Sue Koga and Carolyn Tanaka

Both born before the war, Sueko Koga in 1917 and Carolyn Tanaka in 1935, their experiences as aunt and niece provide different vantage points on the experience of the war, first from the perspective of a young adult and that of a child. In this interview, they recall a purposeful act of vandalism, motivated by prejudice, in the days following the forced removal from their home in Guadalupe, California. “This man that was going to look after the ranch for my brother, he was supposed to take care of it. But while we were gone, they set fire to all our possessions that was in there. The silverware and all of my things my sister in law had in there and my schoolbooks and I just a lot of things that you cannot buy.” While in camp, the Tanaka family saw some of their young male relatives off to the service, and the family held deeply patriotic views throughout the duration of the war and for decades beyond. This interview was conducted in Fresno in December of 2001. 

Sue passed away in 2013 at the age of 95. 

We're at Carolyn Tanaka's home here in Fresno. With her is her Aunt Sue. Can you both start out by telling me your full name and your birth date and your birth place?

Carolyn: My name is Carolyn Hisako Tanaka. I was born Hisako Tanaka and acquired the name Carolyn after WWII. My father decided we needed American names. I was born in Santa Maria, California, on December 15th, 1935.

Sue: My name is Sueko Tanaka, Formerly. And the Sueko is so too hard for the American people to say. They call me Sue. So I got a nickname, Sue. My married name is Koga. I was born in Guadalupe, California, December 30th, 1917.

I'd like for you to paint me a picture of what life was before Pearl Harbor. 

Sue: We lost our mother when I was only barely two. And my father had a big sugar beet farm. He was a foreman on that farm. He had a lot of men working for him. And he didn't like us. Just girls. There were four girls and two boys. Well, one brother died, but so he sent us to the Buddhist Ridge Church, where they had started a children's home in Guadalupe.

And that's where my sisters and I were raised most of my school years. School was far from the country. And so we were riding into town then, and it was close to school, walking distance. And when the other parents heard about this, they sent all their children from the San Louis, Pismo all that area there, they had no school yet grammar school in those days. And so they all came to stay at the children's home and we all went to the grammar school there. And so there was over 50 of us at this children's home. My brother was sent to Japan. My father had sent my brother to Japan to be raised by his mother. By grandma.

So you have memories of growing up in this home.

Sue: Yes. That was my home. Then in the summer vacation, we'd go home to the farm and my father would have a vegetable garden and so we had to help on that. And then later on he had strawberries and all different things and we all worked on the farm in the summer. And then in school days we went back to the home.

Now, Carolyn, your mother is what number? The oldest child?

Carolyn: I guess she was the oldest of the girls. And she was born and raised in Fresno.

So your father didn't go to the children's home?

No. 

So you didn't know about this? So your father stayed on the farm with your dad.

Carolyn: When he finished the equivalent of high school in Japan, my father sent for him back to help him on the farm. And that's when he was 18. So I think he took the girls out of the children's home then, and they became a family once again.

Would you like to paint a picture? We'll come back to you and ask about between here and 1941. What do you remember of your life before Pearl Harbor?

Well, we had a large house and there were two shacks on the farm. And my uncles lived in those two shacks and my uncles and their families, the Tanaka brothers of my grandfather and their children, lived in these other two shacks. And we had fun. I have mostly boy cousins.

And so I hung around with them and, you know, wherever they went, I tag along. Oh, well, with my older brother. And so I became quite a tomboy kind of young age.

Is that how you remember her? 

Sue: Yeah.

Carolyn: And I remember the schoolhouse that I went to in the first grade and started. And it was just one one building for all grades in those days. And they had a little steeple and tower, and it was a bell that they pulled a rope to ring the bell for classes to start. And I remember having being forced to go to Japanese school, which I really hated because the teacher was so strict.

So what saved you?

Carolyn: WWII. We had to move.

Do you remember the day Pearl Harbor was bombed?

Carolyn: Well, you know, when they were rounding up the Japanese, I remember everybody scurrying around and they're not being given time to sell their land or their property. They had to give things away. And all I remember is my grandfather bought a complete Boys Day doll set from Japan for my oldest brother when he was born and he bought a complete Girls Day doll set for me when I was born and it was like they had to give them, I don't know who they went to, but you know, there was a little time to auction them off or sell them or anything.

Sue, do you remember these dolls?

Sue: Yes. And I don't know what happened to them either, but there was so much going on.

And you were busy.

Sue: Yeah, we were. You know, they took us. Took my father. They came and picked up my father right away.

Was he a leader in the Japanese community?

