Densho Digital Archive - Kay Uno Kaneko Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

TI: Okay, so the way I start this is just the date and where we are, so today's Wednesday, June 9, 2010. We're in Kona, on camera is Dana Hoshide, and I'm the interviewer, Tom Ikeda. So Kay, why don't we just start by telling me when you were born and where you born.

KK: I was born in Los Angeles, in October 7th of 1932.

TI: And what was the name given to you at birth?

KK: Kay, and it was K-A-Y. Some places I see it K-A-E, but then that's not what my father said it was, K-A-Y. He gave all the girls one name because he figured they would get married and they'd have another name. So the boys he gave three names to, I mean two names, but, you know.

TI: So the first, middle, and then the Uno, last name.

KK: Yeah. So I use Uno as my middle name now.

TI: Was there a reason why "Kay" was used? Like, do you know where "Kay" came from?

KK: No.

TI: Okay, so let's, you mentioned your father. Tell me your father's name.

KK: George Kazumaro Uno. Wait, wait, wait, is he Kazumaro?

TI: Is it Kumemaro?

KK: Kumemaro, he's Kumemaro. [Laughs] My brother is Kazumaro, yeah, Kumemaro. [Laughs]

TI: And where was he born?

KK: In Japan.

TI: Do you know what part?

KK: Kanazawa.

TI: And do you know what kind of business or work his family did in Japan?

KK: Yes. His father was in the military, and his father was an officer in the cavalry, cavalry, and he, his father fought in the Russian-Japanese War in Manchuria. And his father, his mother met a -- they moved around Japan a lot with the military -- and his mother met a woman missionary, and I can't remember what city or anything, but she was turned into a Christian, and the father's family told him he had to divorce her. And he said no, and then when he came back and had this wound in his leg, they were going to cut off his leg, she said no, and she and her Christian friends came and prayed over the leg, and I think they used American medicine, I don't, you know, I would think so, but, anyway, they saved the leg, and so he became a Christian. [Laughs]

TI: What a good story.

KK: Yeah. And he was so proud of her that she was so active in many organizations, like she was a president of the Officer's Women's Club, she was president of the Red Cross, she was, oh, there was a temperance group and she was head of that, and she was just really a lady that was active in all kinds of things. And when they went back to Kanazawa, to their home, she opened her home up to Christians. And so, of course, their house was, the wall was marked up and rocks were thrown and everything. My father said he would get rocks thrown at him and he'd get knocked around because he was a Christian, and they would, you know, tease him and everything. But she opened her home to Christians, and I think about four of the men who came to her home later became ministers.

TI: Ministers in Japan?

KK: In Japan.

TI: So Christian ministers in Japan.

KK: Uh-huh, Christian ministers in Japan.

TI: What an interesting story.

<Begin Segment 2>

TI: So where did your father, in terms of, did he have siblings?

KK: Oh, yes. [Laughs] Let's see. There were nine or ten of them, I can't remember now, I think it's ten, but he's number seven. And all of them were sent to the U.S.

TI: I'm curious, why? Why were they all sent?

KK: Because they were Christians, and they knew they would have a hard time in Japan.

TI: Interesting situation, because your grandfather was a military officer, so there must have been some pull to have the sons serve in the Japanese military?

KK: They didn't. [Laughs] None of them did. In fact, the youngest served in the U.S. Army during World War I, and he became a U.S. citizen.

TI: I'm sorry, the youngest sibling of, of your...

KK: My father.

TI: Of your father...

KK: My father's youngest sibling.

TI: Okay, got it.

KK: My uncle.

TI: And he was a Japanese, he was born in Japan --

KK: He was born in Japan.

TI: -- immigrated to the United States, served in the U.S. Army --

KK: During World War I.

TI: And got U.S. citizenship because of that.

KK: Yes. And he was interned in Wyoming, in Heart Mountain, and, when he died, the military came in and gave him a funeral.

TI: And when did he die, was it during the war?

KK: Yes, during the war. I can't remember the year. I have it down, I should have brought all that with me, I forgot.

TI: So it's one of these ironies then. Here you have a, a World War I veteran, U.S. citizen in Wyoming, so Heart Mountain --

KK: Heart Mountain.

TI: He dies there, and the military comes in and they give him a military funeral. So let's go back when -- you said they sent the kids, because they were Christian, to the United States -- did your grandparents come to the United States also?

KK: No, no, they never came. And the boys were able to come because my auntie, their sister was married to Mr. Domoto, and he was a very successful businessman. In fact, he was so successful when he was young, here in the United States and Japan, he was an importer-exporter, and... you know your cans of crab? You have the white paper? That was one of the things he invented. And he started canning mandarin oranges, and he did all kinds of different things, and he was a very successful man. And when he was told he should get married, he went to Kanazawa and he stood outside the gate of the school that the missionaries had, and he watched the girls go in and out, and he saw my aunt and he went in and asked who she was and if they could introduce him, and they, and then he got married to her, brought her to the U.S.

TI: That's another good story.

KK: Yeah. [Laughs]

TI: So when your father and his siblings came to the United States, what did they do? You mentioned this Mr. Domoto, but what did they do?

KK: They started working for Mr. Domoto, and he had flower, flower gardens, and some of them worked in the flower gardens. Others did, worked in stores where he had his items and all. My father, somehow my father learned English and spoke it well, from the very early part of his being here in the U.S., and so he was one of those who my uncle set up to sell his good here and there, and sent him to Salt Lake. And my father lived in Salt Lake and started the Christian church there.

TI: Interesting. At a time when the Mormon church was probably emerging and growing also.

KK: The Mormon church, yeah. Right.

TI: So tell me, in terms of, your father, in terms of personality, what, how would you describe him?

KK: He was a funny man. [Laughs] He loved to talk, and he had really fascinating memory. If he got interested in something, he would go study it, you know, and he'd go get books from libraries or from, he'd go to used bookstores and look for books on the subject he was interested in. He'd go search people that he thought would know more about the subject and visit with them and learn from them. He was self-taught, but he became an entomologist that way. And he knew all about, well, before that, he knew all about flowers, he could tell you the scientific name, the regular name, he could tell you where it came, how it grew, everything about the flowers. And he had a fabulous memory. And then he did this with insects also, when he became, he was working for an insecticide company, and because he could speak Japanese, they gave him all the Japanese farmers to go and work...

