Alice (Tanaka) Hikido

The Tanaka family’s story of WWII is really a story of kindness and homecoming, and the compassion found within the small town community of Juneau, Alaska that welcomed the family back. Her father had settled in the remote but beautiful land of Alaska, opening up a restaurant and becoming deeply entwined in the close-knit community. But despite their location in this far removed U.S. territory (Alaska was not yet a state), the Tanaka family was not out of reach from the long arm of the FBI. Though the men who carried out the search of the Tanaka home were quite sympathetic to the family’s plight, the greater machine of virulent anti-Japanese sentiment and “military necessity,” compounded by hysteria, were underway to uproot the Tanakas from their home. Alice’s father was taken to the Department of Justice camp in Santa Fe, while the rest of the family was sent to Minidoka and separated for a period of at least two years. After her father’s return, Alice’s brother went on to serve in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, narrowly avoiding combat and joining the occupied forces in Japan. 

Years after the war, Alice moved out of Alaska and went on to study occupational therapy and eventually worked in Auburn, California for a time after school. In 1956, she herself would marry a veteran of the 442nd RCT -- Katsumi Hikido -- and together they would raise three sons in the Bay Area. The Hikidos currently live in San Jose, and are active members of the Wesley Methodist Church of Japantown. 

It is important to note that the first part of this interview was conducted on the morning of the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Megumi and Alice spend a portion of the interview discussing their fears, concerns and anticipated parallels between what has happened and Pearl Harbor. The hindsight and known facts that readers are privileged to in reading Alice’s interview 19 years afterward is chilling.

Today is September 11 2001 and I am at your home Alice Hikido's home. We'll start out formally by asking you your full name.

My full name is Alice Chiyoko Tanaka Hikido.  I was born in Juneau, Alaska -- at the time it was a territory, it wasn't a state. And I was born in November 28, 1932. 

Would you be willing to paint me a picture of what life was like before Pearl Harbor? Maybe you can mention your parents names' and where they're from in Japan?

I can start out with my parents. My father was from Fukuoka in Japan, southern Japan and his family were rice farmers and I think about that time there was some kind of, I don't know if it was a drought or what but there was historically a kind of crop failure. And so anyway he came to the U.S., it was about maybe about the turn of the century and he was about maybe 18 or 19, and he was contracted to work on the railroad. There was railroad labor from Montana to Seattle and he was finished with this contract in Seattle. So it was about that time in Alaska, it was just post Gold Rush era. And there was still a lot of interest in going to Alaska, making a fortune, that type of deal. So my father, I don't think he  wanted to be a gold miner but he went to Alaska to find his fortune, I think. And he went up to an area near Cordova, Alaska and he started a little cafe and he learned this skills I think when he was a houseboy in Seattle.

And then when this copper mine failed or declined, then he went to Juneau because Juneau was the site of a major gold mine. And his idea then again was to open up another cafe, which he did. And this was about, I don't know the exact, but I would say maybe about 1907. So now Juneau is this beautiful coastal area, just beautiful small town, a lot of pioneer people, immigrant people who like my father were trying to make a new life. A lot of immigrants. And so growing up in Juneau was really very special. A small community, everybody knew you. There weren't a whole lot of class distinctions as I remember although I'm sure there's always a little hierarchy, but it wasn't too defined.

So it was a close knit community?

Very close knit community where people kind of helped each other, if anybody was in kind of a bad situation or you know maybe needing help of some kind and people responding? It was a nice place to have a childhood. Now my childhood we only went up to maybe age nine because the war broke out when I was nine years old and that disrupted our lives.

Can you tell me a little bit about your mom? 

Okay well my father was about 40 years old. He went back to Japan to [the] same village and his marriage was arranged to my mother. And she was really -- she must have been about 19 because she was 21 years younger than my father. And then he brought her all the way to Alaska from southern Japan. And you know, she was from a simple village and I don't know how much education she had. I don't think she had a whole lot of education. She was the person that wasn't really that vocal, she didn't really share very much about her life in Japan. But my father always had stories about his life in Japan, he was a more vocal person. But my mother, so I never really knew too much about her life. Although, her mother died when she was very young and her father remarried so I knew she had a stepmother. 

She worked in a restaurant. She also, behind our house, my father had someone cultivate the land, so she had this little terrace garden and a wonderful garden. And so that was really her primary enjoyment in life -- was her garden, her escape.

Were there other Japanese who lived in that area?

And in that community at that time in the '20s, there were two or three other Japanese families. The Fukuyama family stayed there and were there when the war broke out. The Makino family they went back to Japan because the father passed away and Mrs. Makino took the children back to Japan. There were some that were there for a few years and left. But the Fukuyamas, they were there the whole time that we were there. They had a laundry and their children were more or the ages of my little brothers. So I wasn't contemporaries of their children and they did not they chose not to come back after the war. They stayed in Seattle. But it was a small Japanese community like these few families and then a handful of Japanese bachelors that worked in the  different establishments. Some of them might have been fishermen, too. They worked in the laundry. They worked at my father's restaurant and some were kind of itinerant workers passing through.

Did you grow up speaking both English and Japanese?

No. My mother and father, well my mother especially spoke broken English to us because she worked in the restaurant so she was able to get a smattering of English. And our response to them were always in English. But they tried to teach us Japanese because they had even hired one of the bachelor men to be like a tutor for us. We didn't take too well though.

And your father, did he speak good English? 

Yes I think he spoke pretty good English because you know he had a business. I'm sure that his grammar was partly fragmented and things like that but he could carry himself in English.

Did he ever tell you stories about working in the railroad?

Well just little simple stories, like, if we would complain about the cold, he would say, "If you think this is cold, you should've been in Montana." He says it was so cold the temperature would push the nails out of the wood, things like that, you know, and mostly about how cold Montana was. I think it was in response to our complaints of how cold it was maybe in the wintertime back home. 

 It's interesting, my father never seemed to pick up on [bigger] things. Well if I could fastforward and I remember when we came back after the war and it was very difficult, he really didn't have anymore funds and he was older and one of the stories he would always like to tell was that he had lent an Alaskan, Juneau person some money. Naturally he lost all his records and everything and after the war this person came back to him and repaid the money to him and my father said, "Oh I don't have any records I don't really know how much you owe." And he says, "Well I remember how much I owed you and this is what I owed you." And that was always a story my father loved to tell ecause it was redeeming faith  in human nature, you know? So he was really good at telling those kinds of stories -- looking for positives in the situations. I think that was a real admirable part of him. 

