she told me too. And I said, no, it was you guys. But yeah, that' ; s what happened. AT: 01:22:13 Do you think it had anything to do with where you were living? Since there weren' ; t many other Japanese Americans on the North Side? JT: 01:22:13 There was not many, there' ; s only one other kid named Terry Murakami, he lived there his Japanese family lived above us. He went to McKinley, but he was a quiet guy who he, he became a barber. I used to go to his barber he was on. He had barbershop by Howard, Howard Street. He was quiet. His brother was a real sports nut, but he had a bad way. I don' ; t know what you, maybe it' ; s not a good term to use, I guess we used to call it club foot. So he couldn' ; t, he had to raise heel on one foot. But he was a sport nut. So he' ; s going to the baseball games all this time. Everytime he couldn' ; t get a date or somebody else he' ; d take me. So that' ; s how I became a Sox Fan. We used to go Sox games, we saw some Cubs games. Basketball games. But that was how I started to see a baseball was from him, in fact I heard my first baseball. The first week we came to Chicago in 45' ; that was when the Cubs were trying to make the World Series. That' ; s, that' ; s when they were, they lost. But that' ; s when I remember they let us all go up to the auditorium and they put it on the radio and said listen. I didn' ; t know what was coming off. That was my first contact with the baseball, with the good teams. AT: 01:23:57 Well, and in 52' ; you moved not to far from Wrigley Field, what where were you living with them? JT: 01:24:14 We lived in Newport. It was a six flat. It was three apartments on one side and three on the other side, a middle stairway. And so we lived on the first floor, my mom, my family. My sister lived on the second floor. And on the other side, my other sister lived on the second floor. The first floor there was a group of single Japanese guys, you know, mainly from Hawaii. On the third floor on that side, was another friend of my brother-in-law. My brother-in-law was an orphan. He lived with, the Salvation Army in San Francisco. And so a lot was his friend. So they lived on the third floor, that' ; s what happened. But then my sister, they moved first to California. So I said, well, that far away from Wrigley Field, and I was a Sox Fan. I mean, I went to some Cubs Game because some of my friends after school, we would sneaked into the Cubs. We would get tickets with people still had their stubs we' ; d get in there. A lot of times they would let you in. Baseball wasn' ; t that popular. You would, game, there were a lot of empty seats. One of my friends was a good Cub fan we used to sit in the bleachers all the time, but I didn' ; t go with them. I wasn' ; t a Cub fan, I went a few times. Yeah. AT: 01:26:17 Um, and, um we are wrapping up. How do you feel like, um, the move to Chicago, um, in the, the mid-forties, how did that shape you as a, as a person? JT: 01:26:32 It' ; s strange. For some reason, my upbringing, I did a lot of things, but my mom and my brothers, I guess they kept me straight because my friends were doing all the things that, you know, were illegal, you might say, I was with them, but I never participated. Problem was if they got caught, I' ; d be part of the group, right. But uh, yeah, it' ; s so they did those things. Not always, but you know sometimes that' ; s what they' ; re good selling stuff on Maxwell Street. Yeah. No, I had a tough time though. Little kids used to call me Jap and all that yellow stuff and had adults too calling me yellow Jap and crawl into your whole and all that. I went through all that. Uh, because I think more so because where I lived, there wasn' ; t many Japanese. The other Japanese were clustered. I think a lot of the other non-Japanese, at least they had some contact or they knew, or the were around enough that it didn' ; t happen as much. But I lived on the West Side so I stuck out a lot. And so they' ; re always calling me names and little kids. Black kids they would call me names. I thought, well, they have someone else to step on, to dump on. But uh, my friends were Mexicans and the Mexican kids they were the best kids. And their parents, they really treated me nice. Most of the Mexican kids didn' ; t call me names or anything. It was the others, the white kids, the Black kids in the neighborhood. And they were mostly younger kids, you know, seven, eight, nine, you know, they make these things and all that. Call me Chink, stuff, Jap and Chink and Chinatown and stuff like that. So I went through all of that. But I survived that somehow. But it was always little kids. It was old kids, they didn' ; t as much because not the kids around because they knew my friends, right. So the Mexican friends who were boxers, in the immediate neighborhood got around. Even the immediate neighborhood where I lived, the first day, I' ; d be in that neighborhood, none of the other parents or adults in that neighborhood never said hello to me or anything, they just kind of, they ignored me. They didn' ; t do anything bad to me, like throw rocks at me or something like the other people. But the whole neighborhood, the block, I didn' ; t, I didn' ; t, no one, none of my friends were from the neighborhood. Most of them are Italian kids. They just didn' ; t want anything to do with me. And so that' ; s how I grew up. And I tell another story, my friend, how I frame me is Volvo, I used to see his grandfather, he was, they were German, his name was [Wurster?] and I used to come over, they used to live on the second floor. My friend used to live on the first floor, on Nelson Street. And they' ; re telling me, he used to call me [Cemexican?], Hey Tojo. And that used to get me so mad. I just couldn' ; t say anything. I used to burn underneath. And I used to tell my friend that you know that your grandpa' ; s calling me Tojo and stuff. But his parents treated me well. In fact, his father was a big shot at, I forgot the company' ; s name now, it was I think the LaSalle [inaudible?]. Anyway, and he was an engineer, he had kind of, was an inventor of the [Ultimate, Ultimate?] For the cars or something. But one summer, I used to, every summer I used to go to work. And I was in college and one time I went to work there, good friend of mine that was a gymnasts he had got out and he got a job there. The personnel department says, come on over there and I get you a job. So he went to the red book or yellow book and found out some job California or something. Okay, this is where your work and this and that. By the time, they catch up to you, you' ; ll be gone. Summer job. Right? So I go up to the personal department, walking in there. And I interviewed by this lady, to get the job. This guy walks by, us this guy' ; s father. He' ; s a big shot. There he' ; s got his tie. He comes up and says, Joe, what are you doing here? I said, " ; I' ; m trying to get a job." ; And he winks at me and goes, " ; Why?" ; So I didn' ; t, he knew, I shouldn' ; t be getting a job. I think he kind of helped it. Yeah. So anyway, I got a job. I can' ; t, I don' ; t know why I can' ; t remember the company, but it was the company. It was hard group time. AT: 01:32:24 So we' ; re at time, but, um, before we wrap up, is there anything that you' ; d like to add or that we might' ; ve missed in the conversation? JT: 01:32:33 Yeah, I think the other reason why the kids at Navy Pier, the Japanese people, you know, I was, they didn' ; t care for me, it was also because I was an athlete and I was captain of the gymnastic team. So they used to have write ups in the paper about me being a gymnast or a picture. So I think they, they were kind of, I don' ; t know, jealous, not jealous, but they though well, oh he thinks he' ; s something doesn' ; t stink or something. I mean, that was there. That' ; s the way I looked at it and they were not good friends. AT: 01:33:18 Well, thank you so much for taking the time and for coming in. I still have a lot more questions for you but maybe you can do another interview. JT: 01:33:32 Well, you can delete a lot of this stuff I guess. AT: 01:33:32 This has been great. Thank you so much again. JT: 01:33:37 Anyway. You' ; re welcome. I thought I should tell, I don' ; t know. I tell bits and pieces to my son. And uh, he turned out, all right. I said if he did half the things that I did, he' ; d be okay. AT: 01:33:53 Thank you Mr. Takehara. 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=TakeharaJoe20171115.xml TakeharaJoe20171115.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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Takehara, Joe (11/15/2017)
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2017-11-15
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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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Takada, Anna
Kuramitsu, Keilyn
Interviewee
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Yamagiwa, Gary
OHMS Object Text