TI: And so, in his social life, who were some of his friends?

KK: Oh, gee, I don't know really who his friends were, because, well, he used to bring home all kinds of people. [Laughs]

TI: Well, tell me about the people. Were they, like, Japanese, or were they different ethnic groups, or what was it like?

KK: Yes, everything. [Laughs] He would get, he'd get interested in somebody and then he'd bring them home for dinner, and my mother, "Oh, not another, we can barely feed ourselves." She'd have to stretch dinner.

<Begin Segment 3>

TI: So I want to talk a little bit about your mother. How did... well, first, what was your mother's name and where was she born?

KK: She was also born in Kanazawa, and her name was Riki, R-I-K-I, Kita, K-I-T-A. And her family was, at one time, makers of sake, but then her father took the money and invested it in a gold mine, and the gold mine was not a gold mine, so they lost everything.

TI: And so how did your mother and father come to meet?

KK: They knew each other in Japan, through the church. And then my, his sister, my auntie, brought her over as a maid for her on one of the trips coming over, and then she stayed in the U.S. And then my father married her.

TI: Okay, so they knew each other in Kanazawa, then your father came to the United States, she came later, then they kind of re-met again and decided to get married? Or did she come thinking she would get married to your father?

KK: No, I think she didn't know.

TI: So that was a pretty bold thing for her, to come to the United States without a clear future, other than coming to work.

KK: Yeah. But she and my auntie were good friends, you know.

TI: So tell me a little bit about her. What was her personality like?

KK: Who?

TI: Your, your mother.

KK: My mother? Oh, she was a giving person. She was lots of fun. Men liked her, the boys liked her. She could play cards. [Laughs] And, and they just enjoyed her a lot. You know, my brothers and their friends. They'd come in and they'd play cards, and then she said whoever loses had to buy dessert and something like that.

TI: So she was pretty good at bantering with people.

KK: She was, yes, she was friendly, and she was a very committed Christian, and went... well, because where we lived was away from the Japanese community, and so they couldn't go to church all the time, but when they could, they would go on Wednesday nights to the prayer meetings and church meetings and on Sundays we'd all go. But, just being herself, and then at home she would pray and she would write in, all in Japanese, I couldn't ever read her writing, but when she died one of the ministers took some of her books and translated some of the things that she had written and they, she had written poems and songs.

TI: Oh, that's precious, that's like a treasure to get into some of that. So where did your mother and father end up living when, after they got married?

KK: Well, first they lived in the Bay Area, I can't remember if it's Albany, or someplace around there, and then they went to Utah. They had two sons when they were in California, and then they moved to Utah. And then my mother took the two boys to Japan for my grandparents'... what was it, the fiftieth year anniversary, wedding anniversary, and then she left the two boys and came back. And then a year later, the older one, Buddy, some uncle was traveling, and he brought him back, and by then she had Hana, my sister Hana. And then, about two years later, they brought Howard back. I always wondered why Howard just didn't kind of fit into the family, he was always kind of a little out. Now I know. Because he spent three years away from them. By the time he came back there was Hana and May, and Amy. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 4>

TI: Let's go through, because I know you had lots of siblings, so why don't we just kind of establish, from the beginning. So you mentioned Buddy, or George?

KK: We call him Buddy. Yeah, George, he's George Kazumaro Uno. And then Howard Yasumaro Uno. Then Hana Mei, and Mei is M-E-I, Amy, Stanley, Stanley is (Toshimaro).

TI: Ernest?

KK: Yeah, I'm trying to think of Stanley's Japanese name. I can't think of it right now, but Ernest is (Nobumaro), Robert is Akimaro, and Edison is Tomimaro, and me.

TI: And you, I think, the age difference between Buddy and you is about...

KK: Twenty years.

TI: So it's almost like every two years or so, there's, there is a...

KK: And then, between Edison and (me there) is three years, so I think I was kind of a surprise. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, and so earlier when you mentioned that, when your father would bring home another dinner guest, but you had so many mouths to feed already.

KK: Yes, it was hard.

TI: So why don't we start with, I mean, family must have been a big part of your life because it's so large. Tell me about growing up in such a large family. What was that like?

KK: It was fun. [Laughs] But, yeah, everybody says, oh, because you're the youngest, you're spoiled, you know, but I guess I was, because some of my older brothers and sisters would always look after me and treat me. But I grew up with the four younger brothers, and, of course, Ernie, Bob, Edison, and especially Bob and Edison and I, we were, we ran around together, because we were, they had to take me to grammar school. But they didn't, see, there's, since there's three years difference, they left and went on to junior high when I was still in grammar school, and so I ended up being the only Japanese, only Asian in my elementary school for several years before the war.

TI: Yeah, so tell me, so you have, I mean, you had older sisters, but then, the four right before you were all boys.

KK: Boys, yes. [Laughs]

TI: And then you, the youngest, as a girl. I'm trying to understand, so were you treated almost like, more like a tomboy?

KK: Yes.

TI: Okay, or something more, almost like put on a pedestal?

KK: No, no, no. I was like a tomboy, and I was always following the boys, and they would, always trying to get away from me. [Laughs]

TI: So you always wanted to be around your brothers and do what they were doing?

KK: Yes.

TI: And so describe some of the things you did with your brothers.

KK: Oh, we, well, we lived in an area where there (were) empty lots on one side, and there was, there's all kinds of things to do. We played hide and seek, and we played kick the can and, you know, right in the streets, and we'd play ball, and we'd play ball, throwing it over the, over the house. And then in the backyard we had a area to play baseball and run around there. And my mother had gardens, which we didn't, we'd get into and she wouldn't like. And, of course, there's a clothesline, and then there was a fireplace. In those days you had to burn your own rubbish, and so we had this fire thing to burn rubbish in, and that was one of the things that us kids had to do. And there would be hot ashes underneath, and my brothers would send me in the house and I would take out potatoes, and I would take eggplant, and we'd put it in there and we'd have things to eat.

TI: But they'd send, why did they send you in, and why didn't they go after the potatoes or eggplant?

KK: Because they knew I could get away easier.

