Subjects: 442nd Regimental Combat Team; Clinton, Bill, President; Congressional Medal of Honor; Concentration Camp; France; Italy; Medal of Honor; Racism; Sakato Family – George “Joe” (Wife’s Uncle); Segawa Family – Grace Mioko (Wife); White House; World War II

Transcript:

During World War II… At the beginning of the war, Japanese Americans were not allowed to join the service. We were treated as enemy aliens, so we were classified as 4C. But in 1943, they were allowed to finally form or join, and then, so the government formed the segregated unit. All Japanese Americans. It was called the 442 Regimental Combat team. My wife’s Uncle Joe.. George… Joe Sakato – one of the very first to volunteer to go, so he — they accepted him, took his training, and eventually he wound up in Italy. And so from Italy he fought there, and he fought his way all the way up into France. People noticed what he was doing because the officers and non-commission officers all got killed, and he was still alive. Private Joe Sakato but… and the valor that he did during this period when he was taking charge of the platoon, he was recommended for the Medal of Honor. He never did receive it. Instead, he received the distinguished service cross which he was kind of surprised, because he didn’t expect any kind of medal. Well, he got discharged in 1945 I believe, for medical discharge. He was only in the service about two years. That’s it. And the 442 was noted as the most decorated unit for the length of service and the size of the regiment. It was over 18,000 decorations given to these regimental combat team. Anyway, the years go on, we get a letter – an invitation from the White House. At this time, Bill Clinton was President. And he invited – he’s inviting us to the White House to witness the presentation of the Congressional Medal of Honor to Joe Sakato. So holy smoke, wow! We’re happy to go. So anyway, we went to see the President present the Congressional Medal of Honor to Uncle Joe 56 years after the fact. In fact, there were 22 of the soldiers’ medals that were upgraded to the Congressional Medal of Honor and Uncle Joe was one of them. One of the five or six that were still living at that time. Most of them were killed in combat, and President Clinton in awarding… I got to put my glasses on… the Congressional Medal of honor to these soldiers… In one of his comment he made, “Rarely has a nation been so well served by people so ill-treated.” You got to keep in mind that the rest of us 120 thousand of us were put into these… I’ll call it internment camp, and yet our brothers all volunteered to go over there and fight to show their loyalty that they are Americans. The President apologized to us for interning us. I think that can only happen in this country. This is still the greatest country in the world.

Subjects: Bayonet; Colorado River; Concentration Camp; Marumoto Family – Allyne (Sister); Marumoto Family – Kikuchi (Father); Marumoto Family – Mary Sumiko (Mother); Marumoto Family – Mary Sumiko Wada (Grandma); San Diego; Santa Anita

Transcript:

My name is Jeanne Morimoto Elyea. I am a native born San Diegan. I’m going to tell you about a few of the experiences I had on my way to camp. We left in April of 1942 and just me and my dad because my mom was in the hospital with my – having my sister Eileen. And we went to Santa Anita on the train, and when we got off the train I know that I was carrying a dollar or a bear… some type of little thing, and I saw my Grandma Wada. And I tried to go to her, and when I went to her – stepped out of line – I got hit in the chest by the soldier’s gun. I remember looking up and saw something silver at the end. I learned later it was a bayonet. And I smiled at him, and he didn’t smile back. That sort of has affected me because people say I have a really nice smile, but my smiling at you doesn’t mean I like you. When we moved to camp, as children we had a great time. We played and we didn’t have people calling us names as they did when we got out. We didn’t hear all the bad stories about what they were going to do to us while we were in camp. As a child, we were told never to look up at the guards and never to go near the fence. I later learned that actually near our block, there wasn’t a fence. The back of our area was the river, Colorado River, if you went about a mile and a half, but we didn’t have a fence. But we did have, as children, a good time.

Subjects: Christmas; Poston Internment Camp; Mess Hall; Mesquite Trees; Parker Road Station (Train); School

Transcript:

Thomas Hamada, from San Diego. First part of memory is I guess… Remember getting on the train. Going on, and ending up in this hot ole desert. Getting off, standing in line. Have to fill up your mattresses with straw, I guess. And, uh… School, there wasn’t any school then, so I guess we didn’t wait ‘til school started. And, the lousy food they had in the mess hall. I just hardly ever ate there. The only thing they had that was good was like corn on the cob, fried salami, little things like that. That was the only time I used to eat there… and chicken was a rarity. And one of the most vivid memories I had was when we were getting out of camp. And we went to this train station in Parker, and we hit the soda fountain there, and I had an ice cream soda. And that was the most delicious thing I’d had in three years!