Sounds like life before Pearl Harbor was rather nice, that you had this close knit community and people respected him, sounds like. 

I think that's what my father really liked about Alaska. He made comments about this. He said in Japan, there was a hierarchy. And you know sometimes you have to bow a certain amount of distance, whatever it is. But you may not respect the person really, but this is something you had to do. And he would make the comment that in Alaska, people respect people for who they are. And that was kind of the code of the territory. And he liked that.

They judged you on your deeds, rather than on your blood. 

Yeah, he liked that. And you know in 1939, we had a tragic thing happen in my family because I had a brother above me that disappeared. And what happened was he was presumed to drown and his body was carried out to sea but he was only nine years old, but there was a tremendous support in looking for him. We lived at the base of the mountains and people went up into the mountains looking for him, and towns people looked all over and so there was a real support. Even though they never found him. 

Did those kinds of accidents happen fairly regularly?

Well I think in Alaska things like that happen because for one thing, we had a lot of freedom, too. Like nowadays kids don't have that kind of freedom to wander all over the place. Well we had the freedom to wander all over the town and behind our house was the base of Mount Roberts and we knew every little miner's trail in the mountains and there was no real fear at that time. But I guess at the same time there were certain risks there but it seemed like the risk didn't put a lot of fear into people's lives. Because you know, things would happen tragedies up in the mountains, too. And these things happened up there. 

Would you like to give me a list of your brothers and sisters? And mother and father's names. 

 My father's name was Shonosuke. My mother's name was Nobu. My oldest brother's name is John Minoru and he was born in 1924, and then there was a stillborn in there. Then my brother, William Tsutomu was born in 1927. I was born in 1932. Then eight years later my sister Mary Teruko was born in 1940.

Your brother who passed away must have been born in 30? If he was 9 in 1939? 

That's right, Teri was born in 1930. And his name was Teri, it wasn't Theodore.

I'm sorry I cut you off about how the whole community went out searching for him. That must've been a terrifying time.

Well it was a real traumatic time. I mean my mother, it  was really really difficult for my mother. Looking back I think probably she was on the verge of a real breakdown. I do remember as a child it seemed like she just went to bed and all hope was given up. Seemed like that to me, she probably didn't but it seemed like that. And I could still have an image of my father standing by the window, and our house could look out toward the bay, toward the channel of water, we didn't live too far from the docks. And I still have this image of him looking out toward the water. And for me, he was my older brother two years above me and I hung around with him all the time. Because my older brothers were a little bit older, and so he was my childhood companion. He was kind of like in charge of me. I was his shadow.

So might have been a bit more tragic for you. 

I think it was hardest for me as a child. 

He must have not left much clues as to where he went. 

Oh no no. But it's interesting. In 1996, I went back to a high school reunion and it was four classes involved and one of the fellows from [another] class came up to me he, he'd had a few drinks, and he came up to me and he wanted to talk about my brother Teri. And then he went on to tell me that he was on the docks playing with Teri -- he was a couple of years older than Teri at the time -- and that he had untied the skiff and he was taking the kids for a ride. And Teri had gone home for lunch and then when he had come back from lunch he had gone onto the bow of one of the fishing boats and was gesturing this person to come and pick him up from the bow of the fishing boat. And so he said, you know when you row boat your back is toward the direction that you're going. He said when he got there Teri wasn't there. And I guess this was some information as a child, it was hard for him to share that with the authorities but maybe this was something that was on his mind all these years. He said he needed to tell me. So I said, "Are you saying that Teri fell off the boat? And he says, "Well he just wasn't there, anymore. He was there then he wasn't there." So what he was saying essentially I think was that yeah, Teri must have fallen off, when he was maybe gesturing, lost his balance maybe, and fell off the boat. And he didn't know swim.

And he hadn't told anybody of your family this until 1996? 

You could imagine, too. I mean a little boy. I mean for one thing, he untied a boat that he wasn't supposed to. It wasn't his boat to untie, the skiff, and he had done this. So he had probably felt a little guilty, you know? He must have been carrying it all these years. And it probably took a few drinks at this high school reunion to be able to, you know.

So have you told your brothers? 

I told my brother, and my oldest brother had passed away by then. So I told my brother Bill about that. And all my brother could say was, "My goodness, oh my goodness," because he remembers the boy. This particular boy, we all knew him. 

And what your parents would have given to know this.

Yeah. I think you know, they must've suspected something though because there were people that said that they saw Teri on the docks playing with this boy. Because shortly after that the same boy gave me a ride on his bicycle, on the handle bars of the bicycles to the restaurant uptown. And someone said to my dad, "Hey, Alice is  on the bicycle riding uptown with this boy." And so my father grabbed a taxi run by the cafe, and rushed uptown. Next thing I knew, I'm kind of not too far uptown with this boy, and my father pulls me off the bicycle, throws me into the taxi, and just really gives me a scolding which is kind of incomprehensible to me. As far as I was concerned I wasn't doing anything wrong I couldn't figure out why I was being yelled at. Yeah. Really yelled at, too. And so I think my father always thought that this boy was somehow connected to the situation but he didn't know what happened. It was one these situations, life stories.

But especially for the Japanese finding the bodies really important and having the ashes.

Yeah. My parents were Buddhist. But in anybody, I think you have a body to put the closure. Because I think you always have some hope, well maybe some fishermen took him out of town. Maybe he was kidnapped, you know, and maybe he's alive some place. I think that hope was always there for a long time because if you don't have a body, you don't have a proof. But that's one of the tragedies that happened 1939, and then of course the war broke out in 1941. So back to back, my folks did have little traumas.

Would you tell me about 1941? Do you remember Pearl Harbor Day?

I remember Pearl Harbor because it was a Sunday and the next day was Monday and going to school. And I was in the fourth grade. The Fukuyamas had a son named Tom who was in the eighth grade. And so we were the only two Japanese children in this school. Both of my brothers were in high school and the Fukuyamas, I think they had a son in high school, too. So going to school that day was, I remember, really difficult because I felt the full force of being Japanese.