TI: So tell me about that. Did you ever recall getting in trouble with the boys for doing something?

KK: Oh, yeah, lots of times. [Laughs]

TI: So what would be an example of that, that you did something, and it sounds like sometimes it was maybe their idea...

KK: It was their idea, usually their idea, and I'd...

TI: What would be an example of one, besides the taking the potatoes and eggplants?

KK: Well, I think one was... oh, we weren't supposed to get up on the roof of the garage, and, of course, they all got up on the roof of the garage and jumped down, and there was a fence in the backyard that we, we would climb over to get out of our yard and get to the other street, you know. And I'm not supposed to climb that. One time I climbed it and I got a big scar here because of the fence going into my skin, and, of course, at that time I had a dress on, and it got torn, and so I got, you know... but we, and then lots of time, just for fun, we'd jump off the roof or climb, we had an apricot tree that we used to climb a lot, and, of course, you'd, when apricots were ripe we'd have a lot of fun there.

TI: So when you would do something like, you know, jumping off the roof and catching your dress and getting a scrape like that, how would you get in trouble? Who would, who would be the person that would sort of be the disciplinarian of the family? Or what would happen?

KK: Oh, my mother.

TI: And would she get mad at you? Or would she get mad at the boys?

KK: No, at me.

TI: Oh, at you, and the boys sort of got off?

KK: Yeah, they got off, because...

TI: That's good.

KK: ...because I'm not supposed to go with them, you know. I'm a girl, you're supposed to stay home.

TI: So did your mother try to, to maybe have different activities for you with the older sisters, or did she try to do more girl things with you?

KK: No, well, just with her, because my sisters were older and they were either in school, or, after they graduated, they went to work. And then my sister Amy went to work in homes in Pasadena, so, you know, she wasn't there. But she would sometimes take me with her to the homes she's working in, and I'd stay maybe two nights there with her.

<Begin Segment 5>

TI: You know, earlier you mentioned that you lived in a neighborhood where there weren't other Japanese.

KK: No.

TI: So who did you and the boys play with?

KK: Oh, we had lots of friends, all Caucasian. There was one boy that was, and I've tried to remember his name and I can't remember his name, but he played with me quite a lot, and we played house, you know, you're Dad, I'm Mom, these are the babies, the dolls and everything, and we'd play house on the porch and all. And he was very nice for a long time, especially before school started, the two of us would spend a lot of time together. And then there was a brother and sister who lived in the apartments down on the corner of the street, and they were Catholic, Irish, and they took tap dancing, and once I started to go to school, sometimes I would take a route that went by the Catholic school and the three of us would come home together, but that's how I got into the Catholic church, and I got to see, you know, learned all about Catholicism through them.

TI: So it sounds like you took on some of your father's characteristics of just being curious and kind of just going in and learning what you can about different things. So how would the neighbors describe your family? 'Cause here you have a large, you know, Japanese American family in a neighborhood where there aren't that many Japanese, and lots of kids, so their kids probably knew your siblings and you, but how did they view the Uno family?

KK: I have no idea, because we're just so accepted, you know. All the kids played together, we just were... and, like, my immediate neighbor, they had a piano in their house, and so the girls -- they were all older -- and they would let me in the house and let me play on the piano. I couldn't play piano, but they let me tinker around, and they were very nice. They were, I think Polish, but every so often, he, the father would make spaghetti, noodles, really make noodles, and they'd always share with us. And then on the other side was a lady who was a widow. And she was haole, white, and very nice lady, and she asked me in for tea. And she would serve me cookies, and we'd have tea and we'd talk, and that's how I learned about how to be a lady, in society. [Laughs] And she taught me a lot, and she was very nice. In fact, she ended up giving me a nice little tea, glass tea set, which I think one of my daughters has now.

TI: So growing up in that environment, what was done, or how did you view being Japanese? Did your parents ever talk about you being Nihonjin, or Japanese?

KK: We just knew it, because my mother would speak Japanese, my mother and father would speak Japanese. My mother would read to me in Japanese and sing to me in Japanese. So I knew I was Japanese, but it didn't go outside the house, you know what I mean? Once I was outside the house, I was like everybody else in the neighborhood.

TI: But when you, when you realized you are Japanese, what does that mean to you, growing up? Did that mean that you were different in any way, or is it just that your parents spoke a different language? I mean, you grew up in such an integrated fashion, I'm just curious, you know, what did Japanese mean to you?

KK: Being Japanese meant that... well, it gave us some internal pride to be Japanese, and so you had to watch your language, you had to watch how you act and everything, you know. So I think that did a lot on how we reacted to other people, and, in the neighborhood, in what we did. When I was growing up, I didn't really feel different from my neighbors. They didn't make me feel Japanese, they didn't make me feel different. You knew you were different, because you'd look around and, you know, you look different than everybody, but we went to places together, and the community playground and pool that we went to, we just went. Nobody ever said we were Japanese or anything. We never felt, never felt left out or anything.

TI: How about things like Japanese language? Did your parents ever encourage that by, you mentioned your mother speaking Japanese to you, but things like Japanese language school, or anything like that?

KK: A little bit, they tried to teach me at home. No, we didn't go to Japanese language school, 'cause that cost money and we were very poor, and it meant going into Japanese Town and we lived quite a ways out. We lived on Thirty-Eighth Street and Japanese Town was First Street. [Interruption] When I was growing up, I didn't really, I knew I was different, I knew I was Japanese, but it wasn't anything like, you know, you did anything different from the other kids, you just did, went along with the other kids and did what they did and played with them. It was a nice time. It wasn't until the war started that, that things changed.

<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Okay, so we're gonna get into that, but before we go there, I just want to get a little bit more about how your parents raised you and your siblings, in terms of, just maybe their philosophy of parenting. I mean, they probably didn't say, "This is our philosophy," but when you just observed how they, you know, the values that they emphasized when you were growing up, what are some of the things that you really got, in terms of how they wanted to raise you?

KK: Well, they wanted us all to be educated. They wanted us all to have good manners, they wanted us all to speak good English. Once we got out the door, they said, "Do not speak Japanese, not to each other or anybody else. English." And because we were poor, we were very frugal. And they expected us to get good grades in school, and when we didn't, then we had to stay home and study and get some of the privileges taken away, but actually we had a very, very easy home life.