5.4 10/11/2017 Yamagiwa, Gary (10/11/2017) 0:53:55 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. Yamagiwa, Gary Takada, Anna Kuramitsu, Keilyn video 0 https://vimeo.com/307597748 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/307597748?h=b3f3b10d9d" ; 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.] Gary Yamagiwa: 00:00 You just start by stating your full name. My name is Gary Yamagiwa. Anna Takada: 00:04 And um, where are you from? GY: 00:08 I' ; m born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. AT: 00:10 When were you born? What is your birthday? GY: 00:14 May 8th, 1953. AT: 00:16 Okay. Um, so to start, can you just tell me a little bit about your family, your parents maybe were where they' ; re from? GY: 00:26 Sure. My mother, uh, Tesui Kashino was born and raised, well I believe in Santa Ana, California. Uh, there was eight children. AT: 00:43 Where was she in the group? GY: 00:45 She' ; s probably maybe fourth, third or fourth. Yeah. So she' ; s older and um, they, I guess they farmed, had a farm. As a family, they ended up going to a Poston, Arizona for camps. My father and his, ah seven, the seven kids and his mother went to Tule Lake. Well, they were born in Bellevue. They lived in Bellevue, Washington. They too were farmers. My dad started out and going to Manzanar and then the whole family. He reunited with his family in Tule Lake. AT: 01:39 How did that, how, how were they separated? How did that work? GY: 01:43 Um, my father was a, a, a roguish individual, you know, he went out and he found work on his own. He traveled around the country on the East Coast, I mean on the West Coast on his own, because that' ; s what he liked to do. He liked to go out and meet people. So he kind of left. And then when the evacuation came up here, I think he was caught in California. So went to Manzanar. AT: 02:16 So was he on the older end of his siblings? GY: 02:20 Yes. Yes. She was the eldest AT: 02:25 Do you know anything about your grandparents, where they were coming from? GY: 02:31 My father' ; s grandmother was from Nagano area. And my mother' ; s grandmother, I mean my mother' ; s mother was from Wakayama. Uh, I never knew my grandfathers, either one. They had passed away by that time, I was young. AT: 02:56 Do you have any sense of when they came to the US or what they were doing in Japan? GY: 03:01 No. Um, I believe they were both a picture brides. So they came as young people and maybe about, oh, in the 1910s or somewhere around there. AT: 03:27 So your, your mother' ; s family are from Santa Ana. Did they go to any assembly center? Did they go straight to Poston? GY: 03:35 That? I' ; m not sure. I' ; m sure, they did go to an assembly center. AT: 03:43 And what, maybe, like stories are family memories, how you' ; ve heard from your family or have been passed down around camp. Do you know a whole lot about their experience? GY: 03:58 Not a whole lot. We didn' ; t talk too much about that kind of thing until later when I was old. We just knew that they in camp I knew my dad was, he told me he would try to get out every chance he got. So when they wanted someone to pick vegetables he would be picking vegetables for AT: 04:28 Work leave? GY: 04:29 Yeah, work leave, you know he, he liked to wander so whenever he can get out he got up. My mother' ; s family, they were very close knit so I' ; m sure they managed. They had a big family but I never heard anything bad from her or negative from her. And so growing up we didn' ; t know what happened. We thought oh it sounded bad, but they never bad mouthed what happened. So it' ; s kind of ah, we weren' ; t um really sure about the negative side of it until we heard from other people we ask more in depth questions. AT: 05:36 How old were they at the time of the break out of the war? GY: 05:38 So my dad I think was about 25. So he was 25, 26 and so his siblings were all younger, probably down to early high school age. And my mom was probably, she must' ; ve been about twenty. She was one of the older ones, and then she' ; s got siblings that were probably early teens. AT: 06:18 And uh, where, where did both of your parents go after camp and when? GY: 06:22 They came to Chicago. My dad' ; s family came to Chicago in part, because one of the older daughters got a job working in a person' ; s house. And so that was a reason for the whole family to come to Chicago. AT: 06:52 So did she leave before GY: 06:53 She did leave before, and then they all came, they all followed and they all lived together. And the same is true. I' ; m not sure about the employment, but my mother' ; s family also came to Chicago directly from camps. AT: 07:12 Was it a similar situation where one person had come up first or did they all come? GY: 07:18 I think they probably all came together. I didn' ; t hear anything about how or why. AT: 07:29 And do you know where they first were, when they came to Chicago, which neighborhoods or part of town? GY: 07:36 They started out around Diversey, Clark and Diversey part of the family, and part of my, um. Both families ended up in Uptown area. They started out living on Kenmore, just north of Irving Park, Kenmore and Wilson, they had an apartment building in there. Then we moved north to Uptown. Broadway, Wilson Avenue. AT: 08:10 And so where were you born? GY: 08:13 I was born on Eastwood, in the building that my grandmother owns. She ended up buying this like ah rooming house building. Don' ; t ask me how much, how she got the money to do this. But when I was born there was the building. That' ; s where we kind of grew up. AT: 08:47 This is Eastwood that' ; s in Lakeview or? GY: 08:50 No, it' ; s Eastwood in Uptown. It' ; s Wilson and Sheridan. A block north of Wilson Avenue, so Wilson and Sheridan. AT: 09:00 Do you know any more details about like when it was purchased or GY: 09:04 It was probably purchased, um, around 1949, 1950 [inaudible]. AT: 09:14 You remember the address? GY: 09:15 918 West Eastwood. AT: 09:22 And so who is she, who was she leasing to? GY: 09:24 It was like a rooming house with one and two room apartments with a little kitchenette. I think you have to go down the hall to go to the bathroom, take a shower. So, um, there were some longtime ah renters, but there were a lot of more transient renters. She rented to Japanese students that would come in and she went and she had a lot of friends that were Alaskan, you know, they came to Chicago for work and they ended up, we had a little network Alaskan Indians that would live there. And then various people. AT: 10:19 And this is um, early, mid-fifties that she had it? GY: 10:28 Fifties, sixties. Yeah. Up until the seventies. Yeah. AT: 10:38 And so did she sell it? GY: 10:41 They eventually sold it, yes. But as long as I lived there, you know, my grandmother lived there, she had her apartment and we grew up running around there. AT: 10:55 And then just to clarify, is this your mom' ; s dad or your dad' ; s dad, mom? Sorry. GY: 11:01 This is my mom' ; s mom. Shimei Kushino. Yes. AT: 11:11 And can you tell me just a little bit about your own family? Do you have any siblings? GY: 11:18 I do. I have ah, I had an older sister, she passed away. I have two younger brothers, so there were the four of us. AT: 11:30 How can you use, were you at the boarding house? GY: 11:35 We were there, um, for the first 19 years of my life? Yeah. We were there a long time. We essentially went to grammar school, high school in that, living there. AT: 11:55 And your parents, what did they do when they come to Chicago? GY: 11:59 My mother worked at ah Gin and Company, which was a book, they created books. My father was, he started out working with sheet metal and then he and his buddies opened up a auto repair business on North Broadway. So that was, it was nice. It was always ah, you know, the family. He had his own business with his friends and family, my uncle. AT: 12:42 And Gin and, do you remember where that was? GY: 12:46 No, no, I' ; m not sure, this was before I was born. I think once we started showing up. That was it. She stayed at home, took care of the kids. AT: 13:04 And um, where on Broadway was your dad' ; s shop? Do you remember GY: 13:08 5745 Broadway, yes. AT: 13:09 What was the name of it? GY: 13:10 Uptown Auto Service. So it was well-known in the Japanese community, so we had a lot of clients that were Japanese Americans. AT: 13:30 Okay, and then as far as schools, can you tell me where you went to elementary school? GY: 13:40 I went to elementary school at Stewart School, which is on Wilson and Kenmore. Um, I went there first through seven and a half, seventh grade. Always had Japanese kids in my class as my classmates. There were a lot of Japanese to live there. And then we went to Stockton School, which is ah Montrose and Clark and we' ; ve made a lot more Japanese kids. And then went to Kane Tech. Lot of Japanese guys there. AT: 14:26 So it was still all boys? GY: 14:28 It was all boys, but you know, we, we knew each other from the neighborhood. So, um, we hung, hung around together. Japanese Americans. AT: 14:44 As far as your own social circle were mostly Japanese American growing up? GY: 14:51 Well, it depended on the day of the week. On the weekends, you know, there was family gatherings, you know, with all the kids. I always had a lot of cousins, so we spent a lot of time around the family. And also on the weekends we went to Church, was Christ Church of Chicago, which is a Japanese American