<Begin Segment 22>

TI: It sounds like the two of you developed a pretty close relationship during this time.

KK: Oh, yeah. Because there was just us to do things, that's why.

TI: So there's almost a sense that, do you think, of the siblings, you got the closest to your father?

KK: I think I did. I think I did, for the longest time. Before the war I would go with him before I went to school, and even after I went to school, when I had vacations or anything, I would go with him when he went to the different farms, you know, to do his work. And so I was close to him then. Then when we were in camp and we were put together like that, then he and I were very close.

TI: How did the war change him? 'Cause you saw him, you knew him before the war, then he went to places like Santa Fe, then you're back together, and then... so how did the war change him?

KK: Well, my father is one of those men who, he'd always been kind of upbeat and open to knowledge and stuff. It didn't change him. Didn't change him. The thing that, he was always concerned about my brother who was in Japan, and I think that's why he wanted to go to Japan. But he wasn't real Japanese-Japanese, you know? And I think mainly he wanted to go to Japan because my brother was there, and he wanted to help him and be with him. It's his oldest son. You know how, it's the oldest son and that's what you... And that's what, in a way, made Howard and Stanley kind of pull away from my father, because he was so concentrated on the oldest son, always, always, always.

TI: Did your father and Buddy ever get a chance to meet again?

KK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

TI: And so when did that happen, and where was it, in Japan? Or was it --

KK: In Japan. After the war, when my father got his citizenship we finally let him go to Japan, and then he went to see Buddy.

TI: So this was in the '50s, that, that... because did Buddy ever return to the United States?

KK: No, he couldn't.

TI: So even as a tourist or just on a...

KK: No. Because he had tuberculosis and asthma, and Public Health would not let him come because he had tuberculosis. In fact, they wanted, the U.S. government wanted him to come to the U.S. to be a witness at the Tokyo Rose trials, 'cause he had to do with Tokyo Rose. He wrote scripts for Tokyo Rose. And the Public Health said no, he can't come.

TI: Oh, interesting.

KK: So we all breathed a sigh because we didn't want him to come, we really didn't want him to come.

TI: Because he would have been portrayed as an enemy to the United States, in that case. But he --

KK: And bring our whole family into it, you know. And we didn't want any of that. The interesting thing is that his youngest brother, Edison, was the one who helped to get Tokyo out of prison. She was supposed to be in prison for life and he and the JACL, he got a group in JACL to work to get her out.

TI: To get the Presidential pardon, wasn't that a pardon? And he worked on it.

KK: Yes.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.