<Begin Segment 16>

MA: And I think what I read was that you had a gathering for the hibakusha, the atomic bomb survivors.

YK: Yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, gosh, you know a lot. Gee, I forgot all about it, yeah. One of the, I think, important things that happened was that the atom bomb survivors, they called themselves the Hiroshima Maidens, came to the U.S. And they were touring in the all the major cities, and they were gonna go all the way, after Manhattan they were gonna go to Europe and all the way to Moscow. But by the time... oh, and so the organizers, which is mostly white groups, the peace movement, they were getting in touch with all the peace movements as they were crossing the country. And it was such a large group to travel. There were forty-five Japanese hibakushas, and you know, to find a place to stay every day for forty-five people, that's not easy. If it was for, like, eight people, that's different, and feeding them. But finding lodging and feeding forty-five people each day was hard. By the time they got to Chicago, the organizers knew they were gonna run out of money. They didn't want to do, they knew they needed to find people to help raise money. And luckily, people offered -- they had to be known to be a fundraiser -- who's one of the best-known black entertainers? Oh, Dick Gregory. And he said he'll do a... you know, he's such a great speaker and he's funny and all that. And so he did some programs that he took over. And he raised some money for Chicago. But we could see that the Japanese, though they were headed by white organizers, they knew that they were in trouble. They didn't have enough money to continue after Manhattan. And so Dick Gregory entertained even at, I don't know how they got to Carnegie Hall, which is an important, well-known hall. He did a show there, raised a lot of money.

And the hibakushas, I mean, it was a big thing when they came into New York because they were invited by Mount Sinai Hospital. Mount Sinai Hospital is one of the best hospitals in Manhattan because they had some of the best plastic surgeons. It's known as a Jewish hospital, they take in everybody. And for a year and a half, they were willing to do surgery on all these women, and they picked twenty-five women from Japan who had been atom bombed, but who did not look too bad. Because if they looked too bad, I mean, American people may not accept them looking like that. And they thought -- and it was smart, I think -- that they would pick women, not men and women. And they had to be in this group to receive free medical care. They have to have, I think, all their limbs, or maybe some had one lost. But most of their limbs, not be too badly scarred, all that kind of stuff. So they handpicked twenty-five between the ages of eighteen to thirty maybe. And our family got really involved. I don't know if I said that, you have to be, the young women did not want anyone to visit them unless they were over forty. They didn't want to see young women of whatever background come and visit them, and they know what they lost. That here, eighteen to thirty, and they're disfigured already, they never went though the kind of experience of enjoying going to dances and meeting guys and all that. And here, just the fact that people, a lot of people in Japan -- Japan is a funny country -- they didn't even, they didn't seem very sympathetic even to the people who were burned so bad or scarred.

MA: Right, I think they were marginalized in Japan.

YK: Yes, oh, they did. And in fact, I think that when those twenty-five Hiroshima Maidens, I think they were surprised that Americans accepted them and really wanted to help them. They wanted to know what happened, what did the bombing do to Japan? And America really became interested. Here they're the ones who dropped the bomb, didn't even seem to care what happened to Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all the deaths and stuff, and America welcomed them. And our whole family would take turns -- my husband and I. Luckily we were over forty, 'cause it just wouldn't be fair for the young girls to see young people. And it was just such a wonderful experience to know what they went through, the suffering, and all the people they knew, their friends who were killed and others who died slowly, painfully. And we made it a point in our family that my husband and I would visit every week, a couple times a week, and the kids just, the kids take care of themselves, the little one, 'cause we couldn't take him with us. And they were on television, but because they still felt a little funny, felt embarrassed about their scars, when they were shown on television, they were behind a white screen that you could see their shadow, but you couldn't see what they looked like.

MA: So did Malcolm X then take an interest in the hibakusha cause?

YK: Yes.

MA: Is that how they came together at your house?

YK: Yes, uh-huh. Oh, he became interested. Right away he was very sympathetic. And he told them that black people were hit by a bomb, too. The bomb that hit them was racism. And so he said, "Maybe you cannot physically see how it affected them, but they were affected by a bomb just as a real bomb affected you." And I think the Japanese even got it, understood what he was talking about. In fact, before Malcolm spoke, the white organizers wanted to be the interpreters. But the Japanese said no, they didn't want to stop Malcolm every time he says a sentence, then somebody has to interpret, then he has to remember where he was and speak. So the Japanese said no translation, that they think they could understand. And so that's how it was. And it was wonderful how Malcolm and the audience, the audience we let anybody come in, black, white, Latino, Puerto Ricans, or Chinese, Japanese group. And all the people were amazed at Malcolm's... I mean, the kind of person he really was. Newspapers made him sound like he was a racist and he hated whites. We watched carefully as people -- when he walked in, Malcolm walked in, the people were already there in our house. And Malcolm shook hands with everybody. He never showed any difference, whether he was shaking hands with a white person, black person. And people were really surprised 'cause the white people said, "Gee, maybe he won't shake hands with us." He did. It didn't make any difference. And he treated everybody so respectfully. And for most people, even the blacks who came, they never met Malcolm before. And so it was a good experience for everyone.

And the only thing I feel bad was I don't know why our kids weren't there. Because years later, our kids even said, "Why didn't you let us stay when Malcolm was there?" And then, I don't know how it happened, but some guy said, it was a black guy who came and said, "I'll take your kids off your hands so you don't have to worry about them." But afterwards, the kids were angry. They said, "Why didn't you let us stay? We want to meet Malcolm, too." But anyway, somebody took them to see, what was it? Mary Poppins or something. And years later they bring it back to us, that, "Here you wouldn't let us see Malcolm and we had to go see that film." So it was... and I mean, I think it was good for all these people to see Malcolm so close up. Not on TV or read about him in the newspaper, there they were only a few feet away from him and listening.

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