martha yamasaki

Martha Yamasaki experienced life in the Bay Area as a young adult before the war, witnessing some of the most exciting moments in San Francisco’s history. After attending UC Berkeley for three years, she worked for the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 1940, working for the Japan tourism bureau. After the outbreak of the war, Martha and her family were incarcerated in Poston, where she recalls the awful food and lack of privacy, remembering the dehumanizing conditions. She and her husband were part of a group of Nisei who stayed in the Midwest after the war, and eventually found their way to the Pacific Northwest in Oregon. In sharing her hopes for the future, she said, “I hope that by telling my story, my children and my grandchildren will remember the spirit of my parents, the Issei generation, who live with great stoicism. They accepted diversity with much grace and dignity and for me, truly a triumph of the human spirit.” 

Martha passed away in June of 2003 at the age of 85, shortly after this interview was conducted in February of the same year.

My name is Martha Masako Yamasaki. I was born in San Francisco, October 12, 1918. My father is from Tokyo and my mother is from Hiroshima.

So many people came from the Hiroshima area. If your dad came from Tokyo, that's pretty unusual, isn't it?

Well, there were several Isseis that were from Tokyo, visiting in our church. My understanding was that my father, I think it was an arranged marriage. And I think my father probably knew her uncle, my mother’s. 

So it was an arranged marriage. Did your father come first and then your mother or they came together?

No, my father came first. I thought it was about 1910, but I’m not sure really.

And then your mother came in 1913. Do you know what they did in Washington?

No, I don’t know what happened in Washington. In 1917 my parents went to Mexico, Mexico City. My father was connected to a pharmaceutical company. But they returned in 1918, because they wanted me to be an American citizen. So they came back. And I think my father returned to Mexico. I was going to verify with my brother but I haven’t been able to as to whether I went back as a child. And they lived in the San Francisco area until 1921. And then between 1921 and 1928, they lived in Stockton California where my two brothers were born. Well then from 1928 on, after he left Stockton, we were in Oakland until the war started.

Where did your father have his produce and business? 

It was called River Produce. And it was located at 145 Franklin Street, in Oakland. I just remember most of my life in Oakland. I went to school, elementary school, junior high, high school, college there in the Bay Area. Our housing was segregated – my elementary school up to eighth grade was primarily Asian. And I lived a block away from the Japanese language school that I attended after school. I lived at Fifth and Jackson and around the corner from our house was the Buddhist church and they had their own language school. We were able to walk to school in those days and you walked everywhere. We were members, my parents, members of the Japanese Methodist Church, and that was just seventeen blocks away and we would walk to church.

I think for my parents, the church was really in that community and for the young people too, because we really lead segregated lives. Partly because the outside world just wasn't very receptive. And you were always worried about being rejected, so it was safer to be in your own community. Some of my friends were other Japanese people from the church or from the language school.

So you have pretty good memories.

I do. And I really have very poignant memories about those days about church.

Such as? 

Well, for one thing, they were the Sunday school teachers. And I don't know how much we learned because of the language they taught by law in Japanese. So I don't know how much, but then eventually we had English speakers, so there were always two services for each. And so periodically we would all have to go to the Issei service as well as the Nisei service. My only contact with Caucasians was missionaries who worked in Japan and come back.

Who were your teachers in your everyday school? 

They were all Caucasians except we had one Chinese teacher. And I was talking about it to my brother and he remembered her too, Ms. Chu. She was the only teacher of color, I’d say.

It's a pretty different world from now.

It certainly is. And then by the time we got to junior high school, Dad embraced the whole community. The Caucasians lived up the hill, came down to West Lake Junior High School and those of us who lived in our ghettos attended the same school.

So the schools were segregated only through elementary school. And in middle school it was integrated.

Yes, and then high school depended on where your high school was. And I mean, I think there was one high school that was in the Black neighborhood, and there were quite a few Black student body. You know, I just went to high school that was just on the border of Oakland and Berkeley. But I still remember eating lunch with my Japanese friends. And I didn't really have any close – I knew some Caucasian students but never had any close friends where we would go to their homes.

