Interviews
Involvement in JACL
Well, I’m living here almost 60 years. Maybe for many years, I had no contact with the JACL. As I told you, I just joined after maybe I was 60 years old. At that period, there was no place to say I’m a Japanese American, or I’m getting together with the Japanese American people like that because there’s not such kind of gathering in all of Japan. And there's no guy about my age, and there's nobody who was in a camp. There’s nobody who experienced camp. So in that sense, I’m special also... because they don’t know what camp is. Well, at least I was a kid, but I was in camp three and a half years. I was in barbed wire fence. But, people who came back to Japan before the war don’t know what camp is and how it was to be relocated or segregated—I don’t know what you call it. So even the younger JACL boys, well they say they heard something from their parents, but they really don’t know anything about it.
Date: September 11, 2003
Location: Tokyo, Japan
Interviewer: Art Nomura
Contributed by: Art Nomura, Finding Home.
Explore More Videos
Being on the outside
(b.1948) Nikkei from Southern California living in Japan.
Working at the magazine
(b.1948) Nikkei from Southern California living in Japan.
His parents' experience with Japanese resistance toward intermarriage with Okinawans
(b.1925) Nisei of Okinawan descent. Had a 38-year career in Japan as a baseball player, coach, scout, and manager.
The birth of a novel through a conversation with her nephew
(b. 1934) Writer
Working in cane fields as teenager, and how it helped in his athletic training (Japanese)
(b.1925) Nisei of Okinawan descent. Had a 38-year career in Japan as a baseball player, coach, scout, and manager.
Nickname
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Mixed emotions after declaration of war on Japan
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Response to loyalty questionnaire
(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII
Larry designing chairs in the camp
Sister of automotive designer Larry Shinoda
Move from Tule Lake to Minidoka
(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII