Tsukasa Matsueda

It is no overstatement to say that Tsukasa Matsueda was a force of nature when he was alive. Born in Stockton, California in a Japanese farming community, Tsukasa was a veteran, teacher, activist, and well-known member of the Japanese American community for his dedication and historical knowledge on the incarceration and WWII. His parents came from humble beginnings as farmers and gardeners, and lost everything when they were sent to Rohwer. When the infamous “loyalty questionnaire” was distributed, Tsukasa’s father was so upset at the treatment and imprisonment that he wished to go back to Japan and had the family transferred to Tule Lake. Events turned out so that they stayed, but Tsukasa still wells with emotion at the thought of the incredible sacrifices that the Issei generation made in service to their families. 

This interview was conducted with Grace Fleming at the Yu-Ai Kai senior center in San Jose’s Japantown. Tsukasa passed away on January 28, 2011 at the age of 86. Though he’s been gone for some time, his passionate legacy lives on strongly.

My name is Tsukasa Matsueda.

And when were you born and where? 

September 28th, 1925 in Stockton, California. 

And how many children in your family and what number are you? 

Oh, I'm the oldest. And my sister one year younger, Yuriko is second one. And third one is Richard Kamoe Matsueda and he's the one that plays shakuhachi all over the Bay Area. 

Tell me if your parents came from Japan and if so, where? 

Yeah, my biological father was born in Saga in Kyushu. And my mother was also born in Saga-ken in Kyushu. And my stepfather also came from the Saga-ken. 

Do you know when they immigrated? 

Gee, I really don't know. I think my mother came over about 1922 or '21. 

And your father came before that? 

A little before that. And my step father, I don't know when he came. Maybe, I don't know, I just know he jumped the ship, as it were in Seattle. He worked his way across and then he worked as a lumberjack, cannery worker. He was an itinerant worker. My biological father went into farming but he had originally--he was the oldest son in his family. If he stayed in Japan he would've done very well. In fact, when I visited Japan, I found out that his younger brother took over, and they're doing quite well. Beautiful homes. 

My. In what industry? 

Farming, all farming. 

And they're still in Saga-ken?

Yeah. And my father's grave is in Saga-ken. They call it [ryukotsu] they bring part of the bone to Japan. 

So he has two graves?  

Yeah.

And once he came to the United States, where did he settle? 

He settled in Stockton. He worked as a farmer. Then after he got married, I don't know how many years later, he opened up a cleaning establishment, cleaners. And this was, of course in the height of Depression. And he wasn't doing too well. At first he was doing very well until a very large cleaning establishment came in and he went on a price war. But he was, you know, reputed to be a very good ironer. Those kind of thing, I guess you get a certain kind of reputation. 

All the creases in the right places.

[laughs] Fast. And in those days, you know, the iron wasn't electrical, you used heating. Burning was the biggest problem. 

So you were talking about your stepfather, which meant that, what happened to your father?

At the age of 42 when I was six years old, he died of heart attack. I still remember that scene very vividly. He got up in the morning, he just collapsed. And then he said he wanted water and my mother tried to give him water, he just dribbled, and he just died. 

That's really sudden. And you had your younger sister and your brother who, how much younger?

My sister was five and my brother was one, I think. That must have been really hard on your mother. Well, right from then, my mother said to me, "You're in charge now. You are the oldest." And I still remember that. And she would periodically remind me that I'm the oldest son. I have to help. There wasn't much I could do to help. I guess that simply meant to be helpful as possible. 

That's a big burden on you. 

And, you know, I took that very seriously. 

And where does your stepfather come into the picture? 

So then, I must've been about 11 or 12, she got remarried again to my stepfather,  Kainichi Eguchi. We moved to San Mateo. He was a gardener there and he was a very loyal, kind person. So helpful to my mother. I think at the beginning, my sister and I had to make a lot of adjustments to accept him as a father. My youngest husband was only one or two, at that time five. So he never really felt that he wasn't the real father.

My biological father's name was Kiyoshi Matsueda. My mother's name is Mito. These are real Meiji names. 

So you were born in '25, by the time you were 11 or 12 it's 1936. And that's still the Depression, towards the end of Depression. 

Well Depression never ended until about '43 when the war started. And even at the early part of the war it was officially Depression. I think all of that building for the war, manufacturing and all that, brought us out of the Depression. 

That's right. You're a history teacher, right? I'm getting an education, too, this is great. It must have been a big change to go from Stockton in a farming community to San Mateo, where people had enough money to hire gardeners.

Yeah. Well you know, Stockton is one of the major Japanese centers in California. Fresno, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Jose. The closest city is San Jose, Sacramento and Stockton were very close in terms of population, sizable Japanese town. And out of the three Japantown San Jose's is the only one that kind of survived. And San Mateo was mostly Caucasian. There was a Japanese community, but there was no Japantown. Most of the people were gardeners and ladies were usually domestic workers. People were much better off than hakujins in Stockton. But to people in San Francisco, all the Peninsula cities -- San Mateo, Palo Alto, Mountain View, even San Jose were considered to be inaka [country]. We were considered to be hicks. And so I always the San Francisco people, "Oh, inaka kara desu ne?" [laughs]. 

But San Mateo's Japanese community is pretty active. You had Japanese school, Japanese Buddhist church, Japanese Christian church. There were two or three or more grocery stores, fish stores. There were at least four hotels. Mostly for Japanese because it was located more in the ghetto area and then some parts even in a slum, you know? And generally in that area, must be about two, three mile square, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, Italians. 

And so you lived in this ghetto of Japanese, Chinese and Italians. 

And I won't characterize it as a slum though because it was pretty nice. 

Now we're in 1936 or so. Can you tell me anything significant for you that happened between then and the beginning of WWII or when Pearl Harbor was bombed?

You know, we weren't really conscious of the relationship between Japan and the United States. The only time there was a sense of political awareness was when the war between China and Japan started. Because, you know, the Chinese and Japanese living in the same area. But from that time, in '31, '30 when the war broke out between China and Japan and all the way to '41, you had the feeling that war between Japan and China was a big political kind of thing. And we were aware that Americans were sympathetic to the Chinese.

That's significant. 

Yeah. And I think in Stockton, there were efforts made to help the Japanese people. You know, I remember collecting all these aluminum, you know, from cigarette cases, making aluminum ball, and that was supposed to be sent to back, I guess, to helping the war efforts. That kind of thing. Very sympathetic to Japanese. But in San Mateo there was less of that. In fact, almost none.

Less political awareness? 

Yeah. One of the I think, you know, in retrospect, especially a place like San Mateo. Both places had JACL. San Mateo was more outwardly and vocal about their loyalty to the United States. "We're American citizens." Stockton JACL never really explicitly said things like that they just assumed we were all Japanese Americans and never explicitly stated their loyalty to America strongly as people in San Mateo did. 

Even when I was in Stockton I used to go to Japanese school. When I went to Japanese school in San Mateo there was a totally different atmosphere. Japanese school in Stockton was something everybody accepted and everybody worked hard. San Mateo everybody went because their parents forced them to go. A lot of the kids didn't even care. Although there were some people who really tried to learn. But for some reason or the other, I was pretty good in Japanese, partly because of Stockton. You know, a lot of the people who didn't speak Japanese would refer to me as "nippon toy." Japan toy. You know, it's a derisive term.

Oh, easily broken? Actually I don't understand.

Well, we were born Japanese. They say you're an American, it's a step down here. Of course, you know, for example, the social antagonism between Niseis and Kibeis. Well "nippon toy" is somebody who is like a thing, but not exactly a Kibei. We speak English, better than the Kibeis did. And the image of Kibei was somebody who couldn't speak Japanese too well or English too well. Now, these are stereotypes. See and "nihon toy" is somebody who is perhaps sympathetic to Japanese, but different from pure, 110% Americans. 

