yuri okamoto

Yuri Okamoto was born and raised in the Central Valley and in various farming communities in California (Planada, Gilroy, Watsonville and Sanger) as her parents worked as ranchers. In this brief but powerful interview, she recalls her time growing up in a pre-war world dotted with hostile encounters from non-Japanese people. The most stark recollection she carries is of her brother being shot inside their home from a passing car. “When we were still in Gilroy, our house was shot into. At the time, we lived right close to the highway. It was flimsy house. It hit my brother in the knee. My father thought, I can't leave my family in this house.” 

I'm in Yuri Okamoto's lovely home in Fresno. And I'll start out by asking you to give me your full name. 

Yuri Okamoto. It was supposed to be Lily, but I didn't like the word “lily.” It was too delicate for somebody like me, who was a tomboy. I was born in Planada, California, which is a very small junction near Merced. Born in central California, and I'm still here in central California. That was in 1924. My mother named me Lily, or Yuri, because I was born in May, when the yuri (lily) bloom was out.

Tell me about your family history, before World War II.

Well, my father's family first settled in Oakland, but his primary childhood years were in Stockton. When the 1906 earthquake was up in San Francisco, he was out in the asparagus fields. He could see the dark clouds from Stockton.

Did they stay long in Oakland?

It was long enough for him to go to school. By the time he quit he had gotten into third grade or so. Once, I asked my father why he didn't continue school. He said that after school, white kids would come after him with rocks, calling him “Jap” and things like that. So, one day he quit, and in those days, they could quit. After, he just worked with his father, my grandfather, out in the fields. Then my mother came when she was 17. That was in 1917. They married, and their family started right away. No birth control pills. They left their parents in Stockton, and started on their own. They moved place to place, working on ranches.

And where did you live, growing up?

The first thing I remember was Watsonville, when one of my sisters was born. I must have been about four. My mother went to the hospital, but my grandmother stayed with us. It was stormy, and it was January, and we were crying. And my grandmother tried to, you know, keep us from crying. She would say, “Mama will be home soon. She's going to have a baby,” and all that.

Did she speak to you in Japanese?

Oh, yes. She didn't ever learn to speak enough English to get by. And then I remember we moved to Gilroy and that's where my brother was born, and my sister, the last ones. So, most of our growing up years were in that area of Gilroy. I went to Gilroy High School.

Did you graduate during the war?

I graduated in '42. We were the last graduates of Gilroy High School. But we left in about March of that year, soon after Order 9066 came up. So, we didn't even get to go to our own graduation. Our diplomas were mailed to us. I did go for a short time to Sanger High because we went to live in Sanger. You moved to Sanger because you thought maybe, just maybe, you wouldn't have to go to camp. At first there was a boundary. It might have been something like Clovis Avenue, the dividing line, all the people who lived west of Clovis would have to go into the camp. And all those east can stay out. So that's why we were in Sanger. But later, they included that area. All the way up to the mountains and including the mountains. All of California. And then they shipped us to Gila.

What was life like in Sanger, before the camp?

There were about ten families from around San Jose and Gilroy area that came together. At first, we lived in tents on a farmer's land. He was very nice to us, and it was like communal living. All the parents cooked together.

Do you remember where they took you from Sanger? Did they ship you to an assembly center?

No, we did not go to any assembly [center]. We went straight to Gila. And I remember that day. We still had the family car. I don't remember what happened to it. I guess my father sold it. I'm not sure. From the place where we were living, to the railroad station in Sanger, I don't remember. It's amazing what one remembers. And what leaves us. But I do remember when we were at the station. My father kept saying stick together. There were so many people. Just chaos. Chaos, soldiers, little kids. 

What was that like?

It was like, where did all these people come from? They were strangers to us.

And how traumatic, when your parents thought they could escape imprisonment by moving out to Sanger.

I remember that when we were in Sanger, one of the girls was kidnapped in Gilroy and raped. A young Nisei girl. It was a home invasion. They took her. That was in the late spring, and the way we learned about it––because we didn’t have the newspaper––was over the radio. That's what we were caught up in. That's what we were escaping.

And was she killed?

No, she was not killed. They let her go about a mile away from home and she walked.

A lot of these things never did hit the books. When we were still in Gilroy, our house was shot into. At the time, we lived right close to the highway. It was flimsy house. It hit my brother in the knee. My father thought, I can't leave my family in this house. And my sister was the oldest one. So, it was selected that she go with one of our neighbors to take him to the hospital. The doctors said, well, we have to amputate. Fortunately, my sister had the fortitude to say no. And so they didn't. 

Well, no wonder your parents decided that they wanted to move away from Gilroy.

Well, I don't know if it was even much of a choice, they had some friends who were going, and they thought, we better go, too. We must have looked like those people in Oklahoma, trying to get away from the dustbowl.

Tired. Worried.

Oh yes. We started out in the morning about nine or ten. We didn't reach Sanger until dark. That's how long it took. We had to stop because one of the families had car trouble. We thought, we have to stick together. We didn't want to lose anyone. We arrived in the dark, and I remember thinking, where are we? I was 17, 18. 

It got to be routine, those of us who hadn't finished school took the bus, parents worked in the fields thinning out the grape vineyards. Then came August when we were told we had to go. We were being interned. 

How did your parents take it?