congregation. So, um, all the people we were around, were Japanese American. We were part of the Japanese American community Christian community. And then during the week, and you come across everyone else. AT: 15:43 So how were you going to try Tri-C since you can remember? GY: 15:47 Yes. AT: 15:49 And where, where was it located? GY: 15:51 Ah 701 Buckingham, which is right around Halsted, just north of Belmont. That' ; s Buckingham. There was a big building, so there were a lot of activities, a scout' ; s youth group activities. That' ; s where I really got to gain, a feel of being Japanese American because they were, we always were always around other families, JA families. The men there are, you know, they' ; re the role models and the women. So it was a strong influence for me. AT: 16:51 When you say that, are there any people are names in particular that stick out to you? GY: 16:57 Sure. I could go on and on. Would you like me to know there was, uh, one of my good friends was Yosakai. He was a judo instructor, a cook and you know, he kinda took me under his wing and really taught me so much about how to live life. There was people like Mr. Katahiro, Ken Katahiro the funniest, funniest guy. Had a hilarious dry sense of humor. AT: 17:40 They were leaders in the church? GY: 17:41 Yes. AT: 17:46 And um, can you tell me more about the family gatherings? What would you do? GY: 17:58 We would gather at people' ; s houses and we would eat and then the kids would go outside, you know, to the yards and play at that point in my life, I' ; m not sure what the adults were doing. It might have a been about conversation and beer. But you know, that' ; s....There were always a lot of kids. We played tag, we played guns. Hide and seek. Yeah. AT: 18:40 Was that something you looked forward to? GY: 18:41 Oh, sure. Oh, it was great. Great fun. Well, you know, these are people you grow up with, you know. Know, you' ; re comfortable around them. People are nice. They' ; re supportive. AT: 18:57 I want to ask you about, um, Japanese language. Did you, was that scoping in your family? Did you have to go to Japanese school? GY: 19:08 I never went to Japanese school. Japanese was mostly a one way thing in our house because my grandmother spoke Japanese. She lived with us the whole time she was alive. She spoke Japanese. I learned to understand a little bit. I would respond in English and she would eventually figure out what I was saying. And so we had a way of communicating without me being able to speak Japanese. It was good experience for us. AT: 19:49 And GY: 19:50 Well, one more thing about that. There was always um, Japanese being spoken when, uh, my parents and my grandmother didn' ; t want us to know what they' ; re talking about so they will just flip right into it. And it was interesting. AT: 20:26 So you had mentioned that you were pretty aware of your Japanese American identity given your, the time spent within the community, you know, the church specifically. Can you tell me more about that. Was that something that you knew from a young age, you know. What was your experience with your own [inaudible]? GY: 20:57 You know, it just felt real natural to be around groups of Japanese, Japanese Americans. Um, I think our family was able to function real well in non-Japanese groups because we would go to the, the, the boys club every day and we would, uh, you know, fool around at school and, you know, play little league and we were on the swim team and this was all with non-Japanese people and so we were comfortable there. But then when we were with the church group or with family, it was comfortable too. So you know, I think we were able to, really feel a comfort level no matter where we were, which was we thought, you know, I thought it was natural. That' ; s the way it is for everybody. AT: 22:12 You mentioned little league and swimming, I' ; d like to hear more about is, um, what did you do for fun outside of school? GY: 22:20 We ended up going to the, uh, the boys club. McCormick Boys' ; Club everyday. AT: 22:32 Can you tell me more about that? GY: 22:32 Sure. AT: 22:34 What is that? GY: 22:35 McCormick Boy' ; s Club was a club that started out being for the boys know they come and they have activities, they got game rooms, they have crafts, they have a pool, they have a gym, so they have all these activities. So we would go sign up for activities and go shoot pool, play ping pong, we would just hang out there all day. I think maybe this was the, our parents designed to get us active than to do stuff, but it worked. So we were on the swim teams, which means you go swimming four, five times a week just to practice. AT: 23:22 Where would you swim? GY: 23:23 At the club, in the pool and then we go out. We have meets, so pack up the car and go to different other clubs and have meets. That took up a lot of time. Yeah. AT: 23:42 And do you remember um, like any other Japanese American businesses or restaurants, grocery stores? GY: 23:53 Yeah, we remember. I remember, um, a lot of restaurants on the North side. I don' ; t remember their names necessarily, but there was one on Broadway and a block south of Foster, Winona There used to be a Japanese restaurant, I think it might be a Zuma House. There used to be ah gift shops, little Japanese gift shops. There was one on Clark and Belmore around the corner. Used to go in there. There used to be ah a Japanese, little grocery store across from the BTC, Buddhist Temple used to just go in there, you know, you can always get a bontan ame in those places, which is fun for us. That was the highlights. AT: 24:54 And you, I' ; d like to talk a little bit more about your experience, I guess understanding or learning about internment and also resettlement because obviously as you' ; re saying you' ; re a part of this Japanese American community, um, which like we was largely there because of camp. Um, so I guess, um, can you just, can you, um, tell me a little bit more about...how you understand camp from a young age and maybe how that changed over the years when you started asking questions. And things like that. GY: 25:52 I think I knew about camp. I knew that they had done all this. They had ah, been interned in these camps. And I would, when I asked how was it. Um, I never sensed any anger in the anguish. You know, I think my parents just, you know, they, they either wanted to just move on. Uh, they wanted to grow their family and not have this be a part of who they are. And so initially, I mean, at this time we just, I just thought, well, it' ; s too bad, but you know, I look at my parents and said, well, I look at my, all, my aunts and uncles. I said, wow, it must not have been too bad. They' ; re all doing well. They' ; re all happy people. I mean. AT: 27:20 Did you ever talk about it with your peers? GY: 27:27 No, I don' ; t think I do know. It' ; s just not a subject that really came. We were kids trying to lead kids' ; lives. So we didn' ; t really ah question. You know, we weren' ; t that in tune, curious. We just want to go outside and run around. AT: 28:03 And I, was there a certain point that your parents did open up or share? Because obviously you know, some details about where they went and things. GY: 28:16 Yeah uh, I think it was a later, and it' ; s probably spurred on by the hearings, you know, I had a friend, I used to teach high school at a [Senton] High School and I had a good friend, her name was Alice Asaki. She was ah, at the JACL. She was very much in tune with the Japanese American community, what was going on? And she said, Gary, you need to go to this thing. I thought, " ; What, why?" ; " ; You need to hear the stories." ; So we lived two blocks from Northeastern. So I walked there. I was shocked. It was, it was, uh, too much. I was overwhelmed. I was angry. I was in my late twenties, early thirties, you know, and that' ; s when it, first, what had happened, at first really hit me. You know, and then I became angry at my parents. How can you let this happen to... Misplace anger. I' ; m young. I thought...young and ignorant. So, um, so then we talked a little bit more, but the anger, it was overwhelming testimony AT: 30:39 Is testimonies that you were hearing. Did your parents testify? GY: 30:45 No, but the people I listened to were people I knew from the community. AT: 30:54 Do you remember any of those? GY: 30:58 Well, I believe Alice, she' ; s testifying. I think Chei told me. He told me. Yeah, she testified, you know, these are people that, you know, we' ; re a community leaders, so you know, you know, but then you' ; re hearing things that you' ; ve never heard. William Kimura. So not only was it a, a story that was difficult to listen to, but you know, it became a real. When, you know, the people that AT: 31:52 Are there any of those stories that have stuck with you? GY: 31:56 Um, no, because I think in a lot of ways it' ; s almost the same story being told over and over. People from different places. No, they' ; d have different family situations, but it probably as a whole ah resonated, so. Terrible. Terrible justice. AT: 32:49 I think you' ; re the first person I' ; ve spoken to who is actually at the hearings. Can you tell me more about what it was like, what the