And that kind of thing, I think got worse after the war. And I don't know, maybe you heard -- the JACL immediately after the war, one of the things they did was to explicitly say that Niseis should strive to be 110% Americans, forget the Japanese culture. There was a very definite negative feeling toward the Buddhist church. Buddhist church was always looked upon as old fashioned, tradition-bound. And one famous Nisei leader and Christian referred to bon odori as typical Japanese and Buddhist - "one step forward, five steps back [inaudible]." A lot of people that that was pretty funny. 

Many people felt that the parents and Buddhist church or nihonjin-kai were pushing a loyalty to Japan. And that's not the case because as far as I know, this is based on my personal talk with all the Isseis, they always told us that we were born in America and our loyalty should be with America. There was no question. But for a lot of the Nisei who didn't understand that, and most of them were leaders always had that in back of the mind. Somehow they're a group of people, Niseis who are pro-Japanese but more than pro-Japanese, sympathetic to Japan. And that's tragic. 

Anything about the assembly center that you would like to say? 

Well, I just remember the rainy days. The place was just muddy all over, you could hardly walk. You had some wooden plank to walk on. To get into the house you had to make sure that all the mud was taken out as much as you could, but you couldn't get it completely off. The smallness of each unit. We were a family of five and stayed in one unit [laughs]. They follow the same pattern in the regular concentration camp. Although I think the ones in the relocation camp, I went to Rohwer, was a little bit better built than the ones in assembly center. They were so hastily constructed. 

Were most people from Stockton Assembly Center go to Rohwer?

Yeah. Rohwer consisted of people from Los Angeles and Stockton, Lodi. 

Now, you're the first person I'm interviewing who went to Rohwer. So that was in the swamps of Arkansas. Do you remember what month you went there and your first impressions?

We went there May. And then the public school started in October. And then I graduated in July of the following year. 1943.  And after I finished high school, I worked for the Rohwer Outpost, which is a camp newspaper, and I was later, had a column of my own. It was called "Stormy Weather." 

Do you want to say a little bit about your social activities or sports? 

Well, the most important one for me in Rohwer was we formed a social club called Rebels. And later we made a baseball team and we were the first softball champions of Rohwer. And we beat teams from mighty Los Angeles area. 

We were very close that we also sponsored block dances and all the social clubs. There are several of them all over the camp and every time they had block dances, they have little refreshments and usually it was cornbread. I don't know why it was cornbread [laughs]. But those are stupid little things you remember. 

Oh well, that's really interesting. Why do you think it was cornbread? 

I don't know. You had punch or something like that. But very simple thing. The music, the camp music are still our favorites, Niseis, you know, constituted music of Glenn Miller, Harry James, Tommy Dorsey, Frank Sinatra. Helen Forrest. Those are the old entertainers we listened to the most. And almost all dances ended with "Goodnight, Sweetheart." Ray Noble. 

How about holiday stuff like shogatsu [New Years] and Fourth of July? 

Not, really. You know, as far as the mess hall, I can't even remember if they had a special Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner. Strange thing, you know, the biggest thing for people of my age was that being part of the Rebels and that was like the whole sub world, you know? 

And school was interesting. You know, we had a homeroom and teachers, most of them were very, very nice. My homeroom teacher, I can't remember his name anymore but he was so nice and I think he's in the yearbook, if I could find it. And in fact, I thought somebody gave me a duplicate of that. If I find it, I let you know. But one of my social studies teacher, I remember vividly because her name was Miss Jackson. And I used to give her a rough time. 

What did you do? 

For example, she was trying to teach us, you know, the Depression days how great FDR was, started all these programs and WPA. "Does anybody know what means?" "We play around." [laughs] That was the Workers Progress Administration and they had already a reputation of being lazy workers. So that was my answer. And then she used to be kind of, you know, "In the good old days" kind of teacher.  And she says, "When I was your age, I was doing so many chores around the house and so forth." And I raised my hand and I said, "But in your days, slavery was legal." And she just [laughs] really. She kind of laughed but she kept me after school. But after all that at the end of the year, she said she'd write a letter of recommendation to somebody she knew in University of Michigan. She was willing to do that for me. And I said, "No, I don't think I'll be going to University of Michigan, you know. And you know, like Ruth Asawa did go to Black Mountain College, in North Carolina. And there she became, you know, a full fledged artist. She was very good in art. So, in fact, we show you that yearbook, all the cartoons she did was great. 