Camp life, I guess for a kid it wasn’t that bad. Did a lot of fishing and playing out there in the woods. There was – the whole area was covered with mesquite trees. One time, we had a Christmas party. There were gifts sent from the outside in and I ended up getting a bead set for girls! Hahaha, and that was the only Christmas we had there.

Subjects: Florida; Block 316; Concentration Camp; Poston

Transcript:

Hi, I’m Sunny Nakamaru and I’m from Florida now, but I’ll tell you a little bit about camp life. I remember before [unclear] 3 came in from San Diego. [unclear] One and Two, I think, were sort of hesitant to think that all these city people were coming into our camp. But, you know, it turned out… my heart opened out to them. They were so great and gracious to me. And the guys that used to drive the garbage truck used to come around, buy a canteen where I used to live – in 316 – and they’d come around… they’d start singing, “You are my sunshine! You are my sunshine!” And everyone knew when they came around that they were singing to me, I think! Ha!

Subjects: Asaki Family; B-29 (Plane); Chicago; Emperor Hirohito; End of War Proclamation (Hirohito’s Surrender); English (Language); Hiroshima; House Schoolboy; Issei; Japan; Japanese Imperial Empire; Kamikaze; Kibei; Kobe, Japan; Kurima Farm (Chicago); Lake Michigan; Los Angeles; North Park Junior College; Pacific Ocean; Pearl Harbor; Philippines; Rohwer Concentration Camp (Arkansas); San Francisco; Sengo Kibei; Singapore; South Pacific Islands; USS General W.H. Gordon (Ship); William H. Wells Community Academy High School; World War II

Transcript:

My name is Hidemo Roy Asaki. I am a Sengo Kibei. We are known as the Japanese American returning home after being educated in Japan. An online encyclopedia describes “kibei” of the early 1940s as the people thought of as “likely threats against the U.S.” because they were considered a “dangerous element” with suspected loyalties to the Emperor and to Japan. So just to protect myself as not to be considered a “dangerous element,” I refer to myself as a “Sengo Kibei,” and “After the War Returnee.”

I was born and raised in L.A. until I was 10 years old. In 1940, I was sent to Japan to live with my grandmother in a little village in Hiroshima Prefecture. My life in Japan spans from 1940 to ‘49 – the turbulent years in Japanese history. I lived there to see the rise and fall of the old Japanese Imperial Empire. We were indoctrinated to worship and die with honor for the Emperor. At the inception of the Second World War, the Nations celebrated the war victories in Pearl Harbor, Singapore, the Philippines, and on to the South Pacific Islands. Then the tide changed. Large towns in Japan were beginning to be bombed nightly by B-29s. Small school children were evacuated to village centers for safety. At high school, I attended a prep rally where the seniors were motivated to volunteer to become kamikaze suicide pilots. The nation was determined to fight to the end. Then, we were stunned as we listened on the radio to the Emperor Hirohito make his End to the War Proclamation. Looking back, it was a unique time living in a country that fought against my native country. I had no communication during the war with my parents and young brother who were placed in Rohwer, Arkansas camp.

To return home to the States, I left Kobe on February 7, 1949, sailed across the Pacific on SS General Gordon of the American President Line and landed in San Francisco Harbor two weeks later. During my stay in Japan, I had no occasion to speak English. Therefore, the first thing I needed to do upon returning to America was to learn to communicate in English again, and also not to have to depend on my parents for financial support. To accomplish this, like many of our Issei forefathers, I became what is known as a “House Schoolboy.” You live in with a family to do housework after school for room and board. I moved in with a family on Lakeshore Drive overlooking Lake Michigan. I lived in the servants’ quarters and cleaned house, served meals, washed dishes, etc… and attended special English classes held for adult immigrants at a public school.

For the summer, I went to work at a vegetable farm operated by three Kurima brothers and Mone [?] a few miles south of Chicago. I worked for room and board, and was paid a whopping 75 cents an hour. In the fall, since I was not ready for college, I decided to enroll in high school. I was a 19-year-old freshman at Wells High on Ashland Avenue in Chicago taking all the required courses including gym. I continued my health work career by working with a real estate broker who lived in an exclusive apartment on Esther Street. I did housework, helped with preparing meals and serving guests. He was a very generous person, and paid my tuition while I attended North Park Junior College in the later years. This is the story of the early life of one single Kibei. Thanks for watching and giving me the opportunity to reminisce over my past life.