TI: And how about Christian values? Was that something that came up in the family discussions?

KK: Well, we just knew we were Christians, and the values were there, you know. It wasn't something, "Oh, you're a Christian, you have to do this and that." No, it wasn't like that. But we went to Sunday school, and for years we went to the Salvation Army Sunday school, and something happened there and I said I didn't want to go there anymore, and so then we started back -- all the older kids went to Union Church in San Pedro, on San Pedro in Little Tokyo -- and so then my mother started sending all us younger ones to the Sunday school at Union Church. And that was, that was fun, because we, at least one day a week, go down to Japanese Town.

TI: Now, you mentioned that incident, would you rather not talk about it, you mentioned something that happened...

KK: I won't talk about it.

TI: Okay, that's fine. Let's talk a little bit about school, then, a little bit more about what school life was like. What kind of student were you, what did you like at school?

KK: Well, I liked everything at school, but I wasn't a good student. [Laughs] And the teachers were very nice to me, and I guess being Japanese, they just thought I would know how to do nice floral arrangements and everything. They always gave me the flowers to arrange in the school. And because my father had been a florist and he, I watched him, and so I learned a few things, so of course I did it and they were very happy, so I was kind of the flower person at school.

<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So I'm going to jump now to December 7, 1941. You were, you weren't that old, you were...

KK: Nine.

TI: Nine years old. So do you recall that day, December 7th?

KK: Oh, very much.

TI: So tell me about that day.

KK: We were in the car going to church, and the radio was on and said that, you know, war had started, so we went home instead. And then everybody was just listening to the radio. Well, my brothers, their friends kept calling them to, "Come out, come out, we'll go..." And my mother says, "You boys, you cannot go anywhere, you cannot go out with those boys." Because they were all going to go out and see what was happening. And that's when life kind of changed for all of us. And then I had to go to school on Monday, and usually when I go to school, people would say, "Hello," and, "Hi," and, you know, smile and everything. That day they turned around and they went in their stores, they turned their back on me, and I just didn't know what. And I got to school, and my teacher was so good, because she kept me busy in the class, in the building, doing flowers and stuff, and later on I realized she did that because she didn't want the kids to tease me. If I'd gone out, you know, in the playground, I probably, because going home I got teased, of course. I got chased. But by then I realized, you know. I said, "Who's the enemy? Who's the Jap?" I'm looking around, "Oh, that's me."

TI: You know, on that Sunday, December 7th, did your parents say anything to perhaps prepare you, in terms of what might happen the next day?

KK: No, nobody said anything to me.

TI: It was just, but then there was some apprehension when your mother didn't want your brothers to go out. So she sensed that it might not be good for them to be out there.

KK: That's right.

TI: So she probably sensed something, but didn't really say why.

KK: Just that, because we were Japanese, "You better just stay in."

TI: Now, when the war broke out, you mentioned your oldest brother, Buddy, where was he?

KK: He was in Japan.

TI: So tell me what he was doing in Japan.

KK: Well, he went over in 1930, I kind of think it was '37, '38, sometime like that, as a reporter and correspondent to cover the Japanese-Chinese War. He went over to cover that, to see what it was like for the Japanese newspapers in America, because, of course, the U.S. was with the Chinese, and so all the papers and all the politics was, you know, heavily against Japan and everything. So he wanted to know what was really happening, so he went over. And then he came back while he wrote articles and sent them to the Japanese papers, Rocky Mountain Shimpo and the one in New York and all over. So when he came back, he made a tour, a speaking tour, and gathered money so that he could go back again. And so then he went back to Japan. And while he was in Japan, he took my sister over once, and left her in Tokyo, Hana, and the family was hoping she would marry some Japanese and be, you know... but just before she went over she met this artist and they had fallen in love, and the family didn't realize that he went up to see her before she left, she left from San Francisco, and so of course her heart was here and not there. But she went through all the things, they dressed her in Nihon, in Japanese costume and everything and sent her picture all around, to some very important people, too, and people were interested in her, but she wasn't interested.

TI: But when the war broke out, Buddy was in Japan, as a correspondent?

KK: Yes.

TI: And he was working primarily for the Japanese newspapers in the United States.

KK: U.S. Yes, right. Actually he was just a freelancer, so he really wasn't backed by any paper, he just would send it to all the papers. And then my brother Stanley, who is ten years older than I --

TI: Before we go there I just want, so... before we get to the others, your story and the others, so what happened to Buddy when he was in Japan? When he was, so Buddy's in Japan, the war breaks out, he's a U.S. citizen, and what happened to him?

KK: Well, it was just, not too long ago that I read this book about him that somebody had written and found out that he had spent one day in the army, and that one day made him lose his U.S. citizenship. But then they realized he didn't speak or write or read Japanese, and they took him out of the army. But they used him in Shanghai to take over the newspapers and magazines that were run by French and English, and so he ran the newspapers and magazines then, in Shanghai for the Japanese, in English, for the English-speaking. And they gave him a, kind of like a uniform that he wore, so he looked like he was in the army, but he didn't, he really wasn't. And then he had, before the war started, he had met this Japanese girl in Shanghai and married her, and that was one of the, another reason why he couldn't come back, because he couldn't bring her. We had sent my brother Stanley over, when Stanley was, I think about fourteen, fifteen, something like that. We had an uncle who had a import-export business in Shanghai, and so Stanley worked for him and learned some Chinese and some Japanese. And when Buddy felt that the war was going to come on, he sent Stanley back and he sent Hana back to the U.S., and both of them came on different boats, but it was the last trip for both of those boats, yeah.

TI: And do you know why Buddy decided to stay in Japan and not...

KK: 'Cause he has, he had a wife.

TI: Oh, at that time, he had a wife.

KK: He had a wife and couldn't bring her, so he decided to stay, yeah.

TI: I see, okay.

<Begin Segment 8>

TI: So let's go back now to your story, so December 7th, the war starts. Next day, you talked about going to school, how this teacher sort of protected you by having you do other things. You mentioned the kids teasing you. What were, how did they tease you, what were some of the things they would do?