So you have good memories of Rohwer and friendship. 

Yeah, in that sense, met a lot of good friends. 

Yes. Being a teenager did you talk about the constitutionality of this? 

No. Only time was when they began to interview us and then particularly when I said, I'm going to Tule Lake. We were interviewed by FBI. And at that time you're asking questions about loyalty to the emperor. I said my going to Tule Lake has nothing to do with my loyalty to Japan or to America or anything like that. It's just a practical means of trying to keep the family together because at this point in my life, family was the most important thing. And I have some measure of control. And my mother had said -- see, my father, stepfather, the one that wanted to go to Japan. My mother said, "I'll leave it up to the kid." And so here again, being the oldest one, she asked me my opinion. And I said my opinion is, I can't speak for my brother and my sister. But my opinion is that we should stick together, especially because my father is a stepfather, and I didn't want him to think that we were going to reject him. So I mentioned this. I think I did to the FBI people. 

How was the interview for you? 

That's all. Well, the FBI people were pretty intense, as I remember. But I'm only a 16 year old, 17 year old kid. And, you know, after I gave that answer, they were pretty matter of fact. 

Did they interview your mother, too?

I don't think so, she couldn't speak English. There were no interpreters as far as I could see. I don't even know if my brothers and sisters were interviewed. 

Now, what I thought was that you filled out the loyalty questionnaire if you were 17 or older, but in your case, you might have done it even as a 16 year old because you were the head of home?

Well at that time I was 17. 

So was it a big deal at camp? The loyalty questionnaire? Did it seem like it really stirred up people's emotions? 

Certain people, yeah. That was the one time we talked about politics, as it were. And generally the consensus of our group and as far as I know, a lot of people in Rohwer was to answer that "no/yes/if." In other words, yes, I would serve in the United States Army if our parents or if we were to be released from the camp. 'Course that wasn't what they required. So they just recorded "no/yes" or "no/no" or whatever. In other words, we tried to explain our answer but all they wanted was a yes/no answer. But we did put down that condition. 

Now, please remind me about the history of the loyalty questionnaire. As I understand it, the army needed more bodies in the army and at the same time, they needed bodies for hostage exchange. Do you know the history behind behind this? 

One of the thing is, I remember a soldier coming in to explain the loyalty oath. And so I know we went to the block mess hall, and the soldier was there explaining it. We didn't pay much attention to it. We all talked about the possibility of what we're going to do if we get registered and get called in a draft and consensus of our group was yeah, we'd go. 

Do you know if JACL participated in creating this questionnaire or what they had to say about the questionnaire? 

At that time, I didn't know anything. In fact even before we went into camp. No, no, no. And I only became conscious of JACL after we left camp, after we went back to San Mateo. And one thing I remember taking part was the San Mateo JACL took part in the annual county fair. And all of our people, Japanese American young people, I don't know how many of us, carried this huge American flag and walked in front of the grandstand. That's the only JACL activity I remember. Yeah that must've been 1939 or '40. That was before the war. And I could see that happening because we have to show our loyalty to the United States. 

So we're back this loyalty questionnaire. Your stepfather was adamant or just knew that he wanted to go back to Japan, given the circumstances? 

Well, he was pretty adamant. He says, "I don't know about you people, but I'm going back." Because it was that attitude that struck me as he's ready to go back regardless of what -- I didn't want him to go back thinking that we rejected him. The thing is, my father is not a political person. But he resented the fact that he was put into the camp. Which was quite different from my mother's attitude. My mother's attitude was that if we had been in Japan and a foreigner there, we would have been treated worse in that although she didn't like to be put into camp, it was a relative thing. She always looked at things with foremost in her mind how would it affect the kids. So she's trying to always put things into a brighter, more optimistic way of thinking about things. But at the same time, she was very down to earth so that she would break it down into nitty gritty things, you know, about comparing it with Japan. 

That's practical brilliance. Down to earth. And she's not just stuck looking at this issue as an American resident. She was able to go okay, flip this around. 

