<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So November of '45, you're going to return to Hawaii. At that point, did your father rejoin you or did he go separately to Hawaii?

JN: You know, I don't remember. I think he came separately, I think. Or he may have joined us, I just don't recall. No, I think he came later because what I recall now, going back -- that's right -- going back to Hawaii, we had a troop ship. So Bert and I were down in the, down in the bottom of the... sick, and we were, I mean it was, I got seasick really bad. And my mother, because she had a baby, had nice facilities up somewhere. I took off and went to stay with my mother and my kid sister because I couldn't take the, being seasick. And I'm pretty sure my father must have come separately; I don't remember him at all on the ship.

TI: And do you recall reaching Honolulu or what that felt like or what you saw?

JN: Very little. I can't seem to recall who came to see us or what.

TI: Okay. But then when you returned to Hawaii, where did you live when you got back?

JN: Oh, my Uncle Inouye, who was taking care of... he wasn't very good at taking care of, according to my father. But anyway... was still at the house, so we moved back in and he went back to his house. So the family moved in, we moved back into Waialae. I seem to recall a short time later, though, already, '46, we moved, I think the lease was expiring of that whole Waialae area. So we moved to Palolo. I remember him... I don't think, well, he may have sold it. That's right, he may have sold whatever remaining time there was on the lease, and then we moved to Palolo. By that time, before we moved, in fact, I think, he remarried, and my stepmother was someone, not a very nice person to this day. And she threw us out. Again, the luckiest thing that happened to me was I had a stepmother who couldn't stand three teenage boys and threw us out. And the only place my dad could throw us into was a boarding school, so we ended up at a private boarding school in Mid-Pacific.

TI: Okay, and before we talk about that, so coming back to Hawaii, you mentioned earlier your mother was ill, so she wasn't that strong. And so your father, you mentioned, remarried, so I'm taking it that something happened to your mother? Can you describe what happened?

JN: Yeah. I remember we went visiting my uncle, the Nakano uncle. He lived in Moiliili, this neighborhood. And my father, we were in his car, and I remember my mother coming back to the car and she collapsed right at the, right before she got into the car. This, as I said, we came back in '45, that was in '46. Rushed her to the hospital, she never came out of the hospital. She died within... she was in a coma for a month and died.

TI: And that must have been difficult for you because you were pretty close to your mother.

JN: Yeah, but I look back and, you know, I don't feel the helplessness that I should have, I think. And I'm thinking, "What was I thinking?" I really don't know. All I remember out of this, as I said before, was all of a sudden I took my mother's role and then I started lecturing my dad about, "Don't do this, don't do that," and that kind of stuff. Until he got remarried, and the best thing happened when he got remarried, when we got thrown out.

TI: Okay, so your father remarries. But before we even go there, looking back, did you notice any changes in, like, your father or your brothers from the war experience and being in camps in the mainland and then coming back? So when you think of how life was before the war and then after the war, did you see any changes?

JN: Okay, yeah. We came back... okay, we came back in '45. And then... oh, yeah. That was the tragedy. My mother died before the rest of the family could come back from Japan. That's right, she died... they came, they'd been, my grandparents, including my grandparents -- my grandparents, my two sisters and my two brothers came back in, must have been '46, but after my mother died. So they never saw my mother again. After my mother died and before the rest of the family came back, before my oldest sister Sumiko, Sumi, would then be like the matriarch of the family, before then, the conflict between my dad and Bert became really bad. And ultimately, my brother said, "Go to hell," and Bert just took off from the house and then joined the army. That I remember clearly. I remember the fight between the two.

TI: And do you think Bert was, perhaps, more frustrated or bitter, and was he a different person?

JN: Yeah. He was bitter, I think, at this point. I think he was bitter at my father. He felt -- and I think I did, too, that it was my father who caused my mother's death, I think. I think that was the feeling we had.

TI: Well, how about your father? How had, do you think, he changed during the experience?

JN: He... the thing I guess we held, I held against him, too, was he's able to recover so fast and get remarried, and remarried this person I called a bitch, and she was really bad news. And she told... and because of her, though, we... I tell everybody that if she didn't throw us out of the house and send us to MPI, I'd never go to college, I'd never be a lawyer. I'll be driving a truck is really what I tell everyone, and I think that's true. But then in '46, the rest of the family came back and, of course, there was an immediate conflict between my sister Sumi and my stepmother. Basically, through like an arrangement, I think my sister married this guy Jiro Akashi, who was really a nice person. I really owe a lot to him. But anyway, he, then she was able to then get out of the house, basically. Tomi was already, Tomi-chan was already married so she didn't come back, and so there was three teenage boys back in the house with my father and my stepmother. And again, as I said... I remember when they came back... oh, then my brother, the three of us all went to MPI at the same time. They dropped back a year because of the language problem they had with English, they had problems. But, so the three of us went into MPI the same year. Frankly, it was through, not because we were able to get through any exams or anything, but my father knew somebody. I think it was a payoff or whatever, the three of us got in. Within less than a year, Henry got kicked out and ended up in Kaimuki, so then two of us graduated from MPI, Bill and I graduated from MPI.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright ©2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.