How big was the school? I mean what percentage did you comprise?

I think there were about two classes of about 20, maybe? I know that my high school class was 43. So that can give you an idea of the population of school. I had a really nice teacher, I remember. Miss Smith I think was her name and I think she was very sympathetic to my situation. And you know it's funny, I don't remember much more. That was December and we were evacuated in April. And it seems like that period is, even though I'm sure as a family had to go through all kinds of -- I remember when my father was taken away and our visiting him in the federal jail because it was the capital, and so they were housed in the federal jail. Then he was shipped out, and then after that I just don't have too much of a recollection until we were evacuated.

Can you tell me about what it was like to have your father taken away? Were you there?

No, we didn't actually see him taken away. We only saw him actually twice when we visited him and then he was shipped out. All the men were shipped out. And so we didn't have a chance to say goodbye. That was a very confusing time, a little difficult time for my mother. I sensed that, that she seemed really insecure. I mean she felt like you know, she didn't know what was going to happen next. Luckily my brother was 18, and so he kind of took charge. He took charge and closed down the restaurant and did what he had to do.

Suddenly be thrust into this difficult situation. I mean, whether he's capable or not is one question but the other part is to suddenly be thrust into it with no warning.

That's true too. You know looking back though, I bet a lot of, among the Isseis, the eldest, was probably always given a lot of responsibilities. The oldest Nisei, so probably along the way my brother probably was given a lot of responsibility. In retrospect I think that's true because I think my brother under him, Bill was only about two or three years [younger] I think he always felt the authority of John growing up [laughs].

Now what was it like to visit your father whom you knew to be innocent but at the same time deep in our minds, anybody who goes to jail must have done something. Did you wonder or did you feel it was hundred percent a mistake?

You know I was a child at the time. And it's really hard for me to recover specific kinds of emotion. I think we were just so overwhelmed by the emotion of the disruption. Although your point about jail, it seemed like I almost felt guilty for being Japanese, even though you're a child. And then of course, you know, your father's in jail. I mean that kind of maybe builds on a little bit of a more guilt psyche. I don't know. But I think more the disruption that he was taken away and we missed him, that he was our anchor, and then he's gone. I think that was the more major emotion.

I think a lot of people I talk to -- you were in shock. And when you're in shock you don't feel. You're numb.

Because you know one day your life is just going like normal. It's just like today on this thing that has happened on the news you know everything is normal. And now, nothing is normal. I mean it's like naturally your psyche is trying to make sense of it. And it's struggling. 

Some families destroyed anything that was Japanese thinking that it could be construed as incriminating evidence. Did you do anything like that?

My mother really did become afraid. She was afraid and she did burn a lot of things. Well for one thing, the FBI and even in those days FBI, it stands for like authority, and if the FBI is going to come see you, that you're under suspicion for things. Well at the same time that they took my father away, the FBI came and searched our house. And after they left she just destroyed a lot of things that might be construed as being Japanese types of things, I can't even remember though what she destroyed. I only remember her act of panicking, wanting to burn things. She burned some things but I'm sure there were things that the FBI had already seen, so I think it was more out of fear. 

Or hysteria. I always think that there's hysteria amongst the Japanese as much or even more than the outside communities because the Japanese were being arrested. I mean everybody else was afraid that the Japanese were going to come and land and kill them and do horrible things. But the Japanese were just as afraid that things were going to happen to them.

So she had a lot of fear, right. Here's another fear. I mean I think it really affected her a lot. She did a real strange thing, too while we were in the camps. You know, here you are a child, starting to think about your parents -- are they losing their marbles? We would go to the mess hall and get toast as part of our breakfast and I guess toast can dry out and it doesn't get moldy, you know? So she would keep the toast, dry it out, then she would store it in boxes under our cots. And she had boxes and boxes and boxes of dried toast. I think she was afraid we were gonna starve. And we were thinking, Mom why are you doing this for? And then one day I guess she came to her senses and she disposed of it all. But that's a good example of the anxiety or stress that she was under right. 

I mean, she could have been right. You could have been wrong, you might have been forced on a forced march across the wilderness with no food and water.

Yes she was traumatized. And it came after the trauma of losing Teri, too. I'm sure the trauma of losing him probably affected her very strongly. And then two years later, this trauma here happens. It was to her credit that she still marched forward and kept her sanity and we came back after the war.

So backtracking just a little bit on the Pearl Harbor day, what did your teacher Miss Smith do or say that made you feel that she was sympathetic?

Well you know I was probably hypersensitive that first day. And I remember a couple of children -- they don't mean to be, they're just innocent, really. I mean but remarks come forth and I don't remember the specific remarks. But I do remember they were in regards to the attack and Japan and Japanese, that type of thing. I remember putting my head down on my desk and crying and she came and she spoke to the class and her remarks were very supportive and comforting. I remember that about her. I remember her being a new teacher, too, she wasn't one of the established teachers. I think that was her first year of teaching. And so that stands out. And the remarks of the children, in all fairness to them they were not mean-spirited remarks, they were just remarks that children make. 

Here we are on September 21st. Ten days after when we last met. And I realized that we didn't talk about -- we sort of skimmed over that day's events. That was a horrific day on September 11th when the World Trade Center was attacked as well as the Pentagon and thousands probably 10,000 people have lost their lives or are injured. 

The number seems to be increasing, too every time we get news.

So I guess I tried to avoid that issue last time, we still don't know what was going on but 10 days have passed. Would you like to say anything? 

Well, one of the things that I think in the context of what we're doing, it does bring back for a lot of people -- friends said they can remember after Pearl Harbor Day, the reaction of the public and such and it was such a horror that was committed then, too. And then you know right now, in the newspapers you're reading so much about the frustrations by certain people and they're taking their frustrations out on the Muslim community. And so you know it seems like since we've been through the experience ourselves we really need to reach out to anybody in the Middle Eastern community, people we know or if we happen to go to stores that are run by Middle Eastern people to reassure them or to let them know that that is not the common sentiment of the country. We have a neighbor down the street, a young couple that moved in about a year and a half ago. So I went over there and gave my sentiments of support for them. And she said the neighbors have been good but it meant an awful lot to her for me to come and visit. So I think that's important for Japanese Americans who have gone through the experience to reach out, to write letters to the editors, that type of thing.