Yeah and she was a Japanese. She became an American citizen after the war. 

She was a permanent resident here so that's what I meant by America. Whereas your stepfather was going from the emotional thing of--

Yeah he's very emotional. Well and both of my parents weren't too educated. My mother went through the elementary school and she went to the nursing school. So she was better educated than many Isseis. There were very few who went on to high school or middle school. And those were the outstanding Issei ladies. Even the Issei men, very few went through koto gakko or high school. Most of them went through elementary only. Historically or statistically, having said that, the Japanese immigrants had the highest level of education than any other group, you know. 

So you could tell the level of immigrants who came over here and why so many Americans would resent. And then they felt that about any immigrants then it got worse for people of color. 

You're just opening up my mind so much. I'm really interested in the personalities of your mother and stepfather because the approximate quotes you just gave me are almost antithesis of attitudes that Japanese Americans could have. One is, "This is so horrible. I'm willing to return to Japan." Whether he believed it was war devastated or not. I mean, there was the kachigumi who just believed that Japan was winning and conquering the rest of the world. But, you know, the people who hated the whole affair so much that they were gonna go back. And then your mother's attitude: "Think about this." We're being treated pretty well, considering. I mean, for the times. 

And I said I focused on the upbringing of children by the Issei parents. And I said, you don't have to have statistics. Only statistics you have to know is for example, Niseis were direct products of Issei. Okay and then you take a book like Harry Kitano's book which is kind of accepted as a standard at least early on, "Japanese Americans." He points out that Niseis have one of the highest, if not the highest academic achievement. You know, especially in colleges. Lowest crime rate. Highest number of people in professional occupation. That alone is kind of a thing. And then their record, as you know, their loyalty -- 442nd, the protest group, resistors, you know. All of these are done in the greatest American tradition. So--[Tsukasa gets choked up]. 

This is emotional for you. You want to say a little bit about that? 

Yeah, well, I guess. But the thing I make it a point to say that number one was civil liberties group wanted me to say something about the loyalty issue in the camp. So how do I put that into what I wanted to say about Isseis? 

Your appreciation for Isseis? So that's what's grabbing you right now. 

Well, the second part of that was that so many people had doubts about loyalty of Isseis toward the United States and all of this disloyalty thing. And I wanted to prove that that's not true. Because almost every Issei I know said the same thing, including our Japanese language teacher. All of them said you guys were born in America. So where do this kind of thinking come from? You know that there are core of people, Niseis who are going to be loyal to Japan, you know, disloyal to America and that always bugged me. And when I see that Japanese people themselves laud the 442nd people and as they should. And all the military accomplishments by Nisei soldiers. That's understandable. But why do they turn around against the draft resisters? I could never figure that out. I mean, I have my feelings, thoughts about where that comes from. And so I felt that this was a legitimate thing to write in the story about the Isseis. 

Back to this, the accusations that Isseis must be disloyal. Well, you pointed out thing that one thing why the non-Nikkei might be jealous--

They were never jealous.

Of their high education, maybe. Resented is the word you used. And some people have pointed out that some farmers were resentful of their success in the farm or wanted their business.

Well, I don't know. They all might have, you know, understandable reason, you know. But I don't know. I really don't know. I do know about this feeling that there were core of Niseis should be loyal or are loyal to Japan or at least disloyal to America. And of course, you heard of the famous report written first at the behest of JACL? They hired a Chinese American attorney? [The Lim Report]. And she wrote all about these things and the JACL never released it. 

Going back to my mother, one of the memories I have of her is that we were in the midst of depression. We didn't know what that meant, we just knew we were poor. But in order to allay the sense of insecurity I guess, once a week or so she used to have money put away in this shoe closet and she would take out the shoe and count out the money. And, you know, just that one dollar bill or something, if several of them seemed like big money to us. And I thought, oh, gee, we're not so bad here. But that was the kind of thing she did. Always trying to prevent insecurity and fear. 

And what did you do after you counted the money? 

Then she would put it back in and say, "Well, let's see how much more we can save." 