Sue: Not really. Not any more than anybody else. But then they picked up all the Isseis. And then my aunt, she was raising her four children herself because her husband had passed away. And she was so she was living on the same premises in another house. And they took her. Oh, they took her because she was an Issei. And the kids cry because, “Mommy, they're taking my mommy.” They have no daddy. But then they took her. And then after a while they let her come back, I mean what could they pin on her?

Do you remember packing to go to camp?

Sue: Well, first we had to move from Guadalupe. We had to go more to Central California. So since we had a sister and brother in law in Dinuba, that's where we evacuated. And we thought we didn’t have to, you know, that would be the end of it. But no, after we got Dinuba in August, they said we had to [go].

So now we were busy selling, getting rid of what we could not bring with us to our new land. Oh,  like our cameras and things they could not take. So we dug a hole and buried them and put them in the can and buried it and our school annuals. And a lot of my mother's things that we had in a big trunk, we left all of that there in Guadalupe, in one of the empty houses that was on the ranch.

And this man that was going to look after the ranch for my brother, he was supposed to take care of it. But while we were in Dinuba, they set fire, to all our possessions that was in there. The silverware and all of my things my sister in law had in there and my schoolbooks and I just a lot of things that you cannot buy. They were all destroyed. Because we never – we couldn't go back to check to see if it was true or not. But finally after the war we did come back to see. Yeah, there's nothing. The place was totally different.

And what was the report that the people you trusted gave you? You don't even know if they told the truth? 

Sue: Yeah. No, no. So we did lose a lot of things that we treasured. But my brother had trusted him because he had worked for my brother for a long time, and then he let him run the farm while we were incarcerated. You never know, because there was a lot of hatred and racial prejudice that started right away. Oh, it was scary. And so we would move inland, and it was a little better there. But then they say, well, we’re going to put you in camp for your own protection is what they said, because they were throwing those homemade bombs and things at your homes. Some people really, you know, had suffered a lot in the country, as I understand. We were more fortunate. I think.

Well, did you believe them when they said we're going to put you in camp for your own protection?

Sue: No. I really didn’t know what to believe. And then you know, what we took to Dinuba – the necessities, beddings and kitchenware and all that stuff. And then after we got to the venue we had to go from camp from there, we could only have what we could carry with our own two hands. We do had two suitcases. That's about all we could manage and we all have numbers instead of names.

Instead of Star of David you are carrying numbers, right. You were reduced to numbers. Do you remember having the numbers tag?

Carolyn: No I don’t remember the number. I do remember getting on this train that looked like a freight train. I mean like a cattle car. Being packed like sardines into this train.

Well, you were a child then. And a lot of children remember this time as being kind of exciting and fun. Was it like that for you?

Carolyn: Well I imagine it was. And I think, you know, the war had lasted and we were in camp much longer and probably would have been a bunch of rubble around because in camp, I mean, you know, we just played with what we could play. I mean, I don't remember there being like basketball courts or softball diamonds. You know, we did mostly hopscotch and jump rope and play marbles and things like that that we could get a hold of. But no organized team sports.

Sue: I think Camp One had a baseball team. 

Carolyn: You know, we'll have our next block 308-F, they had – well every camp had a baseball diamond. And even these boys that play baseball, the Nisei boys that played baseball, like my Uncle Harvey. They took that game of baseball into camp with them, and they traveled from camp to camp and had competition.

So they got special permission to travel for sports purposes.

Carolyn: Yes. I think baseball is very important because if it were not for the baseball being in all those camps, the young men, you know, they would have nothing to keep their hopes up or morale up. And I think it was important for the people of that age to be able to, you know, belong to a baseball team and travel.

Now, who paid for the transportation and all of that?

I guess they all chipped in and, you know, and they were I was told that as many as 5,000 people watched the game. So maybe they charged admission. I don't really remember going.

Did you go to the games? 

Sue: No. I was too busy because we were working. Oh. After we got to camp, I was working in the kitchen.

Now, since you were born in 1917, by the time 1941 came around you were, 23 or 24, did you have children already?

Sue: No, I was not married. I got married in camp.

In camp. So you had a little romancing.

Sue: [Laughs] Not really, it was baishakunin [matchmaker].

Oh! It was arranged?

Carolyn: Oh yeah? I didn’t even know that.

Things that you learn. What was your husband’s name? 

