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MA: And how did this impact you personally at the time? I mean, I guess when you got out of camp, how did this sort of shift your worldview and the way that you looked at the world and the way you felt about the government?

YK: You know, I was so pro-U.S., I think because I had a good experience growing up in San Pedro. And during my whole young life, as I say, I didn't feel that much prejudice. But I really was ignorant, just ignorant about a lot of things. I didn't even know... well, the war was already going on in Europe, you know, Hitler was moving across Europe and all that. But I didn't even know too much why that was happening. I mean, it's years later, even after we took history in school, I don't think we learned very much of anything. Because the thing that hit me most, though, was I never knew anything about slavery in school. Never. I went all the way through junior college, never heard about slavery. I didn't know what even World War I was about, I didn't really know that much about the Civil War, which I'm sure we must have learned something about in school. And then here now we're into World War II, we're in camp. Well, one thing, you realize how important education is. That when you don't know, you don't even know how to make judgment.

But I was very, I don't know, very American then. I am so different now. [Laughs] But I didn't because... you're taught what a good country America is and it does so much good to the world and all that crap. And I believed it wholeheartedly. Because all your teachers are white, but you don't realize it then. Later on you finally, when there were movements to get more black teachers... but when you're young, there's so many things you don't know and so you don't understand.

MA: When did that shift start happening for you, where you kind of realized things and you...

YK: Let's see. I'm trying to think when it first happened. We were in camp in April of '42, we all started going to camp. We were in camp '42, '43, '44. '45, the war ended. But in '44, I got a job in Mississippi. But not that I went to Mississippi to look for a job, that's not it. Actually, I wanted to get married to this guy I met that I fell in love with. And then I was shocked. Here my mother got a pass to go to Mississippi for the wedding and all. She even got me a nightgown, I never had a nightgown. She said, "Maybe you might need it even though you're going to be with him a few days and he's going overseas." And then right there, almost at the moment we're getting married, the chaplain says, "I'm sorry, I can't marry you," because he said, "I just got a telegram, that your husband-to-be's father sent a telegram saying, 'I will never permit this. I don't even know who she is.'" I was shocked and hurt. At first, I didn't want to tell my mother. But the chaplain said, "Don't worry, I'll tell her." I just didn't know what to do. But then the chaplain said, "You know, all the wives, the Nisei wives are going, have to go back to camp or wherever," and he said, "We need someone to work at the USO office. Would you be willing?" And I thought, "Wow, what an opportunity." I didn't want to go back to camp and everybody saying, "Hey, what happened? You didn't get married? What's the matter, did he turn you down?" So I told them, "Yes, I would like to work here," and I got permission to stay in Mississippi because a letter from a chaplain sounds good. And so the camp said all right.

So I stayed in Mississippi a year and a half. And what was happening during this time I worked there was that this is when all the... you know, the 442 had already left for Europe to fight. And all the new ones to replace the 442, they were coming in from all the different, from Alabama, Texas, Illinois, in small groups. And my job was to find housing for the wives who wanted to stay with their husband a short while. So I really loved that job and met a lot of women, working with women. And I also, because I loved teaching Sunday school, I still, I had a new Sunday school of white kids. And these southern kids had never before seen an Asian, so I didn't know if they would accept me. But I guess the church was very nice, explained that there are Asian soldiers just like white American soldiers, and they're training here and going to fight for America. So the kids were very good to me. So, I mean, it was a different kind of experience there.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.