Because you knew about people who were homeless. 

Well, those days I never thought of a homeless, although we knew about hobos. The hobos were people who always seemed to be on the train going away or around the railroad tracks. And they were homeless but we just didn't see them. Among the Japanese, I never heard of [them] becoming hobos. They used to be "buranketo ka tsugi no shigoto ni," people who carry a blanket around. Itinerant farmers, you know, but they weren't hobos. They were just going to a different farm to do seasonal work.

What was the fear of being poor then if it weren't being homeless? 

Well, that's what I was trying to say -- that I never really feared being poor because one of the big things that most everybody I knew were poor. 

Right but they all had places to live and they all had enough to eat. 

And we were getting things like salami or going to movies periodically. So the whole thing is that if everybody lives in the same kind of way. Now, we did look at people who were rich, you know, their business. But we never envy them because well I just say, they're rich that's all. Now, my cousin did pretty good. He had a tool set. He bought books at will. That was when my biological father had died. And we were living with them in this big apartment they owned. And I said, oh, you know, that's part of him being rich. The oldest daughter had was taking piano lessons. Second daughter was a very prominent local Japanese shibai, she was a great dancer. And she had this fancy kimono. So we didn't compare. And I never felt envious. I was grateful that they put us up in their home because you know, after my father died, we lost the cleaner. And one of the things that when I was 16, when we first going into camp, my mother paid off all the debts she had, you know, borrowing from different people. She says, I've got to get these people before moving to camp. She said, "I don't want my kids to always be known as you know, somebody come from a family who never returned the debt. I was impressed. She was so adamant about that. She was always talking about paying off her debt.

With all the packing and organizing she had to do she was also trying to pay off all her debts. Would you say that people you knew were doing the same thing, paying off debts? 

I don't know for sure, but I would guess so because that's the way Isseis were. 

What would you say the hardest thing about having to move out of your homes and going into assembly centers, relocation camps?

Well, I was 15 or 16 at that time, so that had a lot to do with it, I guess. But for me going to the camp was maybe a scary experience because we don't know. You know we always fear the unknown. But the hardest thing was probably when I left San Mateo because I was leaving my friends. Then when I went to Stockton, I saw some of the old friends I knew. So that made it a little bit easier. But when we were told we're going into Rohwer, that was harder than knowing that we were going to Stockton Assembly. 'Cause Rohwer brings up all sorts of stereotypes. You know, not only of the red necks, you know, but for me I always thought the place was pretty primitive or, you know, I always thought of snakes I don't know why. I knew that there were a lot of poisonous snakes in Arkansas.

So it sounds silly. But then when I heard, when the first contingency of people went to Rohwer, we heard that they found generally rattlesnakes in unfinished part of the camp, you know, in the shower room or somewhere. And I don't know if they were true or not, but that certainly reinforced that kind of fear we had. 

Now, your parents, your mother and stepfather probably heard the same rumors and had reservations about the snakes. But as responsible adults, you know, real head of household, they must have had other fears. 

Oh yeah, I don't think they even thought about snakes laughs]. I think as parents, they were most concerned about, you know, education. They felt that like feeding whatever kind of thing they serve, that that would be taken care of. But education is what, at least my mother and my father thought of because they didn't know whether they're going to have high school there, you know, to what degree or even if they would be allowed to go to colleges. And although my parents never talked about college, generally speaking, Isseis always felt that their kids should get as much education as possible. So I think education might have been the greatest worry. 

Did they tell you this or you're guessing or did they tell you afterwards?

They didn't express this directly to me, but they did talk about school and my mother especially. She always talked about school. And looking back, I know she never said anything directly about, gee, I wish they have schools there. But I know that was one of their concerns. 

You know, when people ask questions about camp, especially people who've never heard about it, they are usually interested in the physical atmosphere, set up -- was there enough food? Did you get beaten? Did you have to have forced labor? What was the sleeping arrangement like? But the more I talk to people like yourselves who've gone to camp, the physical things reminded them of the predicament that they were in and the predicament didn't have to do so much with the poverty of the camp, but the fact that their dreams were shattered, their rights suspended and so on. What would you say to those comments?