arrangement is? Wasn' ; t just a single day. GY: 33:03 Uh, I think it was a couple of days, big room packed, chairs and then there' ; s a table in front and a microphone and it was crowded. I ended up just standing and listening. You know, I thought how brave they are. AT: 33:37 So this was um, something that was open to the public? GY: 33:41 Yes. Open to the public, it was. AT: 33:45 And the people who were there, dd you know most of the people in the room? GY: 33:53 No, there were many, many people there. I know a lot of people. And then there were other people that I' ; m sure we' ; re just curious. You know, it was ah very powerful. AT: 34:16 And was it just the one day that you went or did you go? GY: 34:19 I think I went a couple of days. Yes. AT: 34:25 Did you go alone? GY: 34:26 I did go alone. AT: 34:35 Well, thank you for sharing that. Like I said, we haven' ; t spoken to anyone who was actually there. GY: 34:52 I don' ; t know if I would have gone if I didn' ; t have a friendship with Alice. You know, you hear about it and say, well things are happening. This thing is happening. I still hear her, " ; You better go here." ; AT: 35:16 How do you think things would be different for you? You haven' ; t gone if you didn' ; t have that relationship. GY: 35:24 Oh, I have no idea how things will be different. I imagine they would have been very different. I know I wouldn' ; t be sitting here right now. AT: 35:41 Sounds like it was almost like an awakening. GY: 35:44 It was, it also, um, it really changed my view, of ah, what government is and what people have to do to fight bad government. This anger just changed my view of what it means to live in this country. AT: 36:41 When you look at the current political climate. You know, given this experience that you have and some of the things that you' ; re saying it taught you. Do you, do you think something like this could ever happen again or, or whether I guess I' ; m just curious about your own reflections about GY: 37:24 To a degree, what happened then is happening now. I mean, just the kind of talk, you' ; re hearing from the leaders of the government. Tells you you have to be vigilant. Yeah, sure. Same thing could happen. You know, it' ; s uh, it' ; s like the lessons of the past last as long as you' ; re ah memory allows it then then. So everything is all brand new. AT: 38:14 What are your hopes for, for future generations, for your kids? Grandkids? GY: 38:32 Uh, well, what I have noticed and what I appreciate, or the intelligence and the, uh, the heart of the young young adults now. So smart, so dedicated that uh, there' ; s great hope. You know, we, you know, we' ; re going to have to put our hand. I mean put our lives and in their hands and um, there' ; s no doubt in my mind they can get the job done. It' ; s, it' ; s, um, it' ; s nice to see and you know, I see all these young kids out there, you know, trying to, to change things. So there' ; s great hope. I feel great hope. Although it is pretty much at a low point right now given our current administration. AT: 39:54 As far as the, the Japanese American community. How, because you' ; ve been involved for such a young age, imagining you consider yourself still. How have you seen it change or evolve over the years? What are some of your observations maybe? How would you describe it in those early years? And then how would you describe it now? GY: 40:29 Well, I just there' ; s not a need for this kind of community to be together like this. Um, in the earlier years when I was young, you know, I think there was a need for her, my parents and their friends, you know, to be together. That need I think as, as lesson. But um, for some people there' ; s still a draw, you know, so be part of a community, a Japanese American community. So whereas, um, the need might not be there. I think nowadays are developing and have a desire to be together. AT: 41:40 Can you say more on what that means actually was like why? Why was there a need in the earlier days? GY: 41:49 Well, there was a lot of anti Japanese sentiment. Even I' ; m in the Midwest, we felt it a little bit growing up, you know, being called names. And I think that' ; s one of the things that drove us into having groups of friends that were Japanese American. I think people were just earlier, people would just finding a way to go on without, you know, without any difficulty. And your rank. Kinda lay low, you know, not make waves, raise your kids. AT: 43:08 One more question before wrapping up and I' ; m curious to know, um, well, well, first I' ; m interested in hearing your thoughts about um, the resettlement to Chicago and that, that migration of people in that move with your family from, you know, being put into camps and then moving to a different part of the country. Is that, have you felt in your own experience but that experience of your parents as you know somehow shaped you in any really serious ways or is it just GY: 44:30 Well, sometimes I, I' ; m, how things might' ; ve been different if they didn' ; t all come to Chicago, I would have loved to grow up and live in Washington, Bellevue, Washington if they had gone back there, but then realistically, yeah, all the things that happened and ended up with me being here. So to speculate, otherwise would be meaningless. I think it was good that they all were able to come here because it allowed this community though develop to grow, to make life for themselves. Although when I go to the West Coast, they have nice lives there too. Uh, I don' ; t know how, how else to say? AT: 45:52 Have you visited other Japanese American communities in different places? GY: 45:56 Oh yes, sure. Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose, Los Angeles. I love it. AT: 46:07 How, how would you compare that and maybe how we should call it different? GY: 46:14 Well, I think seeing a center, of uh businesses, is, is nice, a central area. Um, but also it' ; s cool just to see businesses that have Japanese names on. You know, I was shocked when I go to these other parts of the country, go to Los Angeles and see all these businesses that have Japanese names and I say wow. You know, they' ; ve all kind of faded in Chicago. They' ; ve sold out. They' ; ve. But Seattle, you go there, they' ; re still thriving, get a sense of pride. AT: 47:12 Did you feel that in Chicago? GY: 47:16 Well I think it' ; s a different kind of a feeling growing up here, it' ; s. You know, it' ; s, you know pride never comes when this is your, uh, your home when this. I mean, you don' ; t automatically are all of a sudden develop pride, but to go to another place and say, wow, this is kind of place exists. That' ; s nice. I like it. AT: 47:50 How wuld you feel about having a central area in Chicago of Japanese Americans? GY: 48:00 Well, it would be, it will be fun. It' ; d be great. I would like that. AT: 48:08 Just a couple more questions. I guess just kind of point blank, how do you think that the history of your family, your parents, in terms of how do you think that' ; s impacted your life? Maybe you as a person? If at all. GY: 48:37 Well, seeing what my family, my parents, families have gone through and how they have lived their lives. Uh, it, it really taught me the importance of family. The importance of being part of a community. Yeah, yeah I don' ; t know if, if the families had done something different, whether having this strong big family, oh, would have occurred for me and whether I would have benefited from that. But the fact that they all, all these uncles and aunts and you know, we' ; re here, we shared so much together. It taught me how to live. You know, I' ; m grateful for that. You know, I can' ; t say that it, maybe this is being selfish, I can' ; t say that it was a bad thing for me. AT: 50:17 If you could leave your children and grandchildren, any kind of message or legacy, what would you want to leave them with? What do you want them to know? GY: 50:42 Um, I want them to understand the legacy of the family, where they came from, and then let them find their own way. Another Speaker: 51:08 I guess, but maybe it' ; s kind of irrelevant. I was just thinking about more maybe like a broader question for you is just what have been some of the most meaningful conversations that you' ; ve ever had with who and what are they? GY: 51:29 Regarding? AT: 51:31 Just in life? It doesn' ; t have to specifically be Japanese American, just out of curiosity, what are the conversations that have stuck with you? GY: 51:44 Well, I mentioned one person, Yosh Sakai, we used to spend a lot of time together because we would make noodles together for 25 years and so there was many a day spent in the kitchen where we would just chat it. He really was an inspiration to me. So the time I spent with him. Uh, the time I spent with my father, he was a, a different kind of character, but he knew about everything. And so, you know, after I got over fighting with him, we became buddies and I appreciated him. I appreciated, uh, how he lived life. My mother was not much of a talker, so we spend time sitting together and there are others, others I can' ; t think of right now because, uh, you know, I' ; ll grab information from anybody [I' ; m listening to, chat with them]. Another Speaker: 53:26 Okay, great. AT: 53:29 Is there anything that you' ; d like to add or that we might' ; ve missed? GY: 53:34 I don' ; t think we missed a thing. I, I appreciate the opportunity. You might have to do a lot of editing. Another Speaker: 53:48 No that was good, thank you so much for, for coming in and speaking with us. We really appreciate it. GY: 53:53 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=YamagiwaGary20171011.xml YamagiwaGary20171011.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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Yamagiwa, Gary (10/11/2017)