And you went to UC Berkeley.

I went to Berkeley for three years. And then I came back in 1940. I worked for the Golden Gate International Exposition, that was held in Treasure Island. And I worked for the Japan tourist people.

Now I'm starting to understand the connection. So do you remember the day Pearl Harbor was bombed?

Oh, vaguely. I do remember because it was a Sunday. I think we were getting ready to go to church.

The day after President Roosevelt made a speech to the Congress and it would sound, broadcasted by radio his famous speech about the day of infamy. Some people remember listening to it and feeling very, very scared. How did you feel?

Well, I've been thinking about that time, trying to recollect, and I think what my feeling is. I'm probably traumatized and I would just sort of follow orders because new orders came out daily and we were fortunate in that my father was not detained. But I know my friend said fathers were immediately picked up. So we stayed together as a family. And we had to turn in our radios. You know, also turn in cameras, binoculars. And if you had any firearms which we didn’t. Shortly after that was the curfews. Where you couldn’t be out from 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. and we had a five mile limit.

Travel restraints.

And what happened to my father was right after the war started, when he applied for business renewal license in 1942 and the city of Oakland refused to issue a business license. So that meant he could not earn any income. And then the other difficulty was the area that we lived, 5th and Jackson, was declared a martial area so that it meant the families in that area, partly because it was close to the Oakland estuary. And so that meant we needed to move and that too. I had forgotten that we moved. The church offered us hospitality, and so we moved in to the parsonage at the West Temple Methodist Church. Apparently they asked my parents to come and stay at the church. 

So we moved out of our house at 5th and Jackson and moved into the church. So we moved actually, twice. Once in March, we moved to Reedley, California to farming country, where there were lots of strawberry farmers, my father became the middle between the farmers and stores like Safeway and Luckys. And the reason why we moved was the government offered voluntary resettlement and said that if we went to the B zone we would be free, but that only lasted until August because then the people in the B zone became very nervous about the Japanese living near them. So we moved twice before we went to camp.

Did you go to an assembly center?

So we did not go to an assembly center, but I did visit the Fresno assembly center while we were living in Reedley. Because my friends, our neighbors in Oakland had gone to Fresno assembly center. With their relatives, they went there instead of going to Tanforan and the Bay Area. I was just shocked because, well, for one thing, we couldn't get in. There were these like wire fences. And it was like. Seeing your friends in jail, prison, which it was.

We sold whatever we could while we were in Reedley. And I just vaguely remember $5 for a piano, $5 appliances and my father had a fairly new car. And one of our church members who was Caucasian, came and said he would make arrangements to sell it. And I think he did sell it, but I don't think he was ever able to get the money from that. So my father never got paid.

If you look at the point of view of non-Japanese Americans, they could get a lot of good things for pretty cheap and they could shop around and wait until somebody was very desperate.

We were in such a desperate situation, they just gave it away.

Do you remember traveling to Poston?

Yeah. Yes, I do. I, I just said I remember a train being very dusty, dirty, you know. To keep our curtains, blinds closed. And my brother reminded me he said, “Don’t you remember there was little water?” I don't think that trip was too long because it was into Arizona. And it wasn’t a very comfortable trip.

Some people change their memories around. So it sounds a lot better and that's another way to survive too. And if you can remember, it's a fun time, more adventurous time. You know, life is a little simple, life is easier.

And I think the younger ones did feel they had a good time because in camp, the family structure disintegrated. And I think it must've been really difficult for our parents where they no longer had the authority. And the children sort of knew that.

You know, I talked to some people who said they postponed marriage and serious relationships because the times were uncertain. I don’t know if that’s true. 

I think that’s true because I have had some friends who during college had very serious friends and then they were separated because they each went with their families. This one lived in Southern California and then never got back together. Now, on the other hand, others married immediately because that was how they could stay together.

