Interviews

1. Mother's immigration to U.S. as a treaty merchant

2. Ransacking of family home by FBI following the bombing of Pearl Harbor

3. Witnessing father's arrest through a child's eyes

4. Memories of trip to Japan on the exchange ships

5. Living in Japan during the war, preparing for U.S. bombings

6. Witnessing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

7. Participating in military drills in school in Japan during the war

8. Hearing anti-American war propaganda from a teacher

9. The hardships of life in Japan during World War II

Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto

(b. 1927) Japanese American Nisei. Family voluntarily returned to Japan during WWII.

Participating in military drills in school in Japan during the war

In the mornings we would strip down, have a white top on with the monpe (female loose work pants) on and we'd have the teams, red, the hachimaki (headband) and it was a kind of a drill that we had. It was cold, it happened to be, I remember it was cold. We all had a bamboo stick and as the commands were called out we would go forward, forward, mae, mae. Meaning, and then we were told that when the shinchuu, Amerika-no shinchuugun (Ameircan Occupation Forces) comes, you know, dosuruka (what should we do?). So we would go forward, forward, and we were told, they didn't come out to say that we would be raped or whatever, but that's kind of the thing they were preparing us for.

Japan military training World War II

Date: August 3 & 4, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei female. Born December 30, 1927 in Seattle, Washington. Lived in Japan for fifteen months as a child, before returning to Seattle to attend junior high school. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, father was picked up by the FBI and taken to the Department of Justice camp at Missoula, Montana. Removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington, before being reunited with father at the Minidoka incarceration camp, Idaho. Family volunteered to leave for Japan in 1943 on the U.S. government's exchange ship, the USS Gripsholm. Attended high school in Japan, and participated in military and air raid drills. During the U.S.'s postwar occupation of Japan, attended Doshisha University and worked for a U.S. army station hospital library. Returned to the U.S. and enrolled at St. Mary's teaching hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. Denied redress because of expatriation to Japan, but succeeded in obtaining redress in 1996 after filing a class-action lawsuit.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.