KK: Well, they would just, you know, "Jap." And they really didn't know what they were saying, and they didn't know what they were doing, but they knew I was a "Jap" and so I shouldn't, they shouldn't like me. And yet, we were friends so we did like each other.

TI: Well that's what I was going to ask. So some of your, maybe your closer friends, did your relationship change with them after the war?

KK: No, not really.

TI: So they still accepted you as who you were?

KK: Yeah, uh-huh. 'Cause I said, you know, "I don't know, we don't know what's happening over there. We're not, we're over here in America, we're all Americans."

TI: How about your siblings, any incidents or events that happened to them during this period, after the war broke out that, that you can remember?

KK: No, I don't really remember.

TI: 'Cause you were in elementary school, they were in junior high school.

KK: Junior high and high school, yeah.

TI: But you don't recall them perhaps getting into fights or facing the same teasing or anything like that.

KK: No. I think that they wouldn't get into fights, for one thing.

TI: Now why is that, why wouldn't they get into fights?

KK: 'Cause our mother would, was the kind that said no, you don't get into fights, you know. Even if people tease you or anything, you accept it.

<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay. So after the war, pretty soon, the orders start coming out that families are going to have to leave Los Angeles, so what was happening with your family?

KK: Well, first they came after my father. He was not taken up right away, I think, in fact, it was February, I think, when he was taken. [Coughs] Excuse me. And they just came and took him, and we didn't see him after that. Then the family found out he was at Griffith Park, and so they drove down to Griffith Park, and they called out and, and he was there and so they threw him, over the fence, they threw him articles that he needed, like toothbrush. And then they found out that they were going to move that group of men from Glendale, and so they drove to Glendale and they saw him get on the train there, and that was the last they saw him.

TI: And so they picked him up in, when we say "they" did, I'm guessing the FBI --

KK: FBI.

TI: So when they picked him up in February, do you know why they picked him up?

KK: No.

TI: Do you have suspicions of why?

KK: I think, yeah, because my brother was in Japan and writing pro-Japanese articles. He was not a leader in, he didn't fit any of the criteria, and so we were surprised. But then we realized that, because of Buddy, my father was probably taken in, and sure enough...

TI: And so did anyone ever do any research, look at the file or anything, to see?

KK: Yeah.

TI: And was that the reason given?

KK: The main reason, uh-huh.

TI: So it sounds like you saw that file.

KK: Yeah, I have it.

TI: Was there anything that surprised you, in terms of what they wrote about, say, Buddy or your father in that file, or the family?

KK: No. Well, there were things that I knew about, but then, of course, I said, oh, yeah, here it is. My brothers Howard and Stanley both wrote letters to the government against my father, yeah.

TI: Say that one more time, against your father?

KK: Yes.

TI: So, saying that your father was...

KK: Because they, they, my father wanted to go back to Japan. They were in the army, both of them, you know. And so they had written that they did not believe what my father believed and that he was real pro-Japan and they were not.

TI: I would imagine that would cause some friction in the family.

KK: Oh, yeah.

TI: Because both Howard and Stanley were serving in the MIS, and for them to have written that, would have caused some internal friction. Can you, can you talk about that a little bit, was it...

KK: Well, see, I didn't know all of that, 'cause I was too young, they didn't talk around me about any of that. It wasn't until I, not until lately that I read all of this, so I didn't really realize.

TI: So I'm trying to understand why they would want, why would they do that? Because they were already --

KK: To save them.

TI: But they were already in the MIS, they were already U.S., they're U.S. citizens, they're in the U.S. Army.

KK: But they didn't want to be associated with my father any longer.

TI: Even though your father was, at that point, in an internment camp.

KK: Right, and he was wanting to go back to Japan, yeah.

TI: And so, after the war, did that cause difficulties between your father and Howard and Stanley?

KK: No. I think after the war, then they realized what all was happening. But my father... when we went to Crystal City to join my father, he was still saying he wanted to go to Japan. But then after we got there, and Edison and Bob and I said we didn't want to go to Japan, he changed his mind, and he said he didn't want it, and he took his, asked to have his name taken off the list.

<Begin Segment 10>

TI: So your father was picked up in February by the FBI, was being held first at Griffith Park, then Glendale, and then from there sent to, probably...

KK: Well, Glendale is where the, where they took them to get on the...

TI: The train?

KK: Train, to take him to Minnesota, I think it was.

TI: Okay, Minnesota.

KK: Was it Wisconsin? Wait, where is it? I have to look at the book and see what...

TI: But one of the internment camps. And so this happened. In the meantime, your mother and the others in the family had to start getting ready to go to first an assembly center, then a camp. So let's talk about that. What was going on, in terms of... First, what was the impact on the family by having your father removed? I mean, how did the family cope without your father?

KK: Well, my sister just stepped in and started taking over, with my mother, the two of them, my sister Hana and my mother, just kind of took over and they handled things. My brother Howard had gotten married, and so he had his own wife and his family and he was out. Stanley and the rest of us were all younger so we had to help, but then the decisions were made mainly by Hana and Mother. And so a lot of the -- we had very good friends in, haole friends in L.A., and they took a lot of our items that we wanted to keep, and they kept them. Each of the girls had a big carved chest from China that my sister Hana brought over for each one of them. She brought three, but she never brought me one, I said... I was too young to be thinking about that. But anyway, so they filled those chests with items they wanted to keep, and one was a uniform for, my grandfather's uniform was in there. I have it now, and I'm going to take it to L.A. and see if one of the family wants to keep it, if not give it to the museum.

TI: And where was... I'm sorry, this was your uncle, your uncle's uniform? Or your grandfather's?

KK: My grandfather's, my grandfather's.

TI: Okay.

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So, Kay, why don't we pick it up again where you were talking about how your older sister Hana and your mother were really, you know, putting things together, taking charge, but then you talked about some of your neighbors, your friends, who helped out and they were storing things. So do you remember any of the names of the people?

KK: No, I'm afraid, I can look them up, but I, my memory on names, even, I have a hard time right now, but they were not neighbors. These were friends that we had that lived out of, outside of our community. And one, the young man was learning Japanese and he spoke Japanese, so he liked to come to the house and talk to my mother and father, you know, in Japanese, and he had an eye out for Hana, I think. [Laughs] But he was a friend of my brother Buddy, I think. Anyway, his family, I remember, his family and another family took a lot of our things and kept them for us.

