<Begin Segment 19>

BH: So after Bako passed, I recall you mentioned that your family was actually released from the camps earlier than...

KH: Early and then right after everybody was able to go back, we were, they were among the first to leave camp.

BH: And the reason was because they had gotten in contact with the, a bishop?

KH: The bishop of Seattle gave them a job.

BH: So can you tell me a little bit about that?

KH: Auntie May went with my mother and father and Chuck. And Chuck, I think he had an apartment or a room down in the basement of the bishop's house. And Chuck, every morning, had to go upstairs and attend mass, the bishop had to say mass, but he could not say it by himself. Somebody had to be there attending the mass, and so Chuck would be the altar boy. And I don't know, sometimes Chuck overslept and the bishop would ring the bell and get him to come up, and, "Hurry up." [Laughs] Attend mass. This was every morning. And I remember Auntie May going over and cleaning the bishop's house.

BH: And what did your parents do for the bishop?

KH: What did they...

BH: Your parents. Did they work for the bishop?

KH: They worked, my mother was a cook, my father was supposed to be the gardener, but my father really wasn't into gardening, I don't think. 'Cause he didn't know what to do. Our bishop commonly went, used to walk around the neighborhood, and he came back one day, and he says, "Fred," he says, "all the neighbors have their daffodils up and tulips up. Didn't you put any bulbs in the ground?" And my dad said, "Yes." "Well, how come ours isn't up?" And so they went and dug up the ground, my dad had put the bulbs in upside down. So it took a while for them to, you know, go up like this. They came up eventually, but they were awfully late. And my dad, I don't know, it was too strenuous for him. He was mowing the land by hand, you know, a hand mower, so not very good.

TI: So why did they choose your family to be the family to come back? I believe, I looked at some of the old newspaper clippings, it was like the Kinoshita family was the first Japanese family back --

KH: Well, my mother was active, you know, at Maryknoll, and maybe that, I don't know. They thought, "Here's somebody can cook for the bishop."

TI: But it seemed like it was almost like a PR thing because the papers covered the journey from Minidoka --

KH: Oh, they did?

TI: -- all the way to Seattle. There's all these photographs of Father Tibesar sort of farewell to Minidoka, and then arriving in Seattle.

KH: Oh, maybe Father Tibesar had something to do with it. Here's a family that can speak some English, you know. Dad could speak English quite well.

TI: Well, and I think also in the paper, they mentioned that they were gold star parents also, because I think that was, again, I think, I'm guessing that they were used to help ease the way for Japanese to come back to Seattle, so they wanted to highlight one family that came back.

KH: They had, they had a job, but then you say ease, ease the community to accept the Japanese coming back? I guess some of them had trouble when they came back. So my parents were protected. They had a job and then they had acceptance.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.