It almost seems to make you realize that in any kind of a situation like this, there is an element in society that doesn't know how to deal with it. And they do just as horrible things in maybe a different scale but in the same way because what generates is a really kind of hatred.

I hate to think that the United States will use some of the same tactics against terrorists. 

Because you notice that President Bush is really being very pointed about this and even the first night we watched on the news and former Secretary of State Christopher, in a few words that he spoke, he mentioned about the big mistake that the United States made in regards to the second World War and regards to the Japanese. 

In my mind there are two things that I'm fearful. One is that they kept talking about "retaliatory attacks." Remember right after the terrorist attack? They're not using those same words anymore but I'm thinking my gosh they had the same mindset as the terrorists if they're talking about bombing targets. And then the other fear is what we've been talking about -- this wholesale condemnation of a whole religion or a whole geographic area. And the politicians have been good, including President Bush and Governor Davis. And I think the mayor of San Francisco has said that we won't make the same mistakes that we made on our Japanese American brothers and sisters. You're not the first person I talked to who found comfort in having our political leaders safeguard the rights of Americans. 

You don't learn too many lessons from history you know, but hopefully that's one lesson that the government can remember. 

Well do you have confidence that it won't happen? This mass internment?

I have confidence it won't happen. I think that the racial profiling that they're having to do you know, it's unfortunate that they're doing it. But I can see where they're grasping at just anything. And the racial profiling I don't feel comfortable about, but I can see why they're doing it. I mean they're still frantically looking for other terrorists that they feel are in the country. And so there's going to be a lot of mistaken identities and things, it's going to happen I know. It's not going to be an easy black and white kind of thing.

Do you have flashbacks? Well this attack has been compared to Pearl Harbor. Does this feel like Pearl Harbor to you?

Well let's say, my mind is trying to go back to that time and period. I think one of the things about it, before Pearl Harbor, I was aware I was of Japanese descent because naturally in our little town we were a very small minority, two families. And I think part of our identity was that we were Japanese but after Pearl Harbor, that really being Japanese was such an awesome thing. And I'm sure that these people, people from the Middle East who are Americans, they must feel too now, they're very self-conscious about their racial origin. I can identify how they must be feeling. Well the uncertainty of the future, young as I was, I think uncertainty of the future was really ahead of us. And I'm sure that's how I feel right now. I feel the uncertainty of the future for our country. I'm not thinking especially right now on the Middle Eastern people in this country but I I'm thinking about for the whole country. I'm sure the United States population is sensing the uncertainty. When you came in the door you were saying about all the people that lost their jobs? To me that is just a ripple. There's going to be another ripple and another ripple and another and so that none of us will be left unaffected. But that's where I think, well Kats and I are people of faith and that's kind of in a way, somewhat we rely on our faith to help us through this uncertainty. I think a lot of people are doing things at the churches, at the mosques. 

I'm sure attendance is up. Finding consolation in their different faiths. Of course the people of Muslim faith have sort of a double bind. You know they could be targeted more as Muslims if they go to the mosques. I know that the Islamic religious leaders have written up whole page articles in the newspapers saying these terrorists are not martyrs. You know, they're trying to delineate the teachings of bin Laden versus Mohammed and trying to separate out the two so that people don't mistaken all Muslims as being terrorists.

Absolutely, in fact it behooves all Americans to really educate themselves about the Islamic faith really because then they will find that no, this is not any tenant of the Muslim faith that these people are practicing.

Ten days ago I heard on the radio that a group that called itself something like Muslims for Peace were getting hate calls. And it just is bewildering that people can be so simple minded as to direct their hate and frustration at a group that is not bin Laden's group. And they have just such simple minds that they think, "Oh they came from the Middle East? Let's call them and harass them on the phone." 

Well you know, Megumi. There will always be people of simple minds. I mean that is true. I think people of bigger minds have to really be out there in front. There will always be people with simple minds. Maybe that's just my feeling.

Well, in 1941 there certainly were simple-minded politicians. I mean if we are allowed to use that word. And I'm again bewildered that anybody who could read and write can be that simple-minded. 

Well you know, we went through the civil rights era in our country and what seems to people you and I seem so evident but you know, there's people that need to have a certain security for themselves. That seems to drive their simple-mindedness I think it's an insecurity, it's a fear. And I don't know how you come around that even very intelligent people, so it's nothing to do or how much education you have or what. I don't know where it comes from. I think that throughout history it's always been there. And so the drama is you how do the good people prevail against those people?

When comparing President Bush and President Roosevelt, we can marvel at the fact that an intelligent man like President Roosevelt still made what in our eyes is a huge mistake in signing Executive Order 9066. Of course there are people who still defend his decision saying that was the best decision he could have made. 

It was a decision he made. It was a bad decision. History can really tell us that, too. I'm not going to defend him but I'm going to say that he's a moral man, too. And we can be really harsh in our judgment of him, but in our judgment, then we are careful that we don't really blind ourselves to all the good things that he did also. So I agree it was a bad decision.

Well I have read papers on the Internet that said no, based on the information that was available to him he did the best he could. I have seen that kind of defending positions, too. 

Well I would never want to be in his position. I don't want to be in Bush's position right now. I'm saying to myself, wow I wonder what Gore is thinking right now. Is he thinking, I wish I was in Bush's place or is he praying for Bush that he makes the right decision, gets the right advisers. 

Let's get back to you as a Japanese American. You expressed your sympathies towards the Arab Americans and people from the Middle East in general. Do you fear for them? 

Yeah, I do fear for them. Because you're dealing with fanatical people who are not just stupid people -- they've given the background of these terrorists and they're well educated people. But they have become fanatical and so you know, fanatics, they do far reaching things and so I think when people are pushed up against the wall, like the American public, you don't know where their frustrations would take them. They could be scapegoats.

You've mentioned before that the future is uncertain. And you yourself experienced your father being arrested without trial and separated from your whole family for, was it two or three years? 

It would be almost three years because he came back toward the end of the war, 1944. 