TI: Which was really helpful, too, because you, I mean, to have someone just watch your things during the war.

KK: Right, right. And we didn't have a whole lot of things. We were a poor family, so we didn't have a lot, but my sister had brought back kimonos and had brought back things from Japan, and so she had brought these three chests back. And so my friends took those chests, and so they put things in the chests that, like the kimonos and things, my grandfather's uniform and things like that. We had a picture of him, and his hat was on the table and it had a big feather on it, and I remember seeing that hat, but then I think they had to destroy the hat, because they couldn't store it. But everything else, his spurs, all his medals, those things I still have.

TI: So I'm curious, when I do interviews with other families, oftentimes those kind of things were destroyed because, you know, families wanted to kind of erase any connection, especially to anything Japanese military.

KK: Right.

TI: Do you recall your family ever thinking that way? Was there anything destroyed?

KK: Yeah, there were things destroyed, but that was kept, and his picture, I think, was destroyed, because I couldn't find it and I didn't know where it, where it is.

TI: Now, besides friends storing things, do you remember any other acts of kindness that happened during this time period, from some of your white friends?

KK: Yes. Some of our friends came by and, you know, they tried to help us. But then there's one thing that was not helpful was that our neighbor had moved and another neighbor had moved in. And they were nice enough, but they weren't as close as the first neighbors, we were really close to them. But the neighbors that moved came over and they took a few of my things. In fact, he had made me a cradle for my doll, and he took that back, and after the war I got it back. But that family was really good to us. The family that moved in, they were okay, but they weren't real close to us. Then, behind them, there was a rental house, and there was a family there and there was a girl that was a little younger than I was, and we would play together. Well, when I decided I wanted, what I was going to take with me to camp, I had a box with drawers in it and had doll clothes in it, and I had this little celluloid doll, arms moved, that these clothes belonged to and all, and so I wanted to take that to camp. She brought it over, and she said she wanted it. And I said, "No, I'm going to take that to camp with me." "Oh, no you're not." She put it down and she stepped on it and broke the doll. My heart just went "Uh," you know. That was a really sad time. So then I took another larger doll with me, and, but I really had wanted that other one. It would have been easier to take around. But it was one of those sad things that happened.

TI: So let's, so eventually you have to leave. So describe that, going to Santa Anita.

KK: The other thing I want to tell you about, before we leave the house, is that people would just come and take things off our porch. "You won't need this." And not pay for it or anything, they just take it. And one of the things my mother said for me to watch is to make sure nobody takes the vacuum cleaner, because we have to clean the house before we leave. But they would come and they would take, take chairs and couch, and my mother had this real nice thing where she had a planter like thing, and it was very "Japanesey," and somebody just took that, came up and they realized that that was a real nice thing and they just took it, table and all.

TI: And when that happened, what did you think? Or were there any comments in the family when things like that happened? What would you guys say?

KK: We were mad, but we couldn't say anything, we couldn't do anything, you know. "Well, there goes another thing," and that left an awful feeling inside. And then some people came and they wanted to buy things, they'd buy 'em for one dollar, two dollar, three dollars. And we were renting this house, so nobody, we had to empty it.

<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So let's -- anything else before we go to Santa Anita?

KK: Then we went to Santa Anita. And we lived in -- Santa Anita had the stables and all, but the parking lot, they built all these barracks, and they were just barracks with tarpaper around, all you had was a bed and a mattress.

TI: So you were in the parking lot, the barracks were?

KK: So we were in the parking lot, T-27. I can still remember that.

TI: And what were some of your thoughts and memories when you first got there?

KK: Oh, we just, I was just, for me it was all confusion and everything. And I thought, what a place. I'd never seen so many Japanese before, in one place, for one thing. [Laughs]

TI: And how was that for you, because, yeah, you...

KK: Terrible.

TI: So explain, why was that terrible?

KK: Because a lot of them spoke Japanese and I didn't, and the kids would play these Japanese games together, and I couldn't because I didn't know Japanese and I didn't know how to play them, you know. It was, it was stressful.

TI: So you felt, like, a little left out, or a little...

KK: Oh, I was really left out. And I was tall for my age, so with any Japanese group I was, my head was up there.

TI: How did the family dynamics change, going from your home to Santa Anita? What were some of the changes?

KK: Well, of course, once we got to Santa Anita, the boys kind of went their way, and my mother didn't have a whole lot of say about what they'd do or anything. The girls were more, we'd, she could handle us better. But my sister Amy took off, and she hung around with the fellows from Hawaii. She'd always loved Hawaii, she would listen Hawaii music and every Saturday we'd have the radio on to "Hawaii Calls," and she just loved Hawaii. And when we got to camp and she found all these Hawaii musicians and all, oh my goodness. You couldn't keep her away from them, and she eventually married Alfred, the guitar, steel guitar player, and then they went to Wyoming, Heart Mountain, together.

TI: From Santa Anita they went?

KK: Yeah.

TI: So did they get married in camp, in Santa Anita?

KK: Well, they took 'em outside and, to the city hall, and married them and brought them back in.

TI: So was there a party or reception or anything like that?

KK: No, nothing.

TI: And so how did it make you feel, to see one of your older sisters leave and... at this point it was, what, Hana, Mei...

KK: Mei, Amy...

TI: Amy, then Stanley...

KK: Ernie...

TI: Ernie, Robert, Edison...

KK: Edison and I. And then Chris Ishi was an artist, and he started to live with us in L.A., because you only could go five miles from your house and where he was living was beyond five miles from where he could work, so he lived with us and he could go to work. And he was an artist, and he worked for Disney. So when we evacuated, he evacuated as part of our family, and so he was with us all the way into Amache.

TI: And so what was the connection with Chris and your family? Why, why...

KK: Just friends.

TI: With your father, or your...

KK: No, with my sisters and brothers. It's just he needed a place to stay and we said, "Okay, come stay with us."

TI: So he became part of your family.

KK: And then he became part of our family.

<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So with so many people, describe your living arrangements. I mean, how, I mean, you have two, four, six, eight, ten people.

