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TI: Well, but eventually you decided you wanted to come back to the United States. And so why, what made you change your mind?

FS: Well, one day in 1955, I figured, I'm getting old. I'm getting old, you know what I mean? I got to settle roots someplace. And I said, "I can't stay in Japan. If the occupation goes sayonara, where am I gonna get a job?" Where? No more occupation. This was my livelihood, occupation. If the occupation's gone, I can't read and write Japanese, so I can't work in a Japanese company. There's not enough American company that could hire me, 'cause I gotta be bilingual. See, so I started weighing, I says, "God, what am I gonna do?" So I decided I better start going back, think about ahead. I was still young enough that I could start second life. And I didn't want to be like everybody else, wait until the boat sink before it sinks. I'm going to get out before it sinks. And a lot of guys, I know a lot of guys still stay behind until the very end, I don't know what happened to them. Some of 'em got jobs, I know one guy got, he's not a repat but he came from the States working for the school system, federal government school system, some kind of a, not teaching, but administrative. And these people were teachers, some kind of special teacher, and he was looking after the welfare and assignment and all that. So he had a good job. He was in the top job, you know, controlling all the workers. And he stayed in Japan for twenty years. He came back, but he lives in Montebello. His name is Tak Watanabe, I met him.

TI: And so when you returned, so you eventually got back to the United States -- because we're actually running out of time. So I just wanted to -- and this is actually maybe a big question. But your status, because you were a repat, when you returned to the United States, in the Japanese American community, did you ever get criticism or flack for...

FS: Being a repat?

TI: ...for being a repat?

FS: Lot of people found out, they won't talk to me. They found out, "You're a Nihonyuki no boy, you're a Japan boy?" I said, "Yeah." I was waiting for repercussion, they just walk away. They didn't ask me. It could be that they were the renouncee themselves that didn't go back to Japan. There were a lot of them, remember, in camp. Turncoats. But you know, before you know, what did I accomplish after I came back? I tell ya, the last job I had in Japan, for four years I was a GS-13, and I was a member of the Banker's Club, which is only for high colonel and general only. I was the only Nisei in there. I got kicked out, too. They didn't believe I was a member. And the one that put me in there was my boss, the colonel. He was a member there, he was a real high-powered colonel. So I was a GS-13, member of Banker's Club, and I had 24-hour limousine service. And my boss, colonel said, "That's all I could do. I can't give you no raise in GS rating because you'd be on top of me. You'd be higher than me, and that's a no-no," he said. [Laughs]

TI: And what was your role as a GS-13? What was your title?

FS: I was running three different big commands at one time. Depot, five thousand (black soldiers), bowling alley, PX. Then I had a seventh base post office, snack bar, PX, and a minor, second base debark and embarkation port, which was only when the boat come and go. But they had a PX and snack bar. So that was a command. And then I had a negishi, they called it, negishi, dependent housing, there was another bowling alley and a PX, and a snack bar there. So I had all this big command which, why did I get it? Because the people that were running it got fired. They were stealing. Hakujin, hakujin manager, no Nisei.

<End Segment 45> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.