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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 material received Federal financial assistance for the preservation and interpretation of
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Foreman, Julie
Takada, Anna
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Yamaguchi, Mari
OHMS Object Text
5.4 9/13/2017 Yamaguchi, Mari (9/13/2017) 0:52:16 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. Yamaguchi, Mari Foreman, Julie Takada, Anna video 0 https://vimeo.com/307589735 Vimeo video < ; iframe src=" ; https://player.vimeo.com/video/307589735?h=af451d05e6" ; 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.] Julie Foreman: 00:00 What is your full name? Mari YamaguchJF: 00:03 Full name, meaning? We- Japanese have no middle name. JF: 00:06 Right. MY: 00:07 So Mari Yamaguchi is full name. Except, uh, I put down my maiden name because I am known with a maiden name because of my brother' ; s death. JF: 00:20 And what, what' ; s your maiden name? MY: 00:22 Miyano. JF: 00:22 Mi-ya-no? MY: 00:22 Mi-ya-no, which is unusual, very unusual. JF: 00:28 Yeah. MY: 00:31 Miyano. JF: 00:31 And was there a special reason? Now, Mari, is there a meaning in Japanese? Um, like special reason that they chose Mari? MY: 00:42 Well, I think my family had uh, rules. I think if it' ; s a girl, it' ; s a mother, if it' ; s a boy, it' ; s a mother- father who names them. So I probably have about three other names as a candidate, but Mari was my name and my sister was- JF: 00:59 So your mother would choose that, yeah? MY: 01:00 My sister was Yuri. JF: 01:02 Now does it mean anything, does it? No? MY: 01:07 If you take each character, " ; ma" ; means, 10,000, " ; ri" ; means uh, distance. But it doesn' ; t mean that I don' ; t think, because the same name Mari can be written 20, 20, 30 different ways. JF: 01:28 And you were born in Japan, uh, what city, were you born? MY: 01:34 I was born when my father was uh, recovering from illness, just west of, west of Tokyo. Right below Mount Fuji. And I went back to Kamakura. I think I was maybe about less than a year old because my father recovered. So we went back to... Kamakura is about, by train about, in my days, by train about 40 minutes from south of Tokyo. It' ; s a well known, oh I think President Obama went to the Kamakura City with a big lodge. JF: 02:16 Uh huh, okay. And so you were born there but then you moved to Tokyo and... MY: 02:21 Area. JF: 02:22 Tokyo area. So like a suburb of Tokyo? What they call a suburb...? MY: 02:24 It' ; s a, yeah, it' ; s not a, it' ; s not the same prefecture either. It' ; s a beach town. Very close to the beach along the Sagami Bay. And it' ; s well known for the history as well as beach. JF: 02:42 Oh, okay. And so growing up, uh, what languages did you speak? Did you just speak Japanese as a kid? MY: 02:52 Japanese only. JF: 02:54 Um, and did you learn other languages? Could you? MY: 02:58 It' ; s required to pick up English. My mother would have be, she would be hundred s-, she would be hundred something years old. But when English was required subject, if you went into the seventh grade and if you go to college, you have to pick up one more language like Spanish or French or German. I don' ; t know what it is now, but in my days you could pick up German, French and English, and uh Spanish is relatively new. JF: 03:41 Now did you learn English then, uh at school? MY: 03:45 Yeah, in school. JF: 03:48 And um, so you went to school in Tokyo? MY: 03:53 I went to a middle school in Yokohama and college in Tokyo. JF: 03:57 In Tokyo. And um, was it unusual for women to go to college? Now, ' ; cause what year were you born? That would kind of give us a perspective. MY: 04:10 1927. JF: 04:12 Yeah, 1927. So was it unusual for women to go to college in 1927? MY: 04:20 To some families, I think it is. It' ; s not my family. We, we grew up, men and women, men and women are the same. So, uh, I do know my father' ; s brother made opposition. He did not think I should go to college, but I had no problem, my family. JF: 04:43 And what did you study in college? New Speaker: 04:45 I wanted to study history. JF: 04:47 History. Uh, a certain kind? A certain, American, Japanese history, what? MY: 04:52 No uh, the school I, college, I went how they study history was simultaneously Japan, Orient, and Western. Those three, same time. So because of the war, the school was bombed, so I had to leave. So we just started ancient period. JF: 05:18 I see. Um, so you were studying, what would they call it- like comparative literature is what we would call it in literature. So it was comparative history. And you, you got a bachelor' ; s degree? MY: 05:33 No, that' ; s, that' ; s what I was saying. We had, I had to stop after a year and half because it was 1944. I had to leave because I was commuting from Kamakura to Tokyo and my, my parents said there' ; s no need for you to risk your life just going to college. So, I think few months afterwards, a few months after I left the college, the college building was bombed I think. That, I think Anna' ; s grandmother can probably say lot more clearly what exactly what date because she had to leave, uh, something like in May of 1945. I left in uh, September of 1944. JF: 06:20 So you left Japan and you came here? MY: 06:22 No. JF: 06:23 Where did you-? MY: 06:25 I left the college in 1944, back to my home in Kamakura. And uh Kamakura was not bombed yet. I don' ; t think it ever was bombed because it' ; s right on the shore and all the hundreds of B-29 went to bomb Tokyo or Yokohama, Kawasaki or all those large cities. But I left Kamakura in uh, 1945, end of April, 1945 is when war was over. But uh, Kamakura was quite difficult to make living because people that was bombed out in other cities, as mentioned, were just pouring into Kamakura. We did not have any food to feed all these people. So my, my mother talked to my father who was assigned to Hiroshima, uh, giving a loan. JF: 07:28 What, what did your father do? What was his occupation? MY: 07:31 My father is a naval officer. JF: 07:34 He was a naval officer. MY: 07:35 And, uh, he said that Hiroshima was not bombed yet and we still have some food to purchase in the black market. So my mother decided finally- my mother always lived alone ; raised us with a maid and things like that- but she decided to move us. So that was close to May, three months before the war was over. So all of us packed up and with just two suitcase moved from Kamakura to Hiroshima. JF: 08:09 So you moved to Hiroshima? MY: 08:09 And I remember we had to stop in a tunnel many times because we' ; d be, we' ; d be bombed. So we finally got to Hiroshima and my, my father had a large, large house reserved for us, but Hiroshima said that that house needs to be wrecked down because it' ; s too, it' ; s almost as big as a castle. So we moved out of the city to a suburb, uh, less than one month after we moved. And that was, um, probably within a month after we moved. So my, I was only one did not need to go to school anymore, so my sister and my brother both had to be enrolled in schools in Hiroshima. That was three months before that A-bomb. JF: 09:07 So when the A-bomb went off, you were outside of Hiroshima but it must' ; ve been devastating to see what happened. MY: 09:21 It was, it was something... JF: 09:22 And I can understand if it' ; s too painful to talk about. MY: 09:25 It was uh, it was since we moved, we lived in a beach town. We had lot of accident in the beach, but my parents would not let us see some dead people. Died of drowning, things like that. I have not seen any dead people myself. I' ; m, I' ; m, if I lived in Tokyo, I' ; m sure people, some hundred and thousands of them. But that day, uh, my father did not take any official cars or anything. He said ' ; I' ; ll take a train to go to work.' ; So he left home about...later than my brother. My brother had to be back in school by 7, 7:30 or something. So he left already. And, uh, we saw him uh, leaving the house and all of us say goodbye to him. And that was the last time we saw him. He was 12 years old and, uh, uh, the school had rules that you had to walk. You' ; re not to take a streetcar or bus or anything after a certain station. So they all gathered at the station and started to walk. Which is...probably was a good training for young men, so everybody has to be back in school, 7:30 or something like close to 8. So my brother left first and then my father left second and uh, uh, when the bomb was dropped it was 8:15 in the morning. So three women, my sister had a day off that day because