Subjects: Indian Horses; Koge Gohan; Mesquite Forest; Mess Hall; Movies; Poston, Arizona

Transcript:

Well, my name is Ken Oyama, and when I was six years old we were incarcerated in Poston, Arizona. And some of the maybe not-so-fond memories, but at least memories that I have of being there were… Well, in camp, a lot of times, kids would like to get a little bit hungry, so we decided to knock on the door of the Mess Hall or the kitchen of the barracks and when a person came, we would ask them for the rice that was slightly burned at the bottom of the pot that they normally threw away. And so we would get what we call “koge gohan” and we would get that from the cook and we’d roll it up, and we’d add a little bit of salt to it and then that was our snack for the day. And then sometimes, too, during the day, we would go into the mesquite forest and have a box and some seeds and a stick and a string. And we would go and hide out into the trees and we would try to trap these birds by propping a box up with a stick, add in the seeds, and we would hide, and when the birds come to feast on the seeds, then we’d pulled the string, and the stick would be remove, and we would trap the birds. But I really don’t remember what we did with the birds.

So that was sort of something we had to do, you know, in our spare time. And, occasionally, Indian horses would run by and so that was something that was special for us ‘cause most kids love animals. And so, we’d see these horses run by. And then, of course, we had times where we would do some sumo wrestling. That was part of our activities and we had fun. And then, in the evenings we’d have movies and maybe get these cans and we would fill it with charcoal and take that charcoal to the movies so that we would keep heated while watching whatever movie we were going to watch. My parents never really told us too much about what we had done. It was basically: just be positive and you know, not to have negative impressions of the whole situation. But then, as kids, you know, we just thought it was having fun.

Subjects: Anti-Apartheid Movement; Colorado; Colorado College; Congress; Denver; Granada Internment Camp; H. R. 442; Hāna Maui, Hawaii; Hawaiian (People); JACL; La Mesa; Martin Luther King; Mount Helix; Poston Reunion; Poston, Arizona; Redress and Reparation Movement; Senate; Senator Daniel Inouye; Senator Sparky Matsunaga; Travel Grant; Washington D. C.; World War II

Transcript:

My name is Susan Hasegawa, and I’m originally from Hāna Maui, Hawaii. Hāna is a small town on the eastern end of the island of Maui. I went to college in Colorado, Colorado College, and I currently live and work in San Diego. I live in Mount Helix in La Mesa. And it all started off with two Hawaiians wanting to visit Washington D. C., and have lunch with a United States Senator. While I was in college, a friend and I wanted to go to Washington D. C. We had never – well, I had been there once but it was just a really short visit – but we wanted to go see some of the sights and we had heard that Senator Sparky Matsunaga, one of the senators from Hawaii, took his constituents out to lunch in the Senate dining room and we thought that was the coolest thing. And so we thought about how we were going to get to Washington D. C. before we graduated and during one of the semesters at Colorado College, I had written a paper on the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. So we decided to apply for a travel grant to conduct research on the national movement called “Redress and Reparation.” The Redress Movement was seeking an apology and restitution of twenty thousand dollars for every person of Japanese ancestry that was evacuated and removed from the West Coast. So a couple of months before graduation in 1988, we got the grant, went to Washington D. C. and after returning from our trip, we also organized an on-campus lecture with the minister from Denver who was incarcerated in Granada, an internment camp in Colorado. The entire process was an awakening for me. I had participated in, you know, vigils for, you know, Martin Luther King day. At that time, the apartheid/anti-apartheid movement was, you know, in full swing and I had gone to some of the protests on campus. But this entire process of visiting Washington D. C., seeing then the Redress Movement Bill move through Congress; talking with Japanese American community leaders in JACL and some of the lawyers and historians in the process – it really brought back to me that, you know, this is what can happen when a community decides to get engaged politically.

And so, the afternoon we met with an aide from Senator Daniel Inouye’s office (the other senator from Hawaii) regarding Redress. The Senate passed H. R. 442 in honor of the famous all Japanese American fighting unit of World War II. Later that year, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed H. R. 442 and since that experience, I keep coming back to this issue of evacuation/internment, what had happened during World War II to persons of Japanese ancestry. Now what’s interesting is that we had the minister from Denver come down and talk to Colorado College students, and after his lecture, a student raised his hand and asked, “Did the U.S. Government really lock up U.S. Citizens?” The student was totally amazed that he had never heard about these events and he had lived in Colorado all his life. I can still recall the incredulous look on his face, and ever since my awakening, this urge or attraction to continue working with Japanese American issues has haunted me throughout my working career. Currently, I’m working on an exhibit for the Poston Reunion which is a reunion of many people from San Diego who were incarcerated in Poston, Arizona and they meet every other year since the 1970s to remember, to ensure that everybody also remembers.