Well, can you tell me a little bit about your first impression of Poston? If you remember that or any of the members – 

Going to Poston from the railroad. They asked us to climb into the back of a truck. Because we had to go. There were three camps in Poston, camp one, two and three. And I don't recall what the mileage differences were, but camp three was at the extreme end. I do remember getting on the back of the truck and being taken to camp three and then being fingerprinted after and then being told to go get your mattress and fill it with straw. And then trying to find our block and our barrack, which was about a 20 by 20, 20 by 18 foot room where the five of us had cots.

I imagine that you were pretty exhausted from the ride. You were probably thirsty and hot and filled with uncertainty as to where this was all leading. Did you know where you were going?

No. We were just following orders and my whole family. You think I felt like I was, we were a herd of cattle. The way we were treated and and then, of course, after we got settled, the first thing we did was go to the mess hall where we were to be fed. And started to think, I know the food was pretty horrible. I can't remember if they were canned beans or pork and beans with weenies, which was not the kind of food to be consumed at home and then having to wait in line for everything – to eat, to go to the bathroom, which was a community latrine with no partitions. Showers were the same and it was very embarrassing to be in that kind of situation. But it's amazing how we all adapted quickly. I think it was the internees, the girls eventually built the partitions and made things more livable.

And partly because we keep so much of our feelings to ourselves so that you don't ever hear the Isseis complaining about the circumstances. I don't know whether they did that for the family's sake. And it was difficult. It was just difficult discipline and discipling the children because there was no privacy and we just didn't want our neighbors to know.

Did you find other women of your age to socialize with?

Yes, there were. There was one family from San Francisco, that we knew who had done exactly the same thing we had done: gone inland California in Central California. So that was really very nice, the Matsumoto’s. And since I knew Lori, I really got to know her better and enjoyed the whole family. And then I can't remember what Lori did, but I was assistant to a Caucasian teacher who had been hired.

Most of the Caucasians, most of the teachers, I think, were hired from the outside. And I just recently read they were paid like $300 a month for their salary, whereas the Japanese American teachers were paid $19. I think as an assistant to the teacher, I was paid about $16. In fact, in Poston there were several teachers who were really kind and were there for the people.

And you adapted. At first it must have been just horrifying to be transported, like you said, like cattle. And then later on that became your regular mode of transportation.

Because once you got in and found that the camp wasn't ready, that really made for very busy work for everybody. Our parents and younger.

You what do you mean by camp wasn’t ready?

I think the doctors, nurses, dentists had to help set up clinics, medical clinics. I think others worked in the store that were going to sell. They just didn't, the supplies weren't available and so in a way that was a salvation to be busy.

Were you able to forget about the rights you used to enjoy before? Were you able to just push it aside and live like you've always lived there?

Well, I was reading a book written by one of my friends and she talks about the things that were deprived, just even riding on an automobile. Or eating an ice cream cone. I don't have any recollections. But I felt I was missing a great deal. 

[But] you're just sort of consumed with the daily aspects of maintaining some part of normal life. And everything took longer and everything was dirtier. And every time you cleaned, there'd be more sand in your barrack room.

There were some church groups that helped set up new locations.

And my brother left because of that.

Did you leave camp before the war was over? 

Yes. And he left earlier. And then I left in June of 1943 and I left under the auspices of the Hemingway family who lived back east. But I never reached their home because they were willing to sponsor me out of camp. But I never reached Washington, D.C., because the government said I was only able to go to as far east as Chicago. So I got off at Chicago. I don't know what the basis of that direction was. You had to be cleared by the FBI. 

So in Chicago I found some young women to live with and I don't know how I made that arrangement. I cannot recall how that took place but I did live on the Southside.

I think the Quakers did a lot of hostels.

