Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Thomas T. Kobayashi Interview
Narrator: Thomas T. Kobayashi
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: April 30, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-kthomas-01

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: During this time, you mentioned people like Jimmy Sakamoto, Bill Hosokawa. Did you ever talk to them about what was going on?

TK: I talked to, not too well, but later I did because I roomed with Jimmy Sakamoto. He had a house, and this was after the war, but not at that time, no. Not during the war.

TI: Let's talk about anything that... how did Jimmy, or when you talked about, say, this time period with Jimmy Sakamoto, what did he say about this time in terms of what was going on?

TK: That I couldn't tell you because I don't know. Everything was so secret then.

TI: So Jimmy didn't talk about those things.

TK: No, nobody talked about anything then. It seemed like there was this microphone hidden under your table. You didn't want to talk.

TI: Oh, interesting. So there's always this sense that people were eavesdropping or trying to spy.

TK: Yeah, you didn't know.

TI: What was Jimmy like just as a person? How would you describe him as a person?

TK: I would say the top guy. I mean, he was always thinking for the Japanese people. In fact, he started the Japanese Courier, American Courier.

TI: Do you think the...

TK: You know how he lost his sight, huh? Boxing?

TI: Yeah, as a boxer, yes.

TK: See, our eyes stick out, and he was constantly punched there. I mean, our eyeballs stick out.

TI: So you roomed with Jimmy after...

TK: Oh, after the war.

TI: After the war. But I'm curious...

TK: I knew his wife real well, because his wife and the three, yeah, the three children relocated to St. Mary's with our family. St. Mary's, Indiana.

TI: So there was a closeness in the family. But I was wondering, Jimmy had a lot of pressure on him during this time period and during the war. I was wondering how you thought the war changed Jimmy. I mean, was it hard for him?

TK: See, I don't know about that, because Jimmy and Bill Hosokawa and all these other leaders, you might say, they were thinking about us.

TI: Yeah, and that's what... I was reading just some things yesterday about Mike Masaoka.

TK: Okay, Masaoka was out of the city.

TI: Yeah, out of the city, but just the amount of responsibility and pressure that these older Niseis felt to help look after...

TK: Oh, I see what you mean, yeah. There must have been a lot of pressure against Jimmy. Because whatever he said was, we were almost following him. Lot of, I guess, lot of Nisei didn't agree with that.

TI: And so I was curious, did...

TK: I agreed with him, Jimmy.

TI: And so I'm curious in terms of, did that change him? I mean, here...

TK: Oh, did it change Jimmy?

TI: Yeah, because here he felt that he had to, he was going out of his way to really help the community, and then others didn't appreciate that? And I was wondering how he felt about that.

TK: I don't know. I don't think it changed Jimmy because he was, being a boxer, he knew what he was doing.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.