Subjects: Barracks; Children; Colorado River; Poston, Arizona; Teacher; University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)

Transcript:

When we were incarcerated in Poston, Arizona, one of the first things the administration needed were teachers to teach the children that were in camp. How did they decide who could teach and who could not? They asked us of our educational background, and in as much as I had two years of college at UCLA, I was assigned to teach a second-grade class. It’s amazing how much the children were able to absorb even with the most crudest conditions. We were in barracks that had no air conditioning in the middle of the summer in Poston, Arizona, and they managed to do quite well.

We had an issue. We had no books. We had no desks, and nothing but benches to sit upon, but the children are such good students that we were able to succeed, to complete our mission of teaching these kids and keeping them interested in what they were doing. We also had a lot of outside activities to distract them from the heat. One of which was to walk all the way to the Colorado River which was about two miles away. And as I see the kids today, they’re all grown. In fact, some are even retired, and they’ve been very successful so I’m pleased that we were able to do what we were said to accomplish.

Subjects: Dark Room; Kansas; Photography; Poston; Reedley Camera Shop; Taguchi, Charles (Charlie)

Transcript:

Recalling former students of mine at Poston, and I could think of a good many who meant a great deal to me. I have one that not only reflects back to Poston days but becomes current, in that several times a year, my phone rings and when I pick it up, I hear, “Miss Washler?” and I say, “Why Charlie Taguchi, how are you?” and then Charlie and I have a conversation. Charlie and I became more than usually acquainted during and after Poston because both of us were very interested in photography. Charlie eventually had his own camera store and at our very first reunion Charlie came up to me and said, “Miss Washler, if there’s ever anything I can do for you, just let me know.” And I learned that Charlie had a camera store and I said, “Well Charlie, there is something you can do for me.” I said, “I have wanted a dark room for a long time, but I don’t know all of the equipment I’d need to put in it. If you will put together everything I’d need to have an excellent dark room, and ship it to me way off in Kansas… I’ll pay you for it and then I’ll have the best dark room in the country.” So, Charlie got together the equipment I’d need, and I did have a good dark room and spent many years happily working in my color dark room off in Kansas.

Subjects: American; Concentration Camp; Congressional Commission (1981); Docent; Government; Japan; Japanese; Japanese American National Museum (JANM); Los Angeles; Pearl Harbor; Psychologist; Racism; San Diego; School; World War II

Transcript:

My name is Babe Karasawa. My legal name is Richard. I was born and raised in San Diego, and 14 years old at the time we were sent to the camps during World War II. My childhood in San Diego was very enjoyable; going to school… uh, all that time before we were sent to the camps. Lived in probably the lowest economic area of San Diego but anyway… Going to school was very enjoyable because the teachers and all of my classmates were always so wonderful. I can only say that growing up was wonderful. But when we were sent to the camps, everything changed… and as we look at it today, it was simply because of our ancestry unfortunately. I was of Japanese ancestry and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and we were in this predicament. But the one thing that hurt me the most as I think back over this for so many years… is the fact that we were mistreated by the government, and I felt like I was a rejected American having the life that I had prior to going to camp there was no question but I felt like I was an American. But being sent to the camps, turned out I was a rejected American, and it was not until 1981 that the pain I was suppressing became very evident.

There was a Congressional Commission holding hearings in 1981, and at that time in Los Angeles there were 150 people testifying. And on one of those panels was a group of psychologists, and one of them identified what I was doing – what I had been doing, and she hit me right here [gestures to heart] and from then on I could cry. So, it was only until 1981 that I began crying for the – for what I’ve felt. And because of that, I’m a volunteer at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles as a docent because I want to do all I can to avoid that sort of thing happening to anyone else again. This matter of being rejected just because of my ancestry… There’s no question but it was racial prejudice that enabled the government to put us in camps. That’s something that I want to do. I want to do all I can to avoid that happening again. That’s the important part of… I think that’s the most important part of my life now.

