noboru “Nobby” Nakamura

“When he got out of there, the will to live was gone. He was a changed person. And I think a lot of it had to do with, I don't know, but I just have a feeling that he felt that some of the other Japanese men maybe put him on the spot.” 

Noboru Nakamura was a unique case of being born in Japan, but culturally raised as a Nisei in Reedley, California, the youngest of eight children. With one of his older sisters living in Japan, and his family maintaining deep ties to the Japanese language and culture through kendo, Noboru’s father was taken by the FBI following Pearl Harbor, cruelly shuffled around to several detention centers. Noboru, by then serving in the Military Intelligence Service, visited his father once while being held in Lordsburg, New Mexico, calling it the worst decision he made. The memory of his father imprisoned on one side of the fence, while he was a soldier for the U.S. on the other, continued to haunt him him into his senior years, reflecting on how his father was a changed man after his unjust incarceration. 

Noboru passed away on April 20, 2016 at the age of 91. This interview was conducted by Grace Megumi Fleming in Orinda, CA. 

I'd like to start out by asking you your full name and when and where were you born?

Noboru Nakamura. I was born on March 19, 1925, in Hirao, Yamaguchi, Japan.

So you're Issei.

I guess so [chuckles]. My mother took my brothers and sisters back from America. They were all born here. She took them back to study, and stayed there for six years while my father sent over money from the US.

And you were born in that period, so your mother took the voyage, the long voyage back to Japan while she was pregnant with you. She's a tough woman.

That's the way it is. My mother's father was from a line of master builders, and she was the chief dishwasher and cook and servant. And she did some drafting for my family's father.

So your mother helped the drafting as well as everything else. Did that influence your decision to become an architect?

She guided me into architecture, and I've been there ever since.

So here you are, the youngest of eight kids. And all your brothers and sisters were born in the States. But you started your life in Japan. Did your brothers and sisters all speak English?

No, they all spoke Japanese. When we came back, I started life at another camp, in immigration on Angel Island with my mother for about a month and a half. My sisters and brothers all went through and my father was there. It was like a prison, really. My oldest sister stayed back in Japan because my parents wanted to retain the family name in the community. 

So you came back to be with your father and brothers, but because you and your mother were non-resident aliens, you had to stay at this camp.

It was like prison, really. They didn't want any contact. 

And your father continued to farm during this time? What did he grow?

Grapes and peaches and plums. And we did some vegetables.

This was in Reedley, California. Do you remember your life in Reedley?

Going to school, coming home, working on the farm, and sometimes working before school. And it was a very difficult time because of the Depression. You had to make everything count. 

Do you remember the day Pearl Harbor was bombed?

Yes. It was traumatic. I have since read a lot about the events and what led to them. There was a lot of intelligence that the United States had. A lot of information that suggested Pearl Harbor was coming. Yet they weren't prepared...and then the American public went up in arms and started the so-called war effort. If you take a society of people who are peace loving and expect them to become Rosie the Riveter overnight, you need a catastrophic event. And I think this was it.

How did you find out about Pearl Harbor? 

A friend heard it on the radio. It was a shock...

You were born in 1925. That was '41. That would make you 16.

Something like that. I was a junior in high school. We left for camp before I could start my senior year, in August of 1942. The thing that really bothers me about going to camp is that the church people didn't say a damn thing. Somebody should have gotten up and said, “What’s going on?” But you didn't hear a peep. And the reason is intimidation.

Even as a 16-year-old, you still thought somebody should have spoken up.

I thought someone should have. Someone's got to say this is not right.

Where was your father at this time?

He was pulled in by the FBI.

What was the reason?

Well, he was a leader in the community. He had a daughter in Japan. He was corresponding and sending money to her. We had to take kendo, and the Japanese language and all that. And there you go, he was picked up just like that. I think he was put into Fresno County jail and then to Tanforan, then Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then to Lordsburg, New Mexico. And then he was paroled, finally allowed to go back to the internment camp at Poston, Arizona, Camp III. 

After leaving camp, I had a pass to go overseas to serve. I visited him, that was a big mistake. I visited him in Lordsburg, New Mexico. That was the worst feeling I’ve ever had. Seeing him like that. And here I was, a soldier. There was a private or somebody with a gun, and there's a fence – he’s there and I’m here. And we're talking and what can you say? Just – it's terrible.

How about you, how long were you in Poston?