You know, that is a great crime against humanity that the government committed -- could that kind of thing happen to Arab Americans? Do you fear for them that way?

I don't fear for them that way. I feel as though that the wrath of the people, if things get really bad in this country that this element that's in our population, may do the same kinds of things that the terrorists do. They'll have the same heart as a terrorist. They will hate and they'll take their hatreds out on innocent people. I don't think the government will dare do that because there's so much sentiment of knowing that this was wrong.

And during WWII, you know after Pearl Harbor? There was all this people shooting into houses and smashing windows and storefronts, a lot of that type of thing. I don't know where it would have gone, I don't think it would have gotten worse if the Japanese Americans were left at home. Of course, what if the events of the war went in a different direction? There's all these what if's, what if's in history, you know? It's hard to know.

You mentioned children. I know that Japanese American children were taunted before camp while they were in their community still, but they were also teased and taunted after WWII, and when they came back to their communities out of camp. They were still being called names and having trouble making friends and so on. And so children are the real innocent casualty in this equation. But just as bad is the fact that generations of children were taught by the examples of adults of the adults that it was okay vent their anger out on a minority population. But they have a tremendous capacity to be the opposite of being cruel. So you know, you're reading the stories right now in the newspapers about kids in school being taunted, and that's going to happen. I think parents have to really be strong so that they can prepare their children for this kind of behavior. And I'm sure that teachers now have a tremendous role. 

You were 9 when Pearl Harbor happened. Right after your ninth birthday. You were born November 28th. And here you are at school, the children that are looking at you wondering if you bombed Pearl Harbor or your father did?

No I wouldn't say that. Let's say "your people," maybe. Because I hear that now. 

You said you were super sensitive. 

I was super sensitive, right. I remember that being super sensitive walking to school thinking, how am I going to endure this day? And so I'm sure if anybody even looked at me cross-eyed I would probably see it through the eyes of sensitivity? I mean children are not dumb. And the kids in the school were surely aware that I was Japanese. I didn't experience any cruelty though. But you know, the memory is a funny thing what it blocks out. There might have been cruel marks that I just could not handle and maybe blocked out completely. But I don't remember them. I don't remember the cruelties.I

In Alaska I think, it was a little bit different. Because I mean it's community where there is a lot of people helping each other. You have to help each other. I'm not saying though that there aren't small-minded people there. I have to talk to my brother. I'll have that conversation with my brother someday and see if he remembers anything. He was in high school. 

Well you were only nine so I did you know about constitutional rights? 

Absolutely not. Absolutely not.  

Can you remind me, was your father taken away on Sunday the day of Pearl Harbor or was it after?

It was probably the day after or two days after, very soon after, I remember that. They came over, searched the house. 

Were they polite? Were they rude?

They were apologetic. Because some of the people they had to do were townspeople that were connected with the FBI. In fact, my oldest brother had a very good friend, his father. His father was a graduate of the Naval Academy but came back to Juneau to run the family business -- he never pursued a military career but because he was a graduate of the Naval Academy I guess, the FBI probably selected him to be a part of their team. And he was one of the men that had to come and search the house. Can you imagine how he must have felt knowing that his son's really good friend, you know? And he was apologetic I remember that.

What a bind they were in. Now ten days ago you told me about how your mother was completely overwhelmed. And your oldest brother had to manage the affairs. What was your position? 

You know to be honest, it's funny but from that period after maybe say January until April, I have a very small memory. I remember the day that the ship came in. I knew that we were making preparations to close up everything, to pack up the house and everything like that. Then the ship coming in and we're thinking is that the ship because that is the channel water. And you will see all the ships come in and we saw this Army transport ship come in, and we're saying, "Is that the ship?" Because we knew we were going to be taken out by ship.

So your father was taken away to an unknown destination?

Yeah I don't know if we had communication with him. He was shipped out from a nearby place called Hayes that they had an army barracks there, and they were taken there. And then from there they were shipped out to the state side. We must have been in communication with him because I think we knew where he was. Because I know for sure we were in communication with him in Minidoka because I remember getting letters from him and we were sending letters to him.

You know, I don't know it's just in the right or wrong of everything that was done in the context of war, I even feel this way right now. In the context of war I don't like to see us going to war. Any kind of a war. I'm against war. But sometimes you have to go to war. Whether you're against it or for it, there are some things about situations and nations, you have to go to war. But the reason I'm against war is because your whole concepts of what is right and wrong, you have to put it aside sometimes.

I'm going to be addressing college aged students, audiences. And the physical story of what happened when and how you felt then is important but especially now in view of September 11th, some of your very thoughtful comments are going to be very important in that performance to juxtapose with other comments. So I'm listening hard to what you're saying.

I think if you live through this experience, you know if you lived through the experience of WWII and you know all the heartache of war and all the drama, the little stories. It seems like all through human history though, there must be something in the destiny of the human story. It's probably the ultimate drama, war is always like the ultimate drama.

Or in stories conflict is what the story revolves around. And you're looking for a resolution. But if there's no conflict there's no story. But you go one step beyond that to say that the war is the ultimate drama. Well so in referencing this, what happened to the 120,000 Japanese Americans or Americans of Japanese descent, because not everybody was citizens. But if war is the ultimate drama, and one goal of war is to win, what happened to the Japanese Americans and 120,000 sounds like a lot but maybe from the military history point of view, it's a small number of casualties especially since 120,000 all weren't physically hurt. 

Yeah they weren't not really casualties in the sense -- 

Well psychological casualties. But from what you're saying, you're helping me sort of understand the military point of view, is that the psychological casualties are are not really looked at that. The military leaders don't look at the fact that 120,000 people suffered. 

I don't know how they looked at it. I'm not a military mind but I know that expediency is really a part of military strategy.

Speaking of expediency, Jimmy Yamaichi always marvels at the fact that our government was able to move 120,000 people in such a short period of time that that the executive order came out in February 19th and by March, a third or half the people had already been ousted from their homes. And you said you moved in April and I think the last people were moved out of their homes in May. So in a period of three months 120,000 people were booted out of their homes and in the name of expediency. No trials.  No due process. Is that how it was justified, do you think? What happened to due process anyway?

Like I say in war time, I think it gets thrown out the door. You're going to find out even if push comes to shove they're already saying our civil liberties will never be the same. That's in the paper everyday.

Break in the interview

I don’t remember playing marbles, the boys played marbles, maybe. I remember my brothers playing. I remember my brothers playing a lot of basketball. We didn’t play, at 10 or 11, we were still in the childhood games, I think. 

In your everyday life, were you aware of the barbed wire?

I don’t know if Minidoka actually had the guards, I don’t remember the guards. We had the towers but don’t actually remember the guards. But we were in Block Six so we were toward the end of the physical perimeters and we could go out of the camp. There was a place where we could go out, and people went out all the time. And because it was the Snake River that came by outside there, we would go down there. I don’t remember doing that very much as girls, maybe the boys did that.

I do remember one instance in regards to the fence and going out there,  there was a woman, a mother in our block, who was a little bit unstable, mentally unstable, I think she had a little bit of a breakdown. But I guess she disappeared and so I guess the fear was -- maybe she had said something to her family about drowning herself. So it seemed like the whole block ran down to where the opening area in the fence was and we went down to the river. And I don’t think I saw her but it almost seems like in my mind I saw her because of the vivid description that she had tied herself to some kind of a weight and went out into the river and drowned herself, and they found the body. 

So she was mentally unstable but she was also a mother, too.

I think she had a nervous breakdown. I know the children were older, they were like in high school. But it was just too much for her. The circumstance of everything were just a little bit too much for her. And she broke under it. 

That must have impacted your mother. 

Well I often thought too that my mother -- she had a lot of fears and things. Luckily she never had a breakdown or anything. 

I’ve heard it said in a general way that there’s no records of how the camp experience affected Japanese Americans even though there were sociologists working at some of the camps. And psychotherapists can only guess as to how people might have been affected. These stories of how people fared psychologically are few and far between. 

Actually there was another woman in our camp, I never saw her but she was in the next barrack. We could hear her, just some kind of a droning. Never saw her, the family must have brought her food. And she must have went out to use the bathroom but we never saw her. But the people in our particular block knew she was not well. 

Back to your family, everybody held up?

Yeah we held up, yes. My mother like I mentioned before she would do those strange things like collecting the toast under her bed, but she snapped out of it. And she even kind of laughed about it which was a tremendous relief to me. But that was early on. 

Tell me about your mom and her pleading with your older brother to not to enlist or sign up for the draft. 

Yeah they were asking for volunteers. The loyalty questionnaire was probably a real factor in the camp but I wasn’t aware of it. And at this time, my father was still in Santa Fe and my mother was governed by a lot of fears, she was a fearful person. John was kind of like her rock. He was a very responsible person. And I think the idea of losing her rock was overwhelming for her. And I can remember this kind of arguing and pleading, going way into the night -- here we are in one little room. I know she said, “Papa’s not here. You can’t go because Papa is not here. I need you here.” I’m sure she said, “What if you die?” I’m sure that was real paramount in her mind. And he abided by her wishes, he didn’t volunteer. He was later drafted and he went but as far as the volunteering he didn’t go. But for all she knew, the casualties were so high, her worst fears would have been realized, he could have been killed. And if her fears were realized, she could’ve gone off the deep end, too. So maybe she knew that she couldn’t handle it if anything happened to him. I think my father came to Minidoka about that time that my brother was inducted into the army. So my father was back then.

But what a shock for him, to be reunited only for his son [to go off].

You know one thing I remember about my father, he didn’t seem to have much fear. He didn’t fear like my mother feared. I remember about 1936, we lived on a hillside of the mountain and we had terrific rains that spring and so there were dangers of landslides. And so the people of our area were told to evacuate and go uptown. And so we went uptown to stay with the Fukuyama family but my father stayed in the house. And I can remember my mother pleading with my father to come, too. And he said no I’m going to stay here in the house. But he was so foolhardy to do that. Luckily the slide didn’t come and take our house away [laughs]. But he was kind of a person. He just seemed to take life as it came. He lost his fortune, all his savings. I won’t say it didn’t dismay him, but his energy went to “Okay, what do I do about it?” So he just picked up the pieces of his life. 

I remember one year when I came home from college and I was talking to my father, and my father had lost his savings because his plan was to go back to Japan after my oldest brother graduated high school. He was putting all this money in the Japanese bank, he lost everything. I think it was over $100,000 and in those days it was a lot of money. We lived very simply though so my father could send this money back to Japan. And I remember saying, “Gee, Papa, didn’t you feel awful losing all your money?” And it was in the evening and we were sitting in our kitchen. We had a window that faced westward, and it was just the most wonderful sunset that particular evening. And instead of answering my question, he turned to the window and said, “Which rich man could have a view like this?” At this time we were living so simply, we were poverty status. Also he said, “We all came out of the war alive.” And I thought, that is so putting it into perspective. He lost everything but he remembered that other people lost family members. And you’re right, it’s the most beautiful view of the sunset. To me that was a real lesson that stayed with me my whole life, what’s valuable in life. 

When your father came, was it a jubilant kind of event?

For me in my eyes, I was 11, I was so -- jubilant is a wonderful word. Our family was so happy to see him. We were happy to see him but I think my father was the kind of a person who didn’t worry. He felt that we would be okay, that we would be taken care of and such. He had stories about the Santa Fe camp but I don’t remember the stories too well. I guess they did arts and crafts and he did bring back a cane with him, a carved cane. And I remember thinking when he came up and he had this cane, and you know how you associate a cane with an old man? I remember getting the impression that he was old. But he never used it.  

So your father came back - did everything sort of snap back in place when your father came back?

I think we shortly after that my brother left, I think my brother was still there because the scene now comes to me when we met my father. And I'm sure my brother John was there but I think he was drafted shortly after. So John was gone.

So when you met your father, was he off a train or a bus?

It seems like we went out of the camp. He might have come to the camp. I remember seeing him disembark something.

So shortly after that, then you see another family member leave. Now how was that because your mother had fought bitterly against it. But did she just hold back her tears and be proud of him?

I think because he was drafted, it wasn't as far as she's concerned that's not a choice in the matter. So I think she just stoically accepted it. And then of course by this time Papa is back, and in her way she did things like the Japanese custom of making a red dot embroidery.