At 18, my goodness, we were still very young. All I knew was that all I can remember was that they had to do the packing. The Isseis were very much in charge of their families. There was none of this teenage rebellion. We never talked back to our parents. I have the book on kata (form, discipline), and that's what they were coming from. And then let's see, in August, we got on the train.

What was the train ride like?

All I remember was we were just scared, and we sat very quietly. Those who had lots and lots of friends, I remember they were kind of going up and down, up, and down the aisle and all that. All I remember was we had to sit quietly in our seats, because we didn't know a lot of people. And the train had to stop when there was another train coming. It seemed forever. I guess it took two days and a night to go from Fresno to Gila. When we got to Gila it was during the day. We were put on buses and then, and then into the camp. They gave each family head the number of the block we would be staying in. They would fill up one block, and then keep going. And when finally, my father came out, and said, okay, we got it. We had to carry whatever we had. And there were open trenches, dust, and still buses were coming in. While we were talking, busloads more of them came in.

Did you feel like a prisoner?

I just knew that we were put someplace where there's a lot of other people who looked like us. I don't remember feeling like I'm a prisoner. But I knew there were guards. I knew that they were putting us someplace where we can't get out. We had a barracks we could call home, but we knew we couldn't get out. And if that's a feeling in prison, I suppose so.

What was life like in the barracks?

Well, when we first got there, we can see the sky through the roof. We could hear everything, and dust would come through the floor, because the floor was just plain wood. Then they started putting flooring in and putting up tar paper on the roofs, so that we didn't see sky anymore. But it was just one room that all of us got. We had one area we called our parlor. That's where we sat. My father put up partitions where our beds were, so it was a little nicer. 

So your father was handy?

Yeah. He worked on the farm. He was one of the supervisors on the farm.

I see. And what did you grow at Gila?

Well, it was an area where nothing had grown before, it was desert-like. So, they had to bring in canal water. They were able to grow just about everything right there. He loved that, because he was a farmer. He knew the trade. 

Did you have to work as well?

Everybody out of high school had to work, so we all wondered what we wanted to do. And at first, I worked in the administration mess hall, which was where the kitchen staff ate. But I knew I wanted to get into nursing, and so then I applied to become a nurse's aide. A lot of my girlfriends were going to St. Mary's in Minnesota, where there is that big clinic, and some other schools, like some went to a Philadelphia women's hospital, but I had a friend who was going to Saint Joseph Hospital in Bloomington. And so, I said, okay, I'll go to Saint Joseph's. So I left camp, not knowing I was ill at the time. Most of the girls who went into nursing school with me didn't have to go overseas, because by this time they didn't need as many nurses. 

So, you never went overseas?

No, I didn't. I was hospitalized with tuberculosis for a month there (in Bloomington), and my father came to join me, then I was transferred to a sanatorium where I stayed for six months until my sputum was completely negative. Traveling during the war was very hectic. I remember on the train, over half were military men going to and from deployment. Which was kind of scary for me. Little Japanese woman, girl, you know, in and among everybody.

How did it feel returning to camp, after your illness?

That was at least '44, '45, about a year before we got out. I got back to camp about September, August or September. And it just felt like, gosh, what's going to happen to us? Everybody's leaving. What's going to happen to us?

Like you were stuck in a ghost town.

Yeah, it really was. It was sort of scary. There was a feeling, I remember. What's going to happen? And my parents had to decide what to do. We didn't have anything to go back to. But my uncle had left earlier and had found a place in Sanger. They said there's room for you here.

What was it like leaving? 

We left on a bus. It was a chartered bus, but the driver seemed very angry. My mother was so carsick, and he wouldn't stop, he just kept going. And when we stopped, it was just a few minutes for lunch. He would say, come on, we're on a schedule. And I was like, you're not on a schedule, you're not picking anybody else up. He was going so fast. It was almost a full 24-hour ride from the camp to Fresno. I remember everyone rode in silence there. No talking, no nothing.

Did you have somewhere to stay when you arrived?

We arrived in Fresno quite late, but the Methodist church was open, and they were receiving evacuees, feeding them, and giving us a place to sleep for the night until we could go. And that's where we stayed the first night. And then the next morning they told us that there's a bus that goes from Fresno to Sanger. So, we walked up to the bus station, which was quite far. It was like we were homeless people. I remember wishing nobody would see us, and if a car went by you would, you know, sort of hope that we became all of a sudden invisible. Well, I mean, it was such an insult, you know, to be put in camps and go through all the humiliation of all that.

I wonder if you could tell me your thoughts about reparations, redress for that kind of humiliation. 

Well, around that time (of the redress), we had kind of an open discussion at church, and I thought, I'm going to say something. I thought reparation was not necessarily due, but was needed in so many cases. After, there was one fellow who got up. He was an attorney. He got up and said we ought not to have things like reparations. And besides, he said, the Nisei have done well. Well, he does not know about many of the Niseis. We did not do so well, some would miss their opportunity to go to school. There were many who were just working as day laborers. And of course, he didn't know them.

If you could pass on a message to the young people today, a word of advice or a word of caution, what would it be?

Love your nation. Be open about what's going on. Among us Niseis, we were told not to make waves, and be quiet. Be almost invisible. And I think that's not enough when something like this situation now comes along. We need to stand by our convictions.

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