Jim Maeno

Jim Maeno was one year old when his family was forced to leave Santa Maria and report to the Tulare Assembly Center. They were incarcerated in the Gila River. Once in the camp, his dad was imprisoned in Bismark, North Dakota, and his mom contracted tuberculosis and was moved back to a hospital near Santa Maria, CA. Jim and his siblings were forced to remain in Gila River, where they were raised by their uncle.

Jim had a surprisingly clear memory of some moments in Gila River even though he was so young at the time. He also had some interesting insights into how his family adapted to moving back to California after the War. Jim shared with me his memories of the Gila River, and thoughts about integrating back into society after the family was reunited after the war. This oral history below was recorded at Jim's home in 2010.

Could you begin by telling me where you’re from, and after Executive Order 9066, which assembly center they sent you, and which camp? 

We went from Santa Maria, CA to Tulare, and I guess we spent six months in Tulare, this was in 1942 or 1943, somewhere in that neighborhood, and then off to Gila, Arizona. Both my parents, my mom and dad, were there, but apparently my dad actually was shipped off to Bismarck, North Dakota, because he was not a U.S. citizen. My mom was born in Barstow, California, but then later on, I don’t know when, she contracted tuberculosis. In fact, quite a few Japanese in Gila had tuberculosis, called TB. All I know was that she was sent to Santa Barbara hospital, in county hospital. I saw my mom for the first time when we came back from Arizona. All I know was that my dad had various jobs apparently at the camp. 

What other memories from the camp have stayed with you? 

I know the barracks we lived in was called 63-10D. That was the barrack number that we were assigned to when we lived there. I have very little memory of that. The only memories I have are -- I know there was an outdoor theater, and it was cold, I heard coyotes out in the background. I remember as a kid, with another friend of mine named Ron Suzuki, we used to - once or twice, I don’t know how often - but apparently there was a little bus, military bus, that went around the barracks. This was a Caucasian guy, American guy. He allowed us on, we’d ride around, and then he dropped us back. I have no idea how many times we did that, but I remember taking bus rides with him, just two kids, little tykes. 

The only thing I could remember seeing, you know, the barbed wire, the fences and all that, and the towers. There were guards there. But I have very little memories of the actual camp itself. I’ve seen pictures of all that. And then of course I had two sisters and a brother at the time, and they’ve never spoken much of that. My brother is four years older than me, so he remembers a lot more. But he didn’t speak too much actually. And my sister, they rarely talked about the camp experiences. My dad was in Bismarck, North Dakota, and I don’t know when he came back. My mom came down with TB so she had to be hospitalized and was sent to Santa Barbara County. So basically my uncle, Uncle Sam, raised the kids. There were two sisters, my brother and me. So there were four of us, so Uncle Sam really took care of us, basically. When we came back from the camps, he actually helped raise us because my dad became a gardener. I mean, he did try to get back and work as a truck driver, but he became a gardener, basically. Because the farm was a big sham back then. When we came back, all of that was totally gone. My Uncle Sam who really raised our family, he was part of the US Army as an interpreter because he spoke fluent Japanese, too. He served in the [Military] Intelligence for deciphering all Japanese messages and all that. Although he never spoke much about that at all. I know they recruited quite a few. They were born in the states but they had moved to Japan as infants. 

Ddi your family speak Japanese to you and did you grow up hearing it? 

So my mom actually never spoke English. She was born in the States. Sam obviously spoke fluent Japanese because he was raised basically in Japan and the States, in both. So he was fluent in both languages, luckily. Whenever I needed anything, I would go through my brother or my sisters. I can speak just real basic stuff. Being a little kid, I just didn’t want the hassle of all that stuff, you know. Even though we were born in the States and were called Americans, the Japanese were defeated by the Americans so they were inferior. So they didn’t want to associate anything with Japanese. That’s why I didn’t want to speak the language or learn the language, only because of that factor. It’s unfortunate but that was true. But that was the prevailing thought. A lot of the younger Japanese men just didn’t want anything to do with anything Japanese. They just didn’t. I think that’s one reason why the Japanese, in schools, they did read well. They had to show they were superior, on equal par, if not better. 

Did you ever talk to your siblings about their memories? 

After the war, we had to start all over from scratch and my dad went and became a gardener [for the successful Minami family]. The only conversation I would have is probably with my brother who is four years older than me. But then again, I guess he was 8 or 9. He actually had a rougher time coming back, because when I started grammar school, I would start in kindergarten or first grade, whereas he was in fourth grade; it was a little different. Kids would say things to him. Kids at that age knew what they were saying. Kids that were in kindergarten or first grade, they were only parroting. Luckily for me, I was the smartest kid in class, I was really good at sports, so right away I never had any problems all through my education because I was really smart and good all the way through. There really was a Santa Maria. It was a Japanese community there. But most of them hung out in Guadalupe with the farmers, not so much in Santa Maria. So we were sort of the oddball family, my dad being a gardener. There was only a couple of other gardeners. Most of them went back in the farming community, so that’s why I didn’t associate with the Japanese-Americans in Santa Maria.

Interview and portraits by Andy Frazer. JAMsj thanks Andy for allowing the museum to archive and share these oral histories and photos.