A thousand stitches, right?

Right. It had to be a different person to do each knot. That part maybe I don't know for sure but I do remember having to take this thing around to strangers and have them do a French knot, and she would take it all over. And so now she's trying to, in her way, protect John and to give him this [senninbari]. So that was her way of doing something to help John.

Now you've told me that you're Christian. What were your parents?

My parents were Buddhist. 

And he was in the 442nd? Like your husband.

He was like a replacement. So actually he was going over when the war actually ended. He wasn't in combat. The ironic part of it, he was sent to the same company that Kats was in. Kind of like a smaller unit, Company G. But like his staff sergeant was an Alaska fella. Mike [Hagiwara] was also Kat's staff sergeant. 

So the war ended before he went into combat. Was he part of the occupied forces? 

Yes part of the occupied forces. 

Is there something else about camp life that you'd like to disclose or share? Foods, friends, or what you and your parents did together or separately?

There were three or four years there and I think everybody's story about camp is a little different because you're in a different place. My story is different from my brothers or my mother's story. 

Well you became a teenager in camp. 

Just about, yeah. I became 13 when I came back. I was twelve. We came back in October and I turned 13 in November. But in some ways I always feel as though the years right after coming back was more traumatic because at least going into camp you were with people that were all in the same boat. Coming out of camp, we were an isolated family coming back. There was nobody that was in the same boat with me. You know even on the troop ship taking us up to Washington, there are other families and I found other little girls about my age. You know we played, and got acquainted and we felt so unified with each other because we were all in the same boat. 

And it was hard to commiserate with my mother, her mind now was all these different things we had to deal, we had so much we had to deal with. Our house was just unbelievably dirty. It's hard to imagine who lived there before, it was unbelievable. We literally scrubbed every inch of that house, the floor.

Had anybody lived there? 

Oh yeah, it was left in the hands of our lawyer, he rented it out but I don't think he really oversaw. He just rented it out, probably collected the rent. And so you know just cleaning it and then getting the stove to work again. I do remember, too Alaska is really hard on buildings with the weather, and it's just a wooden structure. And I remember my father too was so absorbed in trying to the loan, get the equipment for the restaurant, get help. And I remember we kind of had an older Scandinavian customer who was a painter -- Mr. Olson. And he said to my father, "I'll paint your house for you." And my father said to him, "I don't have any money to pay you." And Mr. Olsen said, "Don't worry I'll just paint it for you, and we'll take care of it at some future time." And so he painted the house for us. It was a lot of acts like that, that was really redeeming for my father. There were these little independent acts of human kindness, actually. 

So now you're 13 you're in eighth grade? How was going back to school in your hometown?

It was pretty scary, scary for the unknown. And I remember my sister was starting kindergarten so I took to the school. I would have to take her up to the principal's office. I was in charge of Mary. The principal is a very stern person you know? I remember the kids always used to call him Mr. Dragon behind his back. But he took me to my room and he was my history and civic teacher also in eighth grade. And also math.

But you know we're coming back to a small community and they remembered our leaving. 

Well it must have been a big event for your close knit community to see the Japanese Americans go. 

We're the only ones that came back, just my family came back. I think they're still so absorbed -- the war had just ended and they're still kind of picking up the pieces of their lives, too.

 So did anything happen at school to confirm your fears about going back?

No, no. No one said anything to me. You know it's kind of an interesting story. You know naturally you're in the eighth grade. People kind of have their own sets of friends at that time. And I felt quite alone. And I just happened to be seated and in front of a girl in my class who became very evident, was a little bit of a slow person. But she was so friendly and kind to me because after all she was probably the low end of the totem pole, too you know. And she recognized me as some other person that was low on the totem pole. But it just so happened that she lived kind of like on the way home that I would go home. And most the kids lived in other sections of town and not too many kids lived in the downtown area. It wasn't really a residential area but she had like a little house up one of the stairways. So we would walk home together and she was really a very friendly little girl. I mean I can still picture her, she's a pretty little girl too. But I always appreciated her act of kindness to me. And then I recognize at the same time that she was she was really probably a pretty lonely little girl, too.

When we came back after the war was over -- the war was over in August -- and we finally came back in October. And I used the interim period, we were among the last to come out of camp as I remember. And we came back by ship from Seattle. And then like other people went back home, maybe they went back to another Japanese community or they had a support system. But we were just an isolated family that went back to Juneau. And what I recall coming back was that the ship arrived was in October.  And the days are short up in Alaska, and I do remember the ship arriving in the dark. And we could see people on the dock. And there was Mr. and Mrs. Tanner and John Hermely, friends of my father. Mr. and Mrs. Tanner had the Scandanavian rooms and steam baths across from the restaurant. And so they told us that we could stay there until we could get back into our house. So I think we stayed there for at least about a couple of weeks. And then we did we did some preliminary cleaning. My mother, father, myself, my little sister was only five so she wasn't much help. My oldest brother was in the service and my other brother had relocated to Chicago. But anyway, that was something I really remembered because Mr. and Mrs. Tanner were getting on in years too. I think they were older than my father. So they must have been in their late 60s or or 70s. 

Once my father got his restaurant started - he had to borrow money from the bank and he had to do all these preliminary things - and in April the following year, my brother Bill also came back from Chicago to help, he opened up. He was able to get the building back, able to get the lease back. And there again the people that leased, made it possible for my father. And then, naturally my father's funds were very limited because he had to borrow money to get it going. So once we opened up and most of his supplies, the food and everything came from this grocery store, John Hermely, and John just gave him credit for a number of months - he didn't require payment from my father for a number of months. And naturally my father you know made good his debt. But he couldn't do that if he didn't have all this help. 

And years later my sister and I went back to Juneau and John was in his 80s by that time. And he was still living there, my sister and I made a point to go see him and we were telling him that I remember that my father saying how good John was to extend that credit to him. And so we thanked him. And John said, "Well you know what? I was a young man and I was delivering groceries for another store, I really wanted to start my own business. And your father said to me if I did start my own business that he would sign on the loan. And so he said that he and he mentioned this other person who was kind of like an uncle of his, that the two of them co-signed my loan so that I could go into business. He said, "I never forgot what your father did for me." So it's like what goes around comes around. 

But your father didn't tell you. You found out because you and your sister made the trip. 

Yeah. We always remember though one thing about John was that of course when we were in the camps, John must have sent packages to us. But I remember this one package was a Christmas package and inside was Christmas candy and stuff like that. And then my sister got this gorgeous doll I remember. And then I had this gorgeous blue dress.

Wow, you must have been overjoyed.

Yeah, I can still remember this blue dress. So he was a person that didn't forget.

There are people like your family that had friends outside when you were camp, who had good relationships and got these packages. And then there are people who were really pretty isolated in their little close community of Japanese businesses. Or maybe they had a lot of customers who were non-Japanese but who never got any support. Any show of sympathy from the outside. And talking to people, either you're so isolated in camps, so cut off, or that blue dress must have meant just so much to you as a little girl. But to your parents it was a sign of hope. And there is a reason why your family went back to the town before camp and some people never did right. 

I think so. I mean I think you're right, that little hope or that really redeeming feeling that people back there were still your friends and they were still showing a sense of community. Now you know, it takes maybe one or two acts too so one person's act can be very powerful to plant a seed of hope in somebody else. But going back was difficult because I was an adolescent and I think that's not a really very secure time of your life. It's just so compounded with the situation.

How did your father's business go? Did it spring back to pre-war popularity?

That was a question in his mind as he was getting everything ready. Old customers came back and at the beginning it was not a prosperous business because after all, you're in a little community where a lot of things, prosperity hinges on the seasonal success of a fishing season or this or that. And so the economy of the town shifts a lot, too. But it was fine, we made a living and regular customers came back. New customers came, it worked out okay. He felt really good. He loved his little restaurant. He loved the interaction with his customers. 

He got really drunk, really really drunk several times before the restaurant opened. I think sometimes it just overwhelmed him. And he loved to drink. And I remember one time, someone brought him home, he was so drunk he couldn't make it home on his own. But once he started working again, he never touched liquor during the day. But once he came home at night that was his means of relaxation, he'd start with a beer and then go to hard liquor. [laughs] By the time he went to bed he was really relaxed. He always got up early in the morning by 4:30, got off to work. I don't know how he did it. And one time I said to him, "Gee Papa" I was worried about his drinking. And he says, "When I touch that drink in the morning then you worry about me." [laughs]. 

He served dinners, right? So by the time you clean up and close shop it's like 10:00 at night? 

Well he didn't close shop, I mean it was a 24 hour restaurant. But he had two shifts. So he worked his 12 hour shift plus. That was his life down there, too. Our life was down there because our house was just a place we slept really. Because we gathered together as a family in the restaurant there because we worked together there. You know that you're making a contribution to the family. 

About the redress movement, I’m interested in how you thought of it and how involved or not involved you were? 

I’ll have to say that I really was not a not involved person. In fact when the issue came up, I’m trying to think where I was in my life. I was getting back into my old life, so a lot of my energy was focused on trying to play catch up. I remember though when it came up and they were saying $20,000. We had a conversation amongst the staff, this was at work. It was in the news. When it first came up I remember thinking, wow, how do you put a money value on what we went through? And even at that time I was thinking it was a sham to even put a value on it. But I remember reading the rationale behind it that in our society we put a money value on everything. 

And I’m sure everybody thought that. And they say in the report, you can’t put a money value on the suffering you went through. But at the same time, it makes a statement, an impact in this country. 

Yeah, it makes a statement. So I didn’t participate in any of the hearings but I followed it with interest. 

Did you believe in it? That the movement would have success? 

I don’t know if I thought about it in terms of success or not success. I think at the time it was more like where is this going? I wonder if it’s going to make it, I think I was more focused on the fact that hey had energized all these young warriors and activists. And I think I was really more focused on that this speaks to them, and they’re able to make an action out of this. They were able to move forward with it. I was more interested in the process of it all. 

So you felt a little detached that it was a young people’s movement? 

Yeah, I really did. It was the Sanseis really, they provided the energy. They provided the leadership. And maybe they were more focus on where they were going than all of us Nisei -- I will only speak for myself as a Nisei. I think a lot of us Niseis, we wanted to -- okay that happened, we shut the door on it. That was another part of our lives. And here’s another thing I thought, it would have been wonderful if my mother and father were alive, I would have loved that for them. They really had to struggle, that would have been great for them. But you know, our life, as far as an economic struggle, we weren’t experiencing an economic struggle. 

Did you know anyone who testified? 

I knew some people who testified and spoke very emotionally, because I’m sure anyone who would testify, it would wake up something in your psyche that was painful and I think anybody who is in prison, it affects your psyche. When you shut the door on something that’s not totally resolved, and you go on, way in the back of your psyche it’s something that is unresolved. More so some people more than other people. I think for a lot of people it wasn’t resolved yet.

Where would you put yourself? 

Like on a scale of 1-10? Like one being terribly bitter and ten being fine? I think I would put it about 5. 

How about now, if I may ask?

I think I put it about 7, 8. 

Do you think you’d be a different person if there were no redress movement? Is it more of a comfort to know that some of your acquaintances know about it and therefore--

I think there is a real subtleness here that I’m not aware of. But I think there is, the redress brought out to the forefront of things that maybe you wanted to behind you. It brought it to the forefront of other people’s consciousness and I think that makes you feel like it’s all worthwhile to know that okay, it’s an injustice that was done and there was a lot of pain from it. And it was an injustice to this country, too. So it’s things that you don’t even put on a conscious level. 

If you wanted to tell the young people of today what you learned from your experience of going to camp, surviving it, what would it be? 

Well it’d be really hard to say. The real culprit behind all of this is war. I would really like to address the fact that even in your own little situation, to work on conflict resolution. There’s some way to resolve these conflicts. And I also think in the whole experience that we went through, I don’t know what to say. If I were to speak to my granddaughter who’s 12, I would say try to be informed as much as you can be on all things. The more you know then that eliminates fear. I think tolerance, be informed as much as you can. 

Interview conducted by Grace Megumi Fleming. JAMsj thanks Grace for allowing the museum to archive and share these oral histories