Marie Kurihara

This interview with Marie Kurihara, conducted in November of 2001, is brief but a deeply insightful interview from the perspective of a young adult Nisei during the war. Contrary to many mainstream stories from this wartime period, Marie and her siblings were the ones who banded together to encourage their parents to finish their harvest before the evacuation order went into effect, forcing them off their land in the Central Valley. Believing that they would return shortly, Marie found the resolve to keep her family motivated during a dire time. “They would say, ‘Where do you get the energy to do a lot of the work?’ You know, like the packing shed where we packed the fruit, I would get up early in the morning and my brothers too. Then I said, “I know we're going to come back and we need to harvest everything and save some money when we come back.”

Can we start by telling me your full name and when you were born?

It’s Marie Mikiko Kurihara. I was born in Tulare County in Central California. December 14, 1921.

Do you know about when your father came from Japan?

Well, I mean, first he went to Hawaii. And he worked in the sugar cane fields and he's from Kumamoto-ken and then he came to the United States. It’s not clear exactly what he did, but eventually, what he started was a farm, and it was an orchard. I think it was peaches, plums. It was very prosperous.

Do you know where this was?

In Tulare, until the Depression.

So your father first came from Kumamoto to Hawaii in about 1898?

Yeah. 

And your own mother? Do you know when she came?

Well, let’s see, I would say approximately – must’ve been about 1918.

Can you paint a quick picture of what life was like when you were growing up? What do you remember before the Depression?

Let’s see, we all had our family chore and we had a strawberry patch so we had to help pick the strawberries before and after school. All I can say is that we all managed, we all had our family duties in helping taking care of the home. But my mother was very innovative about seeing that there was enough food for everyone, that sort of thing. But no, it's not too clear for me. Except for me it was a comfortable life.

Now back then, um, Japanese citizens couldn't own land and they couldn’t become American citizens. So your father leased land from somebody? Do you know anything about that early period?

I don't know how he made out, but my sister Nelly got married and her husband was born in Hawaii, an American citizen. So he borrowed his name. So he was the possessor of the property. But later on. As you say, after the Depression, you know, it's very difficult. We decided to move up towards the Sierra Nevada because the area was supposed to be warmer and he became a truck farmer. And so we all helped, you know, with the farm planting squash and beans and the whole bed.

Did he lose the farm in Tulare?

I believe he did because of the Depression, and the banks foreclosed and so forth. 

That must have taken so much courage to take that big family and leave everything behind and start a new life. Different part in California, invested in a whole different business venture.

Yeah, sure...they were hard times and really really a struggle. But my mother was very able to have food on the table somehow and then we all worked in the fields and they also planted strawberries there. So before and after school we would be picking strawberries or helping, stringing string beans and peas in and you know when it was cold we would be picking peas and then packing them at night. And Dad, he had I guess it was about 20 acres, so he had to hire all the Filipino workers to come pick because the crop was ready.

Do you remember December 7th itself? Do you remember listening to the radio or – 

Oh, yes. But well, you know, I don't know how my emotional composure has been, but most events that have happened in my life, I've been able to adjust and endure. And so I knew it would mean that I would have to stop going to school and go back to the farm because we didn't know we would have to leave. And we already learned about the possibility of the Japanese-Americans being evacuated from the West Coast.

But you already knew that on December 7th?

No, not December 7th. But the implications, you know, the implications this is going to happen.

Well, some people I talked to said that they could tell from the newspapers that Japan was expanding all out in the Pacific. And it was kind of a logical next step, given their expansionist policies, that the next stop would be Hawaii. Do you remember when you first heard about the evacuation order? 

The people who lived on the coast and were the first ones to have to leave. And well, I can't remember specifically, but we learned that those people had to leave first. They went to Tanforan and places like the horse stables and so forth. And we were way in, in Central California, so we knew that we would be affected. In fact, we were then asked to leave California. It was August.

That is really late.

In August of ‘42, we were the last people to leave. Consequently, my father had rented a 40 acre farm and had a lot of, um, truck of vegetables, like tomatoes, and what happened was the people from Monterey decided to go to Central California, and they were looking for jobs. And these were young men, able people. And so they came to work on my father's farm and they were very grateful to find housing and a job, even though it's going to be temporary. So consequently, we were able to harvest everything before we left.

Oh, that's a new story for me.