she was to change the assignment. So it' ; s almost a miracle that my sister was at home, otherwise she would be dead also. But she was uh, let' ; s see, eleventh grade. She was home, so I was alone with my mother, but A-bomb was dropped, uh, 8:15. So we, we stood out and then we saw those big white cloud that you see in the picture. And um, it wasn' ; t too long after that people started to run away from the cities, those people that are burned. JF: 11:56 When you saw the cloud, what did you think was happening? MY: 12:02 We had no idea. We did not have any idea, but my father probably knew. He said, he came home about, I think he came home about 10, 10:30, 11 o' ; clock. JF: 12:18 In the morning or in the evening? MY: 12:19 In the morning. He walked home because he, he saw some people around him just dying. So he um, he walked home, but in between the station that he was waiting for the streetcar, he got this black rain full of radiation. He was just poured with all that, but he came home. And he told me that the city itself is burning. He could not even get into the city because he knew he had to look for his son but he did come home. Then he got on the bicycle. He went back to the city. But he still could not get into the city because of the fire. And he came back again about 3:30 or 4 and the city had no electricity, city had nothing running. People were dying. So, um, my mother says, I want to go see if I can find my brother. So he went back there for the third time with my mother, but before he went to take her, he said, I remember that he said that ' ; you have to keep your mind strong. Don' ; t get upset. Do not lose yourself. If you- unless you can promise that I will not be able to you. So he and my mother went on foot to Hiroshima. And I think somehow between burning city and between dying, dead people, dying people and all the electric lines down on the ground, they got to the schoolyard. But I guess a lot of kids were dead and they, we, I think they got there about 5 o' ; clock in the afternoon and there' ; s no light, there' ; s no telephone, there' ; s nothing. So they had to leave, back to the home. So my mother made sure that somebody did see my brother because of the same, similar they, because of the name, last name and also the newcomer from Tokyo area. One kid remembered him and he said, ' ; yes, I did see your son. He was going that way.' ; So my mother and father said, well there' ; s a hope. So they came home and next day, the 7th of August, two of us, my sister and I begged my father the same thing: we want to go. So he said the same thing to us, ' ; be strong, don' ; t get upset,' ; all that. So we went off, the four of us went off, on foot again. And the neighbors also try to help us because they knew we were newcomer. So, the one that knew the geography of the city is probably my sister because she was in the school just for a few months, but we did not know, it' ; s too late. We knew nothing about the city. So it was very, very difficult. So we uh, we looked about seven days just just going from place to place and checking all the dead people' ; s name and...name and body. And I think the school kids of seventh grade people were not mobilized yet because 12-year-old is too young to be mobilized. So, um, I think among the people dead in the city, uh, 12, 13-year-old are the, probably the largest number because they' ; re walking outside, uh, my brother' ; s way about. We followed whatever we could, but in short, we just could not find him after a week. Only thing that I' ; m kind of proud of, my mother is, my mother kept a diary from August 6th to about 12th of August. Not a single person left that kind of stuff. So my mother' ; s original writing, uh, I translated that part into English and my sister donated that original writing to Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. And it' ; s in a permanent exhibit right now. It' ; s written on very poor quality paper and my sister and I had no idea she was keeping that. So when she passed away in 1982, she found that. 37 years she didn' ; t say to anybody. So right now it' ; s available to lot of people to read. And I think my English translation is also there, together. So anybody that goes to Hiroshima, you can view that- my mother' ; s original writing and my English translation. And I think when I was still there in Hiroshima I think they had a memorial service for his school alone. I had, my brother' ; s school alone, had lost about 390 students and they have a memorial statue like. And I, I had to, I was 18 years old at the time. And right after that war, not knowing anything about the city, not knowing any friends or any relatives, uh, I ha- I was only one could make some, some cash money. So I worked about close to 10 years. So I came here in 1955. JF: 19:01 What kind of work did you do? MY: 19:03 I worked, I had no skill to make any money. So first I worked in a camera shop because I wanted, one time I wanted to become a photographer until I found out it' ; s- you have to carry very heavy equipment. And then, then, uh, when I settled down, I went to Catholic church, I went to this and that. But, um, I went to prefectural government and I got a working, a liaison office which had some occupations, occupation, people from Kure, which is um, naval fort away from Hiroshima. Uh, through that I went to some civic- civil, or civil affairs office and worked in English, typing and translating. Then when I got little, little settled down, Korean War' ; s going. I had no recollection how that started or what year that started because we were, I know at least I was, I was just completely lost and I worked in the ABCC: Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. That American Energy Department sent tremendous number of physicians and the statisticians to study the result of atomic bomb, casualty of the atomic bomb. Except they, and made no public announcement of their studies. But I wanted to see how and what they are doing. Number one, physicians have no new medical devices so they treated no one. Number two: statistics. Only thing that I remember that they made announcement is leukemia is very much increase. And also there is some deformity in the babies that are born, with a small head. That' ; s about all I can remember. Then I worked with uh some uh, Protestant church ministers and I think that' ; s where about 10 years or so in my own country. JF: 21:26 Then you decided to come to the United States? MY: 21:29 And in, see, I came here in 1955. Unless you passed Fulbright scholarship, the official scholarship was available was Fulbright scholarship. You have to be quite bright, but there is uh, private small colleges in America who was giving scholarship to uh, Japanese, but 1950s I think very, very few people came. I think Anna' ; s grandmother came in a similar situation from Catholic college, I came as a college student from a small college in Indiana, which was Episcopal Methodist and my husband, which I never knew in Japan, I think he' ; s also some Protestant church school that he got a scholarship. JF: 22:26 Now before you came, what was your religion? MY: 22:31 Nothing. Except that, except that I was very heavily a Protestant, because the Japanese people had been different from Korean people. Korean is a very heavily Protestant, but Japanese have maybe 1% Christians including Catholic components and um, but religion is uh, another subject you can talk for a long time. It' ; s uh, I think Japanese to me is a very religious people eternal, eternal faith- JF: 23:12 Spiritual. MY: 23:12 They have, they may not go to church like here. Uh, but I think Japanese people as a whole is a religious people. JF: 23:23 So you came here, went to a college in Indiana and you majored in, in history, or... MY: 23:32 Social science here. JF: 23:34 Social sciences. New Speaker: 23:34 And I had a full scholarship here. But uh, I was telling Jennifer that when I met my husband here in Chicago, the people from Japan needed a job three months of summer and you cannot find a job in Chicago, you couldn' ; t find anywhere, anyplace. So having no friends, Japanese or American, he and I both, I think he worked in some place in downtown. I worked with my sponsors- both American ministers. She works at the Augustana Hospital. So she said, you can stay with us and you can get a, I can get you a job. So that' ; s how I started Augustana for the summer. Then before I went back to school administer said I want you to come back next year so I had a job secured. I think same thing with my husband to be at the time. Then 1956, just as we were going home back to uh, school, I think President Eisenhower was pressing a, a legislature for higher degree holders to apply for residency, which he decided we should try to get that and continue studies. So we were married in ' ; 57 and applied for that and I, that' ; s why I left the same college in Indiana and later on, I did finish at Northeastern, very close to the house. JF: 25:17 Um, that' ; s quite a story. No when you came here to the states, did you find that people, that there was a lot of prejudiced or angry feelings towards Japanese? MY: 25:36 I don' ; t think so except that people in Indiana, it was