Sue: His name is Toshiyuki Koga, Tom for short. Well, see, because he was a policeman in the camp, and I used to make his midnight snack for him. Then he'd go to work, and he lived in a third apartment, and I lived in the head, first number one apartment. And so he would always pass by in front of our apartment. And I, you know, we would sit outside because it’s warm and then, I just asked him if there was anything that he didn't like in his lunch, and he would tell me, and I would just try to not put it in. But people saw us talking and they put two and two together and they had bigger ideas than he or I did. Well I don’t know if he had any intention, but I sure didn’t. 

So you just obediently dated.

Sue: Well I guess it won’t hurt anything. Well you know in camp, everybody's trying to marry you off to somebody else if you are single. At least in our block.

All right, So there was a lot of matchmaking. Is that because people had time or – 

Sue: I guess that's one of the reasons and they had a lot of single girls, some single bachelors of the right age. So before something happened, I guess they thought they should marry them off.

So Carolyn, you lost out on all this romance in camp because you were too young, but you remember having a lot of fun playing?

Carolyn: I was in the second grade in camp, but I remember a student sitting next to me in second grade, and he was the best looking Japanese boy I ever saw, you know, outside of the teacher who I thought was handsome. I had a crush on him.

At such a young age. Well, do you as a child, remember being inconvenienced by life in camp? Did you think it was worse or – 

Carolyn: You know, they showed movies and we took our leftovers from dinner and have bento at the movies and take the boxes when it's cold and warm up our leftovers. And so when we as kids, we had a good time, you know, and just like in Guadalupe, I tagged along with my brothers and hung around with his pals, more than playing dolls or with my cousins, you know, my female cousins. I went off with my male cousins and went fishing or whatever they did in the creeks. And followed my older brother around.

So would you say as a child in camp, you weren't aware of the fact that certain rights were taken away and such. You were kind of shielded from that part?

Carolyn: I guess so, yeah. I mean we realize even at that young age that we were taken against our will and then forced into these internment camps and who knew for how long? Because, you know, when you know how long the war would last, we heard that our countries were at war. And you knew that there was barbed wire all the way around and you couldn't really go where you wanted to go.

Do you remember the guard towers?

Carolyn: I remember the guard towers. I remember the rifles being pointed inward at us instead of outward at the perimeter. So as an adult you know when they said well, we're being put camp for protection, but then why were the guns pointed inward at us?

Did you think about your constitutional rights?

Sue: Oh yes, we were very upset about that. But then there was nothing we could do. We were in the camp.

Well there were some rabble rousers.

Sue: Well yeah. We didn't want any kind of trouble among us in the camp. We wanted it to be peaceful. But then when they were called to serve in the army, that's when there was a lot of trouble.

Was the trouble in Poston 3?

Sue: Well in one, two and three. Because of the cruel punishment, we were put in camp and why should we serve, protect America while we were put in camp with no reason except that we had an Oriental face? And they didn't give us a chance to say anything, they just rounded us up and put us in there.

And so one day the younger men, they said they would go volunteer and go. There was this clash with mostly the Kibei, I guess that were pro-Japanese. Then there our boys, born and raised in America. Very loyal. Because they had no other country and this was our country and we're going to fight for it. And so there was big trouble then.

I'd like to ask both of you about the loyalty questionnaire because I'm sure you and your husband had to fill it out and Carolyn, I know you didn't have to fill out because you were too young, but you were around all these older people who had to. I wanted to ask you if you were aware of the whole turmoil or did your family answer it easily and everybody said to answer it yes/yes?

Carolyn: Well, there was no question in my mind as far as my family's loyalty to America, because all my male cousins that were able bodied went off to fight. From WWII on down to Vietnam, they all did their part as American citizens to serve their country.

So that's how you remember it.

Sue: Because we didn't know – we don't have any other country. We were born here and raised here and this is our country.

The wording for questions number 27 and 28 were kind of controversial because it said, you know, that you forswear allegiance to the emperor of Japan, I mean, it was kind of a tricky, tricky wording. 

Sue: Well, there was a lot of controversy on that. You know, that I don't remember now what I said, But anyway, it was loyalty to America.

So if you were in a baseball team and you paid your way, you could go to other camps in different states. But in the earlier stages, you weren't even allowed to go to your own relatives’ funerals in a different camp.

Carolyn: I think my uncle died with tuberculosis. And the only notification my aunt [had] were his ashes. They sent his ashes. The family wasn't even given compassionate leave to visit his deathbed.

And so the administration allowed camp teams to travel. Yes, but not for bereavement.

Carolyn: No.

Interesting, huh?