Yes, my husband went to a hostel in Chicago, but I did not. I just went directly to the residence of this woman. And then I worked in different places, like the YWCA. I also worked at Chicago Housing and I also worked for the First Presbyterian Church. And then in the meantime, I got married in 1945.

Let's talk about the where and when did you meet your husband?

Well, he was living also in a community with some Nisei men. And in this house, one of the persons had been a student at UC Berkeley. And so it was through that, and I can't remember, I must have gone to parties at their residence. But anyway that's how, because he was from Los Angeles and I had never known him before.

But the fellow student that introduced me was also from Los Angeles. And so he had come to Chicago quite early and noticed there was a job for Dave Chapman Industrial Design. So he applied for that job that he was working when I met him.

How did you decide to move to Oregon?

Well, I think I mentioned to you earlier that we lived in this interracial community outside of Chicago and we moved there in 1953. We became members in 1951, and it took about two years – since we built our own house – took about two years to dig the foundation by hand and put up the walls and pool the electricity and water. And we moved into a shell of a house in 1953. This was about 25 miles due west of Chicago. And I really think we were blessed to find this community because up to that point whenever we looked for housing, I always sensed some discrimination. I think I just got to the point where I just couldn't take another rejection.

So while I was working for the Presbyterian Church, the minister said to me that my daughter is building a house in the interracial co-operative community, and would we be interested? So that's how we heard about it. This community had 69 lots and most were either almost one acre or half acre lots. And so we each chose a lot and ours was almost an acre. And so then we started to build our house. And in 1953 we moved in and this was just a wonderful community. We felt it was the first time I really felt accepted and I didn't have to worry about, you know, I guess I would call it a safe place to live.

And so what happened was, after living there from the 50s to the 70s, we kept talking about maybe wanting to go back to the West Coast, partly for Kim's health, because the winters in Chicago are so severe. The snow and the Windy City. 

And one of the couples [from the co-op] was from Reedley, California. And all of a sudden his brother, who was in Oregon, phoned in and said there's a piece of property that's 135 acres and if you are interested, let me know. And the couples were interested and they decided that they'd like to buy it. So then as we kept talking about moving west and going west one of the couples divided their five acres into half, and so we lived there until, I think, well, for one thing, some of the men started to die.

The husbands died. So then one woman moved out and sold their place, and then the youngest couple, they moved. They bought a house in Eugene. And another woman moved near Sacramento to be with her daughter. So I'm the only one left in that community in company that has a house.

You’ve done a lot of moving across the country. And so, we sort of moved from the camp resettlement time. What you referred was that you often didn't feel safe. You often felt discriminated until you moved to this interracial cooperative community.

But we were only safe in that community. My daughter was saying that outside of that community and even in school, high school, they endured prejudice. And so our young people in that co-op sort of stuck together.But it was a mixed group, and we had our own social events.

Does it have a name?

Yes, it's called the York Center. York Center Community Co-op.

During those years, right after camp, they were already writing resolutions asking the government for reparations and so on. But it really took until the 80s for what really happened. Were you involved at all with the redress movement?

No, I was not.

Were you keeping track of what was happening?

Well sort of? Yeah, but I was not involved in the JACL, which was, there was a chapter in Chicago, and I was thinking about that probably because I was so busy in my own community and family.

When you heard about it, did you think that it would succeed?

Well, I was just looking at some papers, and I think we wrote a statement. 

How did you feel when it passed and eventually the apology letter went out to survivors?

One of my friends at church asked me how I felt and I think it was a relief to see, to acknowledge the fact that the internment was an act of racism or hysteria. But I really felt so sad because both my parents were gone by the time we received the apology and the reparation, and I felt I really felt that they had suffered so much and bore that humiliation with so much grace and dignity. I just was sorry that it came too late.

And so it was a relief that the government officially recognized.

I hope that by telling my story, my children and my grandchildren will remember the spirit of my parents the Issei generation who live with great stoicism. They accepted diversity with much grace and dignity and for me, truly a triumph of the human spirit.

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