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TI: I want to, before, I didn't ask this, but think about your two older brothers that were with you, Jitsu and Bert. Tell me a little bit them. How would you describe, first, your oldest brother Jitsu in terms of what kind of guy was he, what was his personality like?

JN: Jitsu was more uptight. He was, the one thing I most remember about him somehow was that he apparently was bright, and he had good grades. And the teacher, there was a, I think a haole teacher who came in to teach, wanted him to go to college, go out of camp and go to college. Of course, my father said, "No, you're going back to Japan." To this day, I always felt like he should have gone to college, that he was the brightest in the family, instead of me. I got all the breaks, and I always felt little bit like, again, things turned out badly for him and luckily for me. But it was almost like at his expense that I got these things. He was kind of an uptight guy, a straight-shooter, everything had to be done the right way, which was, of course, in great contrast to Bert, who was like, did whatever came to his mind. So there was a conflict between Bert and Jitsu all the time, from the time they were young. And the thing I remember most about Jitsu telling Bert is, "I know you, Bert." Like, "Don't pull anything on me, I know you. Whatever you say, I don't believe you anyway," kind of a thing. And every so often, Jitsu would knock the hell out of Bert. And Bert was, among others, he was supposed to be the gang leader and the guy who everybody was afraid of. But Jitsu would beat the hell out of him without any problem. Again, younger brother can never beat on older brother, no matter what. Anyway, that's what I remember about Jitsu. Jitsu was really uptight, upright, but he was bright.

He went back to Japan and got married. Then he went back, again, I don't fully understand how that program worked, but he went back, and I think he got to Japan before the war ended. No, after the war ended, he got back to Japan, that's weird to me. And I think my father was supposed to go back, and my guess is we were all supposed to go. But when the war ended, my father said, "No, I'm going back and clean up my assets in Hawaii," sent my brother to look for the rest of the family, I think is why he went. I think that's why, even though the war ended, my brother Jitsu went back to Japan.

TI: So Jitsu was, again, separated from the rest of the family.

JN: It seemed like again he had to make the sacrifice. He had to sacrifice all his life, I think. So he went back, he could hardly speak Japanese, he had to find his way to get on the train -- this I'm getting from him. He fortunately said one of the guys who came with him, Nisei guy, could speak the language and knew generally where Kurume was and where the rest of the family was, so he found them out there, out in the farm land in Kurume. And so he stayed there and he then worked for some American company because he could speak English, and he did well.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.