So my father was able to harvest all the crops before we left. My parents were very impressed even at that. And I would say to them, “I believe we will come home, put the money in the bank, and it'll be safe there. And I believe in democracy and civil rights and we will come home.” And it was hard for them to believe it, but I really did believe it. “They would say, ‘Where do you get the energy to do a lot of the work?’ You know, like the packing shed where we packed the fruit, I would get up early in the morning and my brothers too. Then I said, “I know we're going to come back and we need to harvest everything and save some money when we come back.”

So you encouraged your parents?

Yeah.

You know, you're the first person I talked to who remembers that their parents were depressed.

Oh, yeah, they were, you know, very disappointed because they knew that their family had to leave the farm.

Did they tell you this?

Uh huh. Oh, yes. Everything that they had worked for for their family would be lost. But I assured them that we would keep it. Our neighbors will watch the farm and we won’t plant anything. We had a good neighbor who made the one to oversee, but there would be no cultivation because they didn't know how to cultivate.

Now this was leased land?

Yes. Later on, my brothers came back and bought the land.

Do you remember packing to go?

Oh, yes. Yeah. Take one suitcase a piece. I think friends and neighbors stored my mother's sewing machine. Many of the papers and books were burned up, and that other than that, and the machinery and the truck and whatever, I can't remember if my father sold it because, you know, it didn't remain so. I mean, he must’ve sold it.

So from Berkeley, as soon as you learned that you couldn't continue with your education, you went back to the farm to help your family out and save as much money as possible and pack and encourage your parents to harvest everything. It seemed like you were like a leader in your family.

Well, my brothers went along with it, you know, and my older brother Don became the one that saw that the farm was secured and so forth.

Did you go to an assembly center or did you go straight to camp?

We went to Poston, Arizona. Yes, on the train.

Some people remember nice guards, some people remember nasty guards. Do you remember the trip at all?

Yeah, I don't remember about the guards, I know they were there, but you know, the only thing we were told to do was to close the blinds.

Now, this is August. It's pretty hot. It's the heat, the middle of the hottest time.

It's strange, you know, I don't recall bad things about it, we have to tolerate it because this is life. And so I never really had a bad images. This is life and this is reality. And we have to face it and tolerate it, do the best you can to endure it. As a general, emotional impact.

Do you remember your first image of Poston?

Well, the tower coming in and having our bags checked out, and going to the barracks. The community bathrooms and so forth, the mess hall. But there was food there, so you know, we didn't starve. And the people could start planting flowers and vegetables as they wanted around the barracks, and soon it became a flourishing garden after a while, people became creative and they had time. And so what they would do is to write to their friends, their Caucasian friends in California to buy seeds and whatever. And we could buy clothes from Sears Roebuck in the catalog, and my friends and the congregational minister were very helpful. They would send us anything we asked or what we wanted.

Well, did you have a job at camp?

Well in the beginning, we all had to do something. So I worked in the mess hall, preparing food. But that was about for one month, and then I went to camp one to be a nursing aide at the hospital.

Which camp did you live in?

Camp three.

Now, you're a positive person, so you kept your courage and optimism. And you probably even saw this job as a good opportunity to have practical experience for the future.

Yeah, but also while I was in Camp Three, I became a Christian because we had all kinds of Christian church services at that time. There was a Paul Nagano, Lloyd Walken and John who were Christian leaders, they were not ministers. There were seven or eight students.

So by going to camp, you met the kind of people with whom you found this way of life, this Christian way of life. Now, you said you stayed there just one year. What happened after one year?

I went to Chicago. My brother Don had married in camp and so he had gone to Chicago. So I decided to go to Chicago, see if I could find a nursing school and work. You know, I had to earn some money to support myself.

I heard that there were several organizations that really helped with student relocation, and most of those were Christian groups.

Yeah, the Quakers were very helpful, but I didn't use those agencies. I just went out to work because I knew I had to find a job. I just looked at the ads and what I did was take care of sick children and families. And since I had the hospital experience, people trusted me. So five years, taking care of sick children.

I think we're coming to an end here. I’d like to ask you if you were to tell the younger generations something, what would you say? You know, what do they need to know? What could they learn from your experience?

That they must know the history of Japanese American people. From the very beginning of Issei, things and the progress that has been made. And the question is, what is the future for them? How are they going to contribute and preserve democracy?

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