a small college. I don' ; t think they have seen the Japanese specimen. So when it' ; s uh Episcopal, Methodist church school. Somebody has to take me to the church. So we, I used to go to uh, Protestant churches and you could, you could tell they are just, it' ; s not prejudice, it' ; s just something that- new they have never seen before. JF: 26:08 Curiosity. MY: 26:08 Curiosity, maybe. Especially the kids. The kids would be pulling mother' ; s sleeve and say, look at that. And I think, I think also they have uh, certain ideas what to expect. Japanese woman, Japanese man, whatever they have a knowledge about. But I don' ; t think I had any prejudiced feeling, except I was told Indiana was quite old-fashioned in terms of lynching and all that. But I never had bad experience. JF: 26:45 So then, when you finished college you, you and your husband, you married and then you came here and to live in Chicago? MY: 26:53 And she, he had a, he had a degree in religious education, a masters, but he said this degree you cannot use in Japan. So he wanted to go to University of Chicago. So, uh, after we were married, University of Chicago gave a scholarship and also the Salvation Army gave us um living expense. So with the two years of string attached, you had to work back with the Salvation Army social service for two years. So, uh, he and I both worked with American, uh, concerns. I worked at Augustana Hospital and he worked at Salvation Army social service. And the social service department of the Salvation Army here in Chicago was one of the largest. We had a Jewish family, which is large, and uh, another one is, I can' ; t remember the name, but that' ; s his classmate was ahead of that. They were three big ones at the time. JF: 28:02 And at what point did you decide that you were going to stay in the United States? MY: 28:08 Well, two years, two years, that requirement that you had to stay. Uh, when he was working that two years requirement, he was promoted so, so fast and they had about 35 people with a master' ; s in social service and it was a large agency, but he too had no discrimination in terms of getting certain positions. And I had um, uh, medical records work divided into lab and medical records for budget reasons, but I was picked up about five years later as a head of the department. And when you have certain skills that you are required here in this country to apply that to another countries, completely, extremely difficult, extremely difficult. And uh, because of my family situation that my father was gone and uh, I come from very small family to get him, uh, some job that he can use the studies that here treatment method, um, concept for the social service is divided between two ministries like welfare and education. It' ; s, it' ; s was very, very difficult. So that' ; s how we just kept on living here. JF: 29:54 So really been here most of your life then? MY: 30:00 More than I am, more than I expected. Anna Takada: 30:04 Do you remember your first impressions of Chicago? MY: 30:09 Well, we had to sit down to pick where we should live, we should live. We would live any place, but east, south, west. Chicago was in Midwest and probably we felt this was probably least discriminatory in terms of culture or people, whatever. And he, he wanted to go to University of Chicago. And that was couple of reasons and I, I think that was right to me. That was right. JF: 30:49 So, um, you lived in, you would say you lived in this area for most- when you first came here. Now, did you have children, did you have kids? MY: 31:00 No, we had no kids. JF: 31:02 No kids. So, so you' ; ve lived here for awhile and then you moved up further north. But I remember we were talking that this was, um, a Japanese area. I remember on Belmont, Toguri, I used to go into there and there was places like that. So how did that feel all of a sudden, I mean, when you were in Indiana you couldn' ; t get anything Japanese, any food or anything like that. So coming to this area? MY: 31:35 I did not, I don' ; t think Ikuo and I, both of us did not crave for anything Japanese. I think I have not known anything about Toguri' ; s store, until he told me one time. And uh, as I mentioned before, I had no Japanese American friends. I think service committee, I think [inaudible], uh, to take that job, uh, as a head of uh, service committee way back, way, way back. But when he told me about that, I said, I don' ; t think you would fit to that because we don' ; t have any friends. We don' ; t have any relatives. We don' ; t know much about that. And that' ; s when uh we [inaudible] to go. But before he was, because there was not a male Jap- male Japanese who speaks Japanese and English and with a social service degree, there was no such person and [inaudible], had a religious, uh, he was a minister. But anyway, he ter-, and I think he served one term as a board member, but he was too busy to do that. So I had very little contact with the service committee and I think I gave my deepest credit to your grandmother. She took me over there. JF: 33:06 Did your sister stay in Japan? MY: 33:08 Yes. JF: 33:08 She did. So your mother and your sister MY: 33:12 They both come to visit, but they always stayed. JF: 33:16 Now after going through...Hiroshima and that and then coming here, what were you, did you have any negative feelings about America? I mean, it was a horribly brutal war. I mean... MY: 33:32 I think, I always wanted to separate the government and the people. Government, what they, what they do is not what, representing the people in, of any country. And uh, after 10 years of, uh, turmoil in my head, I decided, well I have to go and see myself, what the people is like. So, um, that' ; s why I think I did come here, uh, not thinking that I' ; ll be here for this long. That' ; s the one thing that I never thought about, but uh. JF: 34:09 That you stayed. Interviewer 2: 34:12 Mari? Um, knowing that your sister still lives in Japan and you talk to her all the time, was there ever a time when, because you and she, you know, you spoke to her about the effects of Hiroshima and, and all of that. Was there ever a time when she wanted to come to the United States or you wanted to go back to Japan because you spoke, you speak all the time and so you knew exactly what was going on in both countries? MY: 34:38 Yeah, yeah. I2: 34:38 How was that? MY: 34:40 I think it' ; s difficult to live with, so many people ask me also now that I' ; m alone, but you don' ; t, I don' ; t think you want to live with a married sister. She had her own family and, uh, uh, job situation that I was waiting to do anything that if Ikuo could find a job. We spent quite a bit of money and time in the 70s, uh, trying to get back to Japan. But as I mentioned before, it' ; s extremely difficult to get decent job. Wages are too low and it' ; s not recognize in Japan- they don' ; t have a social service graduate degree or anything. Uh, they have a good welfare system, but they have copied case managers and all that, names from exactly what we use here. And they are using, I think there' ; s uh one college now with a social service, um, major, but no, no graduate degree. But friend of mine who was at University of Illinois Social Service, she tried very hard to work at both minister welfare and education, but it' ; s a medical, medical field and it' ; s extremely difficult to get into that kind of situation. And um, Ikuo was um, interested in that treatment of alcoholics, but the treatment method and the concept of alcoholism is completely...it' ; s not there, it' ; s not if, it' ; s not different it' ; s, it' ; s more authoritative in Japan. And with all of that background, it' ; s very different. It' ; s, it' ; s, it' ; s easy to ask questions like, you, you have just two sis-, one sister and why don' ; t you, why don' ; t you get the job and I can probably get a job doing some translation or something. But uh, Japanese require a certain educational background. I don' ; t have that background to fit to that job requirement. And, uh, it' ; s not an easy thing to, to make a change like, like what you have suggested. So that' ; s why I ended up here. JF: 37:19 Things that I' ; ve read and Japanese people that I, I' ; ve met, um, I got the impression that Japanese society is a lot more structured... MY: 37:32 I think so. JF: 37:33 Than an American society. Um, can you talk a little bit about that, the differences you found when you came here? MY: 37:45 Well, I think when I came here I found that uh, system itself is very, very open. For instance, like I remember the first year I was in this country that they talked about blind people and professor was a lady. She said that in the Western culture they have a feeling that blindness is a punishment of God. We don' ; t have any such thing. And blind people is for centuries make living, um, playing Koto, a certain occupation is, uh, I can' ; t think of anybody else other than blind people doing that. Uh, massage. That' ; s another job that they have always done that. We never think that as a God, God punishment. There are some cultural difference in interpreting, I think. I find that also very interesting. And I did tell uh, professor about that. And also and