You know, what you said about their life being shattered, which was also their dream,  to somehow make it in America. The uncertainty, whether there would be a future or not, was probably their biggest concern. But on the other hand, they didn't express that so much because the Isseis had experienced so much hardship. You know, their dreams and all of these things, they had a hard time in Japan. An even harder time in Japan probably than they had experienced in America because in Japan, if you're born a farmer, you had no future except to be a farmer. In America it's the same kind of thing. But in America, they saw a chance to get beyond just being a farmer, especially for the children. So that's what made them so strong, even in their worst times. But once you get into a camp, you have no idea what the future's going to be. You're caught in something that you're totally powerless.

Did you as a high school student, worry about the future?

I really didn't. Because funny thing, you know, when you're in it with everybody else, you know, there's a certain amount of security in that. Well not security but at least "we're in this together." And I didn't worry about whether I'm going on to college or whatever. I just took the attitude that every day try to have as much fun as possible. But there were other things that happened that made you quickly think about things you never thought of. One, the loyalty issue. Two, I never even thought about going into the army. Now you're faced with the prospect of whether you should serve in the armed forces or not. 

Now, we talked a little bit about the loyalty issue. You were too young to serve. Is that right? 

Well, I was 16. So by the time I was in second year of camp, you know 18 so around there was the draft age. 

What happened? 

I didn't get any draft notice until I got out. So that was no problem. As soon as I got drafted, I went. But the war was over. But while we were in camp, you know, we faced the prospect. We all first of all, assumed that we weren't going to be drafted. But subsequently we had soldiers coming in. I remember officers coming into our mess hall and talk about loyalty issue. And so immediately we started thinking, "Oh, does this mean that we're going to be asked to serve?" 

Oh, you sort of came to that conclusion." 

Because until then, only army personnel we saw were the guards and they had nothing to do with us except we were treated like prisoners. But the possibility of serving  didn't come up until that loyalty issue. Because in that loyalty oath, they do mention the possibility of, you know, would you serve in the United States Army? So, you know, a lot of things happened to us I never even thought of, it just came and I said, whoa. 

I think you've mentioned at another time that you cleaned up some of the camps. You cleaned up some of the records. Is that right?

Yeah. When we left Tule Lake, I was one of the last people, you know, we packed up records. I worked in the hospital. So I worked in the maternity ward. So all of the records that had to do with people staying there, we packed it up, put it in a crate and help send it off. Interesting was the skeleton crew that remained, we were pretty close. And it was kind of sad, too, because after this, we were gonna be going our separate ways. And so that rather than feel elated that we were going to leave the camp, the sadness was more predominant with me. All my friends had already gone. And these people now that I work with, too, we're pretty close friends. We'll probably will not see each other very often. It was very sad.

You know, there are a couple of terms like ganbaru, gaman, shikata ga nai. Do you have comments about those words and their concepts?

Yeah, well. Ganbaru and gaman are tied together. The Japanese used to use that "kuishibaru," you know, you grit your teeth and fight back, ganbaru. Shikata ga nai, to me was so different from what I read later on, especially by Harry Kitano's book when he says, shikata ga nai was a fatalistic term. But with that, the Japanese always used another word, which is akirameru which means you resign yourself to what can't be done. But you still go forward. See, that's where gaman and ganbaru comes. But in Japan, they always say that you have to understand that there are certain things in life you have no control. Accept that and move forward. The Japanese learned to turn their anger into positive action, you know, positive force. And that's what it was. 

Well, it's without doing a survey at that time, you know, things change when you look backwards. So I'm not gonna get into the academics of it. But it's kind of interesting that there's this pretty serene kind of acceptance and they're sort of gritting the teeth and being--holding grudges and saying shikata ga nai. 