Carolyn: Because we're not coming to California. He was in a hospital in Santa Maria or something. They’d never let us come. We could go east. In fact, my cousins used to swim in the Colorado River, right on the California-Arizona border. And if they swam more than half the distance of the river, they would start shooting at them because it was a imaginary boundary line in the middle of that Colorado River. And they could not pass that. But they were allowed to swim and fish on the Arizona side of that river.

So you couldn't travel from Poston Three to Poston One.

Carolyn: I only went to Poston One to go to the doctor cause we had no doctor in our camp. And I got injured in the second grade. And I remember going in an Army vehicle from Camp Three across Camp Two to Camp One for the doctor was. That’s the only time I visited, you know, any other camp was to see the doctor.

Sue: I guess it was all camps and very similar, weren't they?

Maybe. But your stories are always unique. Like, I didn’t know you had a baby in camp. For some people, if they had a baby with special needs, it was heart wrenchingly difficult. I know people who basically traded away any heirlooms that they had for goat's milk so that the baby would survive. But maybe you had a healthy baby with no complications like this.

Sue: We were lucky it was towards the end, just before the war ended. He was born in December.

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, and you were also talking about how difficult it was because you had just a few dollars, you remember $29? 

Carolyn: $25. I was looking at my notes. 

Now is this $25 including your son? Or only adults. Well, what did people do who had like five children?

Sue: I think that’s a good question. But see, my sister Toshi with her three or four kids and Helen had four and I had one. There's nine children. I think the three of us were living together.

And we were, you know, in a cramped, small house, but then we had to make the best of it. This was in Fresno. And of course we were looking at Fresno. Now then finally, Victor ((McClaglin)) the actor he was more open minded and he says, “Oh, yeah, you could do work at my place.” And so he gave all our men jobs on his ranch. Like he was an actor and he was a well known rich guy. And so I guess people kind of left him alone that he gave the Japanese, a few Japanese a job so they could get started. ‘Cause a lot of them said no we don’t want Japs, smaller farmers. They just kept throwing rocks and things and so we were really afraid of coming out of camp.

They were throwing rocks at women and children. 

Sue: Yeah. It wasn’t for too long, but then we moved away after he got the job. We moved to Kingsburg. So then after we got enough money to move and survive for a little bit, we went and got our own place in Kingsburg on a farm, as farm laborers. We were farm laborers.

Your own place, meaning your own house to rent?

Sue: They gave us a house, but she says, “We won’t charge you rent.” But then she took it from his wages anyway, so he just got a real small income because she took it. Just unfair and it was just the house. So, you know, my husband had to make furniture all over again out of scrap lumber. Whatever we could scrape up. Cheap dishes and just really I had never lived like that, you know, and we had to make a living. 

And do you remember this period?

Carolyn: I don't remember the work that they did.

Sue: But you remember us living together?

Carolyn: Yeah.

So this was three families.

Sue: No privacy. One bathroom and whole bunch of people. I don't know how we slept, but it was so crowded. We just all stepped on each other. Practically. I don’t know how we managed to, but what we ate, I don't even remember. Maybe potato soup. For all I know, we just made rice gruel. No help back then.

I was going to say, young people nowadays don't realize is that when you're that destitute back then there was no government aid.

Sue: You know, when we lived in Kingsburg, you know, we didn't have a car. We couldn't afford a car. So, I had to walk to the store two miles every day, pushing the two kids and a baby buggy and buy the grocery for the day and bring it home. And we didn't have a refrigerator. All we had there was a washtub with a chunk of ice in it. We ice delivered every day, and that was keeping the meat and milk cool. And he built a cooler outside with little water running on. People would get the vegetables and other things.

So I had to go off and buy a little bit every day, just what we were going to use for each day. You know, when you think back, you just don't know how you did it, you know, just hanging in there like by sheer grit, I guess. Knowing you have to survive and you don't want your children to go through this kind of thing ever. You had make a better living for the children. And I think that was a lot of the problem with the Niseis – we did this so our own, our children and their children, their kids got to the point where they didn't know what it was to – just spoiled, they just got spoiled and they cannot appreciate.

They get very materialistic now. Not everybody but some of them I should say, it was all part of life. We went through so much, I never wanted my boys to have to go through what we went through. So we never talked about it, we never talked about it.

Times are different now. You know, this is the 21st century now. So, you know, that seems like something very remote to them. And then there are those that are so interested, they want to know the history of their parents and grandparents and all that. So, you know, then all the different things that.

I listen to these stories because I think there's so many lessons to be learned. You were talking before about how history keeps repeating itself. The military keeps making the same mistake, the government keeps making the same mistakes. What do you think the lessons are? 