KK: [Laughs] Where? Living where?

TI: At Santa Anita first.

KK: In Santa Anita, okay. We were given two units, so we put all the boys in one, and all the girls in the other. And the same with Amache. We did the same thing.

TI: So what are some memories of Santa Anita for you, besides the barracks and maybe feeling a little left out with activities? Other memorable moments of Santa Anita?

KK: I had to go to school, and school was in the grandstands. And then, if you did something wrong, you had to go and run around the track. And, of course, I didn't realize I couldn't see, that I needed glasses, and, because I couldn't see the board, I was always talking to somebody and asking. So then if I was talking, then the teacher'd make me walk around, run around the track, and I did that quite a bit. And I was not a good student in school, because I couldn't see, for one thing. And I didn't realize I needed glasses. It wasn't until I got to Crystal City that I got glasses, so all those times, in Amache even, I was having a hard time. And, as I said, a lot of the kids spoke Japanese, played Japanese games, and I had to learn Japanese from them, in order to play the games with them, you know.

TI: But so you were around other Niseis, though, right? They spoke Japanese?

KK: A lot of them did, because they were from the farm areas and they were, you know, with their parents on the farms. On the farms most of them spoke Japanese. They could speak English, in school and all, but, I mean, just to play or anything they would go back to the Japanese. You do that.

TI: Now, would you get teased, then, by them?

KK: Oh, yeah. Or I would be left out. And more often than not, I'd be left out.

TI: Any other memories in terms of, like, well, I guess one question would be, in terms of knowing where your father was, when you were in Santa Anita did, did you receive correspondence, did you know where your father was?

KK: Yes.

TI: So describe what you know about that.

KK: Well, just that letters would come and my mother and my sisters would read them. They still left me out a lot, unless I was there and I heard, but I knew he was okay but that he wanted to go to Japan. Oh, my, well, maybe we wouldn't have a dad anymore, you know. But we were getting used to not having Dad, just because the way we were. And Santa Anita was, in a way, fun, and yet sad, because we didn't have to cook or anything, but we had to go to mess halls and stand in line, you had to go to the bathrooms and all of that. But there was a lot of free time to walk around and to do things. And my sister Amy was very friendly, and there was one girl who had two children and the father had, was African American, so the little, two kids were black. And Japanese are very prejudiced, and they, nobody would talk to her and so Amy and I would go over and visit with her and play with, I would play with the kids and all. I never knew what happened to them after Santa Anita.

TI: So when it comes to things like this, in terms of racial prejudice, you mentioned other Japanese were prejudiced, why was your family different?

KK: I guess we just were. Partly, I think it was my mother's Christian belief. And because where we lived, we didn't live among Japanese, we accepted people and people accepted us, so I think that was us.

TI: Okay, good.

<Begin Segment 14>

TI: So from Santa Anita, you mentioned Amache, Amache, Colorado. So tell me about Amache. How did things shift or change when you went from Santa Anita to Amache?

KK: Well, Amache was a more stable community. [Coughs] Excuse me. And the buildings and everything were more stable, and when we got there, the buildings weren't finished, and the boys had to scrounge wood. They made us beds and they made, made us shelves and stuff, and so we had kind of a nice apartment. [Laughs] And then later on they brought the boards to put in the inside walls because it, it's double wall, but then they hadn't finished it, so we had to put our own walls in. And that was interesting to see how that was all done, but we had boys, and so our units were okay. And then the boys helped our neighbors.

TI: Okay. What about jobs? Did your siblings or mother have jobs, like, in Amache?

KK: Yes, my siblings did. Hana worked for the YWCA, and the YWCA had a building, a unit in which they could have meetings and they had parties and an office there and all. And the meetings and they had parties and an office there and all. And the YWCA sponsored a lot of parties that, especially when the soldiers start coming in, for soldiers and all. It was interesting that in camp was the first time that I really found out about the various churches, because we could have one Christian church, we could have a Catholic church and a Buddhist church. Okay, that meant, all the different Christian denominations, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian Congregational, they all had to meet at one time. I don't know why I happened to be at that meeting, but I was at this meeting where all these different ministers were, and it was so fascinating to listen to them and hear them, how this Christian church should be run. And they argued a lot about whether you put the whole hand up or you put three fingers up to say the blessing, and things like that. And so it was the first time I saw what it meant to have a ecumenical Christian church.

TI: Fascinating. And what denomination was your family? Which Christian?

KK: Well, we went to Union Church, which was a combination of Congregational and Presbyterian. Which was... anyway. I was only ten, by then I was ten, and I thought this was very interesting and it stuck with me all my life, that churches just, it shouldn't be about what you do in church, three fingers, five fingers, whatever, you know. It's you and the Lord.

TI: When you said, when they had these discussions or disagreements, describe that. Was it heated, or was it more just like a discussion? How would you...

KK: It was more like a discussion. It wasn't heated, but then they had to make a decision one way or the other. And it was really fun. And we had one minister who was very talented and he would draw pictures. And he was so popular because he would, he would tell, be telling stories and he'd draw these pictures, you know, illustrate. And I just remember that, for all my years, I thought I wish I knew who he was and where he was 'cause I just, that really helped.

TI: Was this during his sermons he would do this?

KK: Yes. Uh-huh.

TI: Oh, so a sermon he would help illustrate what he was talking about, he'd actually draw what he was talking.

KK: Draw what he said. He was really good and so, when we knew he was going to be there, we all went, of course, especially young people.

TI: I'll have to find out, that's a good story. And this was in Amache?

KK: That was in Amache.

TI: Well, if I ever find out I'll let you know.

KK: Yeah, please do.

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Other memories of Amache?

KK: Oh, the snowstorms and the dust storms and the mud storms, 'cause it would be dusty and then this rain would come down and it would be mud, and we'd have to take our sheets back in and rinse them off and wring 'em out again. Oh, and there was this thing about this light in the sky, a ghost story. They says, "Oh, yeah, you can see this light, and it goes from barrack to barrack like that." So we'd all wait at night to see, and darn it if there wasn't one.

TI: Oh, so you did see a light?

KK: Yeah, and we went, [gasps].

TI: So describe it. It actually went inside camp from barrack to barrack, you saw something?