even in literature, I think the, certain literature are not interpreted the same way as we do. Uh, I think it' ; s all because of the difference of the background or the way we think. And I, I' ; m sure this country with a different background of the people, they probably have a lot more interpretation than, than I know of because I' ; m not that scholastic. But, uh, I think in that way, I think this was a good experience for me to, to see that. And at the same time, because of that, I think they were ready to accept anybody and any kind of uh, background because in my own office I tried to get people from another country, about half of them w-re American born. We needed to learn from the American-born, but people that are from another country had something to contribute. So, uh, I had a Cuban lady, uh, this also wealthy kind of Cuban lady and uh, Iraqian, Filipino. I used uh, blind people to, uh, translate uh, to a type. Uh, all of these are very open to do, I find that very encouraging to me. JF: 40:22 Was it, um, an adjustment, when you were saying that, I was thinking in Japan, it' ; s a pretty homogeneous society- that you don' ; t see many other cultures and then you come to America and we' ; re just a mixture of everything. Was that, how, did that affect you when you, when you came here and, um, MY: 40:51 Well at the same time what I' ; m saying is the people who had a position in Japan say like a professor who have position in Japan, many of them could not get a tenure or teaching job here. A lot of them did go back. That probably told you that how difficult for those people adjust- to make adjustment. JF: 41:14 Yeah. MY: 41:14 And we, I myself, I had no experience. I, I could get into any, any kind of situation. I know too many people that did not stay here, especially on a professional level. AT: 41:35 Mari-san, I' ; d love to hear more, um, about your experiences of coming to Chicago. Um, and what that was like because a lot of people had had come from camp to Chicago, um, right after the war. So did you, did you know about the camps? MY: 42:00 Nothing. AT: 42:00 Um, when did you hear about them? MY: 42:03 Very recently. Very recently because this exhibit probably is uh, first time. I think your mother took me to Northwestern and they had a small exhibit but that' ; s not for the camp. They had exhibit of uh, bombing, the result of Japan, which I have never seen after I left Japan. Like a Shinagawa station where I used to get off my train was very heavily bombed and I think this is, might be my first one to see very complete one and uh, second the experience is that service committee' ; s program of uh, other side of war. I think that that was the first time I saw about your camp life as well as other side of war. Very touching just the surface of the war experience in Japan. I think is the same thing. Applies to the people in this country. Japanese American know very little about what we went in, in, in um, in Japan. As a matter of fact, I, I learned from your mother, grandmother. I had no idea what went on. My classmate was with your mother- grandmother, I didn' ; t, I had no idea they went evacuating. AT: 43:42 Do you remember your, your reactions to learning about that? What happened? MY: 43:48 It, uh, I think it' ; s a good thing that it' ; s so many years past. If that is something that immediately after the war it will be very difficult to forget it. But, uh, somebody else pain, it' ; s very difficult to feel yourself, right? And, uh, I think all of us do have a pain either in the camp or within the war, but I think that ability that we can forget is, uh, sometimes a blessing that you do have less and less, except sometimes that comes right back to you. But other than that, we have our ability to forget. AT: 44:40 And you, you had said you didn' ; t know, um, you didn' ; t know other Japanese or Japanese Americans when you came to Chicago. Um, but you did meet my grandmother here. MY: 44:53 That' ; s, that' ; s probably is true.. I know one couple who lives in Hawai' ; i. It' ; s Hawaiian, Japanese, Hawaiian, it' ; s uh Sansei or Yonsei I guess. Other than that, that I don' ; t, I don' ; t know. Some people that lives in suburb, like coming from [inaudible], from business. I know few. Other than that, I knew very, very, very little. AT: 45:26 Well and, and I can say I' ; ve seen you at a, a number of events, um, within the Japanese American community my whole life. Um, whether it' ; s, um, things at the JASC or, um, you know, like ' ; Holiday Delight,' ; things like that. When did you start going to some of those events? MY: 45:51 Your grandmother took me [laughs]. It' ; s gotta be very, very few years, five, six years maybe? I don' ; t know, five, six years maybe. I remember going to your graduation from Whitney Young. AT: 46:08 Walter Payton. MY: 46:12 What, uh, what year was that you graduated? AT: 46:15 Uh, 2010. MY: 46:16 2010. AT: 46:18 Yes. MY: 46:18 I went with your grandmother and grandfather and then I knew [Sachet?] Because of the of where he go to... AT: 46:28 Because of? MY: 46:28 Because after he plays at contrabass, the father. And also I knew a physician from Japan who lived next door who stayed in Chicago for nine months and now he' ; s back in Japan. So that' ; s about more than five, seven, seven, eight years. JF: 47:00 Okay. Have you gone back to Japan? MY: 47:03 Many times. JF: 47:03 Multiple times, like? MY: 47:03 Many times. JF: 47:03 Many times. MY: 47:03 Yeah. I' ; m tired of me going riding on a plane for 14 hours. JF: 47:15 [Laughs] oh yeah. So, so you' ; ve lived most of your life here and it sounds like you were happy that you made that decision. Do you ever think maybe you should have gone back at a later time? MY: 47:30 I don' ; t think I, I could do this any other way or you don' ; t think what, what Japan' ; s um, stiff requirement. Uh, I know your grandmother had the same desire to become social worker, but when it comes right down to it, I try that myself way back. You have to be from certain college, you have to have a degree, not unknown place. I mean, your, your requirement for somebody like educated in other country, uh, could be quite stiff. JF: 48:08 I remember a friend of mine said when they would take exams for college, they would be published in the paper, whether you passed or not. Yeah. And he went to, I remember he went to Waseda. MY: 48:25 Mhm. Waseda. JF: 48:25 Yeah. But when he took the entrance exam, first time he didn' ; t pass and it was very shameful for his family, but it was in the newspaper. MY: 48:39 Yes. JF: 48:39 But eventually, he did graduate. New Speaker: 48:43 That' ; s another thing that I like America. It' ; s not, it' ; s not what college you' ; re from, but you' ; re, you' ; re rated, you' ; re appreciated by your accomplishment. Your, uh, I think in that sense I think America is very open and it' ; s, it' ; s wonderful to, to somebody. Of course you have some people that with a college degree and graduate degree no good, but you can prove yourself. AT: 49:19 I like to ask this question when I' ; m wrapping up these interviews, but um, if, if you could leave any kind of message or, or legacy, um, you know, with, with your family and maybe not your kids or grandkids, but, um, just for generations to come, what kind of message would you want to leave? MY: 49:45 Not for any particular group? AT: 49:49 For future generations. MY: 49:52 I think the country with uh, it' ; s not homogeneous. I mean Japan has little vari- variety of people. It' ; s not for one race, we would differentiate by where you are from, what dialect you talk. But I think country with uh, many different races, different group of people, it' ; s very, very difficult. A country like America, country like from European country. And uh, I don' ; t know how you can resolve that but to have equal feeling without, without some difference in uh, ratio differences in Japan. I have prejudice, I prefer certain peoples from certain places or certain schools. I do, but we all try do our best. That' ; s all we can do. It' ; s not true that we can be fair to every person. It' ; s not possible to me. And I not, I' ; m not sure if that is possible for anybody, but I think we should all try not to discriminate and take it as, as what you are and start from that. I think that we all have to do that. But there are certain group people that eliminate that from the beginning that I think should not be done in a country like this, especially AT: 51:42 Mari-san, Is there anything that you' ; d like to add or that we may have missed in this conversation? MY: 51:50 Well, I don' ; t know, you, I thought it was 10 minutes to leave? You trick me [laughs]. I2: 52:00 Well you just have so much to talk about. Very rich, full life you, you need to get it out. AT: 52:06 Well, thank you so much for, for coming in and, and speaking with us. Really appreciate it. MY: 52:12 Thank you [laughs]. 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=YamaguchiMari20170913.xml YamaguchiMari20170913.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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Yamaguchi, Mari (9/13/2017)
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Series: Then They Came for Me