Carolyn: Well, I think there's an important thing for young people to understand and appreciate. You know, what our ancestors went through, particularly, you know, people of my grandfather, my father, they just, they're the ones that really suffered for us, you know. I mean, I was a kid during internment.

And resettlement.

Carolyn: Was happy time for us, you know, we played. And so we didn't have responsibilities to speak of, you know, But young people have to know what our parents and grandparents went through. And so that if there should be another war, you know, they should meet the challenges that were brought forth by any war.

Sue: Something to know is it was because of the 442nd and the Hawaiian group that fought for us for our rights here, that we were able to get all these good jobs now. But now the kids could get good jobs and good paying jobs and make their way up there. But, you know, if they ever stop to think that this was all due to all the lives that were sacrificed during WWII. But, you know, hey, it gets like a preaching to them or lecturing to them.

Well, most kids have never had children of other ethnic races throwing rocks at them. You know, you were talking about people throwing, rocks. I mean, these are not just children. These are adults, too.

Sue: And yeah, they were, you know, throwing bombs and things in the house.

Did you personally experience?

Sue: No but our friends did. We were very lucky.

Terrifying, isn't it? So you had friends who were threatened by bombs or rocks or both?

Sue: Well, those homemade bombs were filled with gasoline of, what is it, a rag and stuff that they throw. Light it and then throw it in.

Well, where did this happen? 

Sue: In Guadalupe. And they would say, “Japs go home. You don't belong here. Go back to Japan.” So they say you don’t know have as much right here as they do. But there was no time to talk back then because they’ll shoot us. 

Carolyn: Even as a child, I remember  just going to the movie theater in West Fresno, when children our ages, would fill their mouths with water and spit on us and on call us Japs. My older brother and I were sitting in the movie.

How old were you?

Carolyn: I was 9 and my brother was 11. Yeah I mean, we couldn’t do anything. Because they would just, you know, they’d probably punch your lights out if you tried to resist them or call them names back.

Because they don't learn that by themselves. They learned that from their own parents or some other bad role model. And they probably say something way worse than what they're doing. How do you keep up your morale? 

Carolyn: You try to do your best, whatever you're doing, and your parents teach you in school apply yourself and to work hard and get good grades and you know, and you get along so well. So I was in the fifth grade when I came out of camp, went to Lincoln Elementary School and then sixth grade. And then I went to Fresno Colony, seventh and eighth grade, and Edison high school in the ninth grade. So, you know, pretty much, I did my studies and be a good citizen.

Yeah. You got your positive reinforcement from teachers who recognized your talents and academic and athletic achievement. You also worked on the farm.

Carolyn: Oh, yes. Keeping busy, you know, that kept you out of trouble really.

I'm just going to focus on those years when you went to camp and the resettlement. Plus, in that period, I want to ask you about redress. Some people were watching on the sidelines being rather skeptical that anything would come out of it. What stances did you take?

Carolyn: Well you know, they say seeing is believing. So until I saw the money, and I didn't really believe it was going to happen. 

Aunt Sue, what did you think about the redress movement?

Sue: Well, I gave credit for all these young people who went to Washington to fight for us. And I believed in them. They were really trying and I supported them.

If you had a chance to tell young people now about lessons, if you want to have them learn something from your own experiences, what might that be?

Sue: Well, realize the sacrifices that the second generation and some of this third generation, it's due to thanks to them that we are able to hold our heads up high now and, and get the jobs that we were not able to get before. So we owe them a lot of thanks. And so many lives have been lost. I think if we didn't do that at that time, I don't think we would still be in the prejudiced group mostly, but we still are at times. But I mean, how good that we have it now.

If it weren’t for the – 

The volunteers, the 442nd.

So you have a a real strong feeling, I think, about those soldiers from WWII. 

Sue: Because when they left the camps, they had to go through a lot to volunteer because there were those that were against their going, and calling them names and making it very difficult.

Carolyn: That’s why my aunt and I, we felt so strongly about the Japanese-American memorial that we went to Washington, D.C. for the dedication of that memorial. And I was also on a local fundraiser for the project here, in Central California location because we lost a cousin in that war while we were all in an internment camp. So we supported that. 

So Sue, I guess you got to say your message to young people. But Carolyn what lessons do you hope that young people learn about themselves? 

Carolyn: Well we hope that they learn not to repeat the same mistake again in future wars. You know, we can be mindful of the sacrifices, like our parents did, not just of the Japanese American soldiers that went off in WWII, but the sacrifices of all our war personnel, both the military and civilian in all of our wars. You know, speaking as a woman, you know, I want young people to understand that women also went to war.

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