I think I went in early January and in February, I left. You could leave if you had a job. A friend of mine from Reedley and I got jobs as dishwashers for a hotel in Colorado Springs. At the hotel, they put us in the stables to sleep. The horses ate all night, and you couldn't sleep. So we went to the manager one night, and asked them to get us out of there. He moved us under the bleachers of the Spencer Federal Stadium.

Do you think that was better than being in camp for you?

I think it gave me an opportunity to, you know, go in any direction I wanted to go in.

That's looking at it positively.

I had kind of a freedom of choice. And so, you make your own way after that. But it was a very tough subsistence. You had to survive. We lived on Larimer Street in Denver, which was skid row at the time.

And that's how you survived the Depression years?

Right. And you couldn't ask your family for money because they were at camp. And so, you had to do the best you can. 

When did you apply to school?

December of '44. Camp Savage in Minnesota. And I got my citizenship three months later. But I didn't get the papers until I was honorably discharged. So, I think I probably was one of the first Japanese to get an American citizenship. Because the McCarran Act wasn't until 1950.

What did you do when you were in MIS (Military Intelligence Services)?

At first, I was with the Signal Corps, mostly doing interpreting. When I went to Japan, we were trying to set up communications for troops that were coming in. So I went in September of '45. That was right after they signed the treaty. And it was a mess. Tokyo was a mess.

When you say it was a mess, you mean the buildings, the people?

Just kind of devastated, really. And there was no food. And, you know, you go to the train station, and you see people on the stairs, and they're dead. You would find them at Ueno Station, because that was a big station, where people caught trains to the country. And the country is where you have food. They were out there in the cold, waiting for the train. After the war ended, they weren't organized. It was kind of a free for all. I try not to go back to, you know, into the war years. It was...it's a tough situation.

That is a horrible mess. I'd seen photos of buildings devastated. But I didn't realize there were people just dying.

They were, they were. I got friendly with a family and would go to the country and pick up vegetables and bring it back.

The other thing was that I was on a team that was supposed to leave and fly to Okinawa and I got sick, so I ended up in the 49th General Hospital. In the Philippines, that plane crashed, and they all died in Okinawa. My brother who was in the I-Core at that time in the Philippines, he knew I was gonna be, you know, traveling at that time. So he came to Manila and he found me at the hospital and we made a very happy reunion, I guess.

You are a survivor. Whether you were at the immigration camp or Poston or under the bleachers and in the stables.

I was in Japan until March of '46. And that was enough. I had enough points. I wanted to get back and start my schooling. I got back in March to work summer on the farm, before starting school in September.

How were your parents?

My father really changed after he got back from the INS camps.

Right, they were the federal facilities. 

When he got out of there, the will to live was gone. He was a changed person. And I think a lot of it had to do with, I don't know, but I just have a feeling that he felt that some of the other Japanese men maybe put him on the spot.

You mean, reported him to the FBI?

They called that inu. 

It was a prison camp. I mean, if you didn't behave the way they wanted you to, they had clubs to beat you with.

Yeah. That, that was a very sad episode in American history, and I don't think anyone really knows what went on there. No one has really talked to these people who were there and the ones who ran it aren't willing to talk.

They're mostly gone. So here your father was back at the farm, but his will to live was gone. Could he farm?

Well, my brother was running the farm by then. You know, before they used to have discussions – not just discussions – arguments about how to farm. My brother was always looking for extra profit and my father always felt that you should only deal with people who treated you well through the years. That you should always deal with them.

Loyalty.

He didn't speak very good English either. But that's how he farmed, through long-standing relationships. We used to buy clothes on credit at the dry goods store, and he would pay after the harvest. And the banks all knew him. “How much money do you want?” And he would tell them, and they would give it to him on credit. 

After he was released, after the war, he didn't argue with your brother at all?

He just sat around quietly. He did farm. And that was his life. He got up, and he would pray to the North, South, East, West. That was the way he operated. I think he was a Shinto. And rain or shine, he'd be out in the field praying. 

Your father's way of farming sounds beautiful.

I know it. To be a farmer was to be without language. To survive, you had to have people who trusted you. 

I want to ask about the redress movement and what you thought of it.

It was a wonderful thing, but you know, who's to say $20,000 is enough to cover the years of anxiety and suffering. Who's to say? I have a feeling that the government just wanted to clear their conscience.

So, it wasn't just the citizens pushing for it but you think that the government and the executive branch wanted to do something?

I think so. Otherwise, it would never have happened. I think it was a good thing that the government did that. But I think it's important that the Japanese Americans not forget this internment, and if oppressed people are again put into this situation, that they have to stand up. They have to raise their fist, and say no, you can't do that.

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