<Begin Segment 23>

TI: Now did, when people would look at you confused, did people eventually find out that you were half Japanese?

VW: Eventually they did, yeah. Because they wondered what I was doing there, and so I told 'em. I says, "As far as I know, I'm part Japanese." And so they just didn't, it was hard for them to even understand it, too. But I think one of the hard things was -- there were many things, but the hard thing for me was to eat the food. Because the people from Hawaii made food that was different than what I'd been used to eating. Remember, I'm a farmer, and I'm from the Midwest. That's meat and potatoes and gravy and stuff like that, you know, and some vegetable. But this food that they came from Hawaii was completely different than what I had been used to. [Laughs] And I just, it was very difficult for me to eat it. But eventually, I learned that it wasn't too bad after all. But it took a while.

TI: Well, what were some of the foods that were hard for you to eat?

VW: Well, it was kind of like ratatouille. Have you ever eaten ratatouille? You know, it's not my favorite foods by any means, but it's all vegetables and things, and I don't know if there's any meat in it or not. But I didn't recall that there was any meat in the so-called vats that they used to make the food in. And, but, you know, to each his own, you know. If you grow up eating vegetables like that, that's okay. But if you're not used to it, it's got to take some time to train the palate to accept food like that.

TI: And how about things like just in terms of language? I mean, here you grew up in the Midwest, the Hawaii guys would often speak with a heavy pidgin accent.

VW: Yes, they did.

TI: And how was that for you?

VW: They, they called it kind of pidgin accent, I guess. But, well, back a long time ago, we had what we call pidgin English. Us kids in school would use it and so the teachers couldn't understand us. [Laughs] And sometimes we would speak it so fast that nobody could understand it except just a few, our little group, you know. But pidgin, but the Hawaiian pidgin English was different. And they're more difficult to understand sometimes. That's true, yeah. And, but I learned some things of which I didn't know about. And it was, it was good things about the Japanese Americans. Now, being raised Caucasian, well, I'm just Caucasian, you know, only. But I found out that I learned a lot being with the Japanese Americans. I was with them for, well, about, I'd say, I think it was like twenty-eight months or so that I was with 'em. And, but I had the feeling that, eventually, that if I were ever wounded or needed help, I would never be alone. And I think that was one of the things that I learned. And also trust. They had a lot of, they had a lot of trust, and also to be quiet about things. When I got there and I would know a fellow, say like I knew you and you were in the army with me and so on, I wouldn't know a thing about you. Whether you were educated, whether you weren't and so on. But other people would tell about this guy, you, on, that you had been a graduate from chemical engineering or whatever. And this fascinated me. They never talked about themselves, never.

TI: Oh, I see. So someone wouldn't talk to you directly, like, "This is who I was," you had to find out from somebody else.

VW: Yeah. They'd never talk about themselves. And maybe that's why I got so quiet about myself, too. Maybe that's what I really learned from them, you know. I felt that you don't go around talking about yourself at all. You can talk about other people and the good things, but not about yourself. And so that later, in later life, when I was out of the army, then I became very quiet about who I was, which you'll learn about later on.

TI: Now when you were at Camp Shelby, did you ever see... I've heard about friction between the Hawaiians and the Japanese Americans who grew up on the West Coast. Did you see any of that happening?

VW: Yes. But I usually tried to stay away from 'em, because it didn't involve me anyway. But there was friction between... they even dressed different. They were, how shall I say it? So casual. Not dirty, no, but so casual. Well, they'd leave their shirts out, things like that, except when it came to standing in for inspection, they had to be dressed up neat and clean, neat and socks not showing and things like that. Whereas if there was no inspection or anything, they'd come with their socks hanging out and stuff like that. But sometimes the officers would get after 'em. And then they'd have to dress up and things like that and look respectable, you might say. They were all, they were good guys, though. They were really good guys. I learned to really like those Hawaiian guys. And they used to joke with me, they used to call me haole, and then used to call me, "Haole, come here," and we'd both laugh. [Laughs] And then they'd laugh back, you know. So they were, they were really good guys.

TI: And for the people who watch this and don't know the term "haole," what does "haole" mean?

VW: It means white or Caucasian, you know. That's what... since I looked Caucasian, they would kid and kid me and so on, having to be in a Japanese American -- I didn't look Japanese American, that was their, and then they'd joke about it, which was fine, no problem.

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.