I think I want to add one thing here at this point. But any time you say something positive about the Isseis, then there are a lot of people who will say that's the romantic version that comes out afterward. I don't think so. You know, it might be romantic for some people, now that they got old and their parents are gone and they say, "Oh, gee, they were really great," or something like that. And maybe ascribe a lot of positive feelings to it in that sense. But I don't look at Isseis that way. There are a lot of things that Isseis did I thought were really negative. And I have talked about that, too. But whenever I talk about this akirameru or something, some people have said "No, no, no, that's romantic version." Now that's what I'm trying to say, that whenever I try to talk about culture, the Japanese American culture, has nothing to do with -- maybe the feeling is you can't really control your feelings. 

Well, just to respond. You know, the Niseis looking at the Isseis if they didn't have a good relationship, could interpret these words from one extreme. And like you said, you can't separate your own feelings. And unless you do research from a Japanese Meiji idealism, I would think that it's pretty one sided. And if you can do both, that that helps. But as I said before, I can't imagine a bunch of fatalistic Japanese crossing the Pacific and forging a new life.

I think that's very succinct. It's very practical, incisive view. 

Now, can you tell me a little bit about what happened after WWII and resettlement, what your family did and as individuals? 

Well, my family moved in with another family who was very nice to share their home. My father didn't have any home. We did two times. And all the while, my father was working as a gardener. And in those days, I can't remember how many years he did that, four or five years. He saved enough money 'cause he started without any money after he came out of camp. He saved enough money to buy a cheap home. And you know, I still remember helping him, but mostly he and my mother worked nighttime after they came late, fixed dinner for us. And then they would paint and scrape the walls so we could get into it.

Until then, like my sister, she went out to live as a schoolgirl. And so that helped a little bit. In the meanwhile, I had gone into the army. So that helped one sense. I couldn't do anything to help them physically, perhaps. I do remember that when I got this discharged I bought washing machine for my mother.

Oh she must have loved that. 

That's about all I could do. 

I've talked to a few people that said that the redress movement and the reparation checks, sure, they were great, but if the government could have given the Isseis a couple thousand dollars right after war, it would have helped so much more. 

You know, to me, I really can't understand. I mean, I put myself in their place--I don't know how they could have done it. You know, they had no money. There was some who had property or whatever, but most of the Isseis had no property [and] virtually no money at all and they took almost any kind of job. A lot of them worked as tenant farmers. My father went back to San Mateo and became a gardener. And you can become an independent gardener with a minimum of tools. It's incredible. 

It seems to me that at camp, though, you were prisoners. The roof of your head, the food was there and that resettlement was much harder from the physical point of view, though, maybe mentally at least you weren't the prisoner, but you still had to struggle so much.

Oh, yeah. I think it was tougher in the sense that in camp at least, you had basics provided and you were with a lot of friends. You had this moral support. But when you go outside and you're on your own or with few Japanese people in a community that is very definitely unfriendly and many cases hostile, and discrimination was so obvious. I think that was tougher on my parents than being in camp. Being in camp, although you're a prisoner, there's a certain amount of hope. If it's over, you could get out. But once you get out, you're in the uncertainty. Everything is so uncertain for them for a long time. 

The amount, $20,000 is really nothing. But it's the symbol of the government's apology and the fact that the Congress passed it is, I think of great importance. American government admitted that it had done something illegal, probably immoral. But you know, the point was that they apologized. I think that's tremendous. 

What did it feel like to register to receive the money? I heard that, you know, you had to physically register your name. It didn't just come. 

Well you make an application. And so I was just starting here at Yu-ai Kai. So I helped expedite that. And so I don't know how many hundreds of people came here that I helped process, especially the people who didn't know English too well. 

So you helped a lot of people receive their checks. 

But that was a crazy time. We spent over time. And then I had my regular case, you know? Exciting time. Yeah. The only one sad note was that I know several people who were in Tule Lake who felt that they shouldn't apply for it because they weren't worthy, because they were being criticized, had been criticized as disloyal. And I know that the two cases actually I brought the application forms to them and later they were pretty grateful.

But you know more people who didn't apply?

Well, I don't know about that. See, that makes me wonder. Although I think most of them later on felt that they should apply for it. But I know initially there are some people who felt like that. I know some people still feel that way and that they were disloyal. There are a lot of Japanese that make them still feel that.

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