<Begin Segment 34>

TK: There are a number of stories about the mainland Nisei meeting the Hawaii Niseis and sometimes they would not necessarily, at the very beginning, get along very well. Do you, can you comment on that situation? Was that real or...?

MT: Yeah, I recall that when the volunteers came in, like I mentioned, they were all fairly young eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one but there were older volunteers that were well-educated (...), graduated from University of Hawaii. And, in fact, I think there was one had a master (...) that were jeep drivers and things like that. But getting back to your question, true, we, we, I couldn't, we couldn't, the mainland guys couldn't understand the pidgin English that the younger people used. And one I can kind of remember is they always say, well, "I want da kine," and true, he'd say, "I want da kine," and I couldn't quite understand it and it's still pidgin English, he says, so we get a little confused and we'd say, "Well, what kind do you want?" "We want da kine." And the temper was getting a little flared up and, in my case I, very neutral, like I said, I just a average GI, and, but that was... and I respected these young fellows, I respected these educated fellows and, but I enjoyed to learn who they were and how they thought and everything.

Every night we would go, meet at the PX with all these (recruits), because I was staff sergeant at that time when they got there. And so, me and Sergeant Kuroda, he was a master sergeant with our battalion, we both enjoyed beer. So we'd order a case of beer and we'd all sit down on the floor in the PX there and we'd all join together. But I got to learn, I was very fortunate and lucky, we got to learn what they were thinking and how they thought and how they were brought up, plantation-wise, or... their Issei parents working on the plantation. So they weren't much different from us, Issei raising us on the farms. And so we had a lot of things in common. And then we enjoyed the beer and for three or four hours we'd have beer. And so, I got to know them and I was lucky from that standpoint that I, it was getting edgy, but I was able to avoid that and so, but it, the more, the first month, month-and-a-half went on it became edgy, edgy between the mainland Niseis and the Hawaiian contingent, because of this language barrier, I think. And they, when they talked, they were, talked in earnest but we just couldn't pick it up. And so they knew I, there were some things I couldn't understand. And that's the only example of that kind, 'cause that went on quite a while. But I'm sure it was a misunderstanding there of language communication. But again, I think the big thing that a lot of people don't know, is like us, we were in the army already and when we arrived there we were given noncom ratings before, to get the camp set up and all our companies set up, we were all ratings of corporal sergeant, master sergeant, tech sergeant, and first sergeants, and all the Niseis were given that because we got to camp as a cadre, before they came in there. Well, the reason, I get back to these, I respected these Niseis from Hawaii that were educated. I can't blame them that, but it was the circumstances that we got all our ratings before they came and they had to learn and try to come up as best they could. And we brought 'em up as quickly and as fast as we could and so, that was part of the complexion and lack of communication.

But the other one is, I think, in Hawaii they were never interned and so they never really knew about camp life or evacuation. They heard about it, but they never really understood it, and that it was such a serious thing. Until, this pretty well came to a head and like, I feel like explaining it like Senator Inouye, was one of the... he explains it beautifully, that when they finally took several buses and loaded the Hawaiian contingents during this training period and took 'em to the camps in Arkansas. And for the first time they saw their own familiar Japanese Americans, citizens, in camp, interned, and they never knew that. Then when they saw that they were suffering that much, when they came back, they respected all the Niseis, mainland Niseis, and I think that drew us all together. And that was the big mending thing was for them to understand, for the first time, what, how the Isseis and Niseis and all the women and mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters were suffering. And they just came from plantations and different occupations of Hawaii and just joined us and thought... they never felt the discrimination that the mainland Niseis were really feeling. And so that drew us together, I'm sure.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.