Subjects: Imperial Valley; Japanese American Citizens League – Imperial Valley Chapter; Poston Concentration Camp; Poston, Arizona; Shimamoto Family – Dale (Sister); Shimamoto Family – Margaret Miyake (Mother); Shimamoto Family – Robert Kyoshi (Father); Westmoreland, Roy; World War II

Transcript:

Hello, my name is Gwen Shimamoto Momita, and today I’d like to tell a few memories about my mom and dad. I was born in the Imperial Valley where my mom and dad had a farm. My parents, Robert Kyoshi Shimamoto and Margaret Miyake Shimamoto were married in 1940, and they had just begun to get in a routine of a married life, wanting to begin their household and raise a family when the war broke out. My parents were taken to Poston, Arizona. Although my mother and father rarely talked about their days in camp while we were children, I do know that it was a very big watershed moment in their life. In fact, I do recall my mother telling me that the biggest regret she had was that they lost momentum. I know that life in camp must have been very difficult because I remember my mom telling me that after my sister Dale was born in camp, she would spend hours and hours washing diapers and sheets and bedspreads all by hand. But then she told me a story about a friend who lived very near to their farm in the Imperial Valley and his name was Roy Westmoreland. Mr. Westmoreland was a true friend to my family because he took the time to take to Poston very essential items such as washing machines, baby blankets, baby bassinets – things that my mom was not able to take to the camp because number one, she didn’t know she was going to have a baby and number two, they were only allowed to carry one suitcase. Truly, when I think back on it, Mr. Westmoreland must’ve been a very brave individual. A very insightful person. And to this day, my family and his descendants still see each other in the Imperial Valley probably once a year at a reunion. And I’m happy to say that Mr. Westmoreland was honored by the Japanese American Citizen’s League Imperial Valley Chapter for his actions during World War II.

Subjects: Bathroom; Chamber pot; Geta; Poston Concentration Camp

Transcript:

Hi, my name is Tom Kurihara. I was seven when I went to Poston, and one of my first experiences was going to the bathroom. Or at least, one of the experiences I remember was going to the bathroom. And it was quite a distance from the barracks to the community bathroom. I was wearing Japanese wooden sandals called geta. It was made by somebody – I’m not quite sure who – but it was made by somebody in camp and had the cloth straps. I made it to the bathroom okay without falling off my sandals, and on the way back, I uh… slipped, lost my balance, broke the straps, and after that I told my parents that on the way back my foot hurt. I couldn’t stay on the sandals, and I didn’t want to go to the bathroom anymore. And they said, “Well, you have to go to the bathroom,” and as a child, I was very spoiled and said, “No, I don’t want to go to the bathroom anymore.” And they accommodated me by putting in a chamber pot in the apartment and that’s what I used to go to the bathroom. And I gather my parents accommodated me, and they were kind enough to empty the chamber pot. And that’s my memory. 

Subjects: Dayton, Ohio; Discrimination; Grocery Store; Issei; Japanese (People); Japanese American; Nisei; Poston; San Diego; Sansei; United States; University of Dayton; World War II

Transcript:

I first came to the United States in 1956, and I was just amazed at how affluent its society was. I arrived at Dayton, Ohio, which is a small city where University of Dayton was located, and my roommate took me around to show me what the American life was all about. I walked into a small grocery stores or actually it’s a variety stores and everything that I picked up – I was just amazed, you know. Things seems to be so much bigger in this country than Japan and so much more clever. So, I picked one item and looked at it and put it down and then pick up another item and so on. But of course, you know, I was quite poor as a student so when I was finished looking around the store, I started to walk out of the store and a shopkeeper stopped me and said, “You picked up something.” So I said, “I don’t remember picking up anything.” He says, “Well… would you empty my pocket – your pocket?” So, I emptied my pocket and then he searched me, bodily, and then didn’t find anything. Then he asked me a question. He said, “What ethnic groups are you?” So, I said, “I am a Japanese.” He says, “Well, my apologies. Now I know that Japanese people would never steal anything or do anything that would break the law, and they are very patriotic and loyal to this country.” And he let me go with apology.

I never understood why, you know, he changed his attitude so much until I came to San Diego twenty-five years ago. And then what I realized was that Japanese Americans who came here as Isseis and were born as Niseis and Sanseis had to go through tremendous challenge of overcoming the obstacles of prejudices and discriminations and so on. And what I also realized is that no matter how unfair the American laws may have been – they have always respected it and they abided by it. So, they have gone to Poston, they have gone from Poston to fight in the Second World War for their adopted country of the United States. And that is what that storekeeper meant by saying that: I have never known the Japanese people to do anything illegal. I, you know… So, when I realized that, it really made me appreciative of all the hard works and hardships that they had to overcome and never complained about the law no matter how unjust they may have felt that they were, but tried to change it as citizens of this great country. And I thank you all.