KK: Well, no, it just went over this one barrack. We saw this light, and we, nobody knew why or what for, and then it went across and then it went off. But see, somebody had told us that this happened and we didn't believe them, so one night we stayed up to watch, and it happened.

TI: So what do you think that was?

KK: I have no idea. I have no idea.

TI: But when you stayed up late at night, what did you discuss or what did you talk about in terms of what that was?

KK: Oh, a ghost, of course. [Laughs] We all... [gasps], "Look, look, look." But I went back to Amache in 1994, no, it was before, it was when I was, I went back there in 19-... trying to think, was it in the '50s or '60s? I had a trip, the Cancer Society sent me to Denver to a meeting, and while I was there I met with, I think the Rotarians, and it was all Japanese group and I had taken my sister's slideshow and showed it to them. And then I asked if anybody had a tape recorder that I could borrow, and I had my camera and a tape recorder, and I wanted to know where I could rent a car, 'cause I wanted to find out how to get to Amache and drive there. And this lady says, "Oh, I'll take you." So I, "Oh, good," because she had a car and she drove me. And so we went to Amache and, of course, it had, nobody'd been there and it, it was just all wild and everything, but I walked in and I looked around, and I went and I said, "I think this is where our mess hall was." And I stood there and I said, "And then the bathroom was over here, and our barrack was over here." We were the first the barrack, and then there were barracks on this side. But there was, and then there was the mess hall here. And so I was standing there, and it was just like magic. All of a sudden I could see these kids running around and this lady going to the bathroom and knocking into her and she dropped her soap and towel and they pick it up and give it to her, and she goes and they go this way. And I said, "I remember doing that." And there was another thing that happened --

TI: But this, when you were there, so this is decades after, you would see this. By just standing there you could just see it.

KK: I just, standing there, I could see it. Just like it was, you know, like, I don't know what you'd call it, but it's just, I just...

TI: And when that was happening what were you feeling?

KK: I was feeling very odd. Then more odd was that for years I'd had this sound in my ears, and I had the doctors at Kaiser, they tested my ears, they tested, they did all kinds of things and they never could get rid of this sound. Well, we were there, and after we, well, we walked around and everything and I had the tape recorder on and I was talking about things that I saw and everything. And I wish I could find that tape recorder, tape, but I can't. But anyway, when we were in the car, I rewound the tape and I said I want to listen to it, see what it was like, and when I turned it on, here was this sound. And what it was was the wind going through the sagebrush that was around us.

TI: The same sound that you've heard --

KK: And it was in my head. And when I turned it off, it went off. It was so odd. It was so odd. And I told her, "I've had this sound in my head all these years, and now it's gone."

TI: So it's almost like you had to return --

KK: To Amache.

TI: -- to hear, for that sound to, to cancel it out or something.

KK: Yeah.

TI: And this woman witnessed all this. She came and she drove you there. What an amazing story. What does that make you think, when you hear, when you experience this?

KK: I've had so many different experiences with my mother and myself that sometimes I think, "Lord, what are you trying to do to us?" I was sleeping with my mother in Amache, and of course my brothers had gone off to the MIS, went overseas to...

TI: So that's Stanley went to the MIS, and Howard's there, and then Ernie is in the 442.

KK: 442, yeah. But it was Howard and Stanley that she was talking about. One morning she woke up and she said to me, "The boys will meet." And I said, "Who will meet?" "Howard and Buddy will meet, but there'll be no guns." And years later we found out that when Buddy was captured by the (U.S. Army) and he was in the hospital, in the Philippines, Howard was in the Philippines and went to meet him, no guns.

TI: Did you look at the dates, was it about the same time your mother had that, that feeling, that they met?

KK: It was much earlier. My mother was much earlier. And then she had another one. She said, oh, she said to me, one morning she woke up and she said, "Oh, Buddy has a son now." Months later we get telegram. Buddy had a son. So, see, I have this thing through my mother, in me. Sometimes I wonder, "Oh, Mom, what did you do to me?"

TI: I'm wondering, too, you, when you talked about your grandmother, too, so I wonder if it... but that was on your dad's side.

KK: That's my dad's side, yeah.

TI: Interesting.

<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Well, any other memories about Amache before we go to Crystal City?

KK: Yes. [Laughs] That's where I first had snow. You know, we lived in this place with lots of snow, and I was going to school and I missed the street and I, the thing that goes over the, there was this big break, firebreak, and of course it was full of snow and so was the path, and I missed the path and I went into that and there was snow up to there. "I have to get to school, I'm gonna be late." [Laughs]

TI: So you just fell into, like, a snowdrift, and it was up to your eyes and you just had to kind of wade through that?

KK: I had to climb out of it.

TI: But it must've been fun, too, to see snow.

KK: Oh, yeah, it was, it was. It was fun. Actually, we were lucky and we had, I had a good time in camp. My age group, when we meet, now, after the war, people said in camp is where they made good friends that they still have. In camp they had all these fun things that we did. One of the things that we did on our block, there was a lady, there was a young lady, and she had a sister that had palsy, I didn't know what that was at the time, but she was in a wheelchair and she had to watch her all the time because she, you know. But she was a real very Christian lady, and she got the Christians in my block, which there were maybe four or five of us, and we'd have Sunday school, right there in our units. And so, I still have a program that I had put together for one of the Sundays, and I found that and I thought wow, now I remember we would have these Sunday programs and we would make programs and everything and meet together in one of the homes and have our Sunday school. And that really helped me a lot through the years, to know that, you know, my Christian life just kept growing, and then being with my mother so much, it just kept growing.

TI: So it sounds like you had more time for some of these things. Oh, and your mother, too, probably, more than you, your mother had more time.

KK: And then the other thing I liked was that we learned to do the baton. I learned to turn the baton and twirl the baton and all, and so for one of the programs I did, this other girl and I, we did baton twirling and tap dance for one of the entertainment, talent shows that we had. We had to make our costumes and everything. It was fun.

TI: Good.

KK: So we had a good time. And then, also, we were, I was in a choir in Amache, and I never thought I could sing much, but I loved to sing, and I was surprised when they gave me a solo at Christmas. So that was the first time I ever thought I could sing.

TI: That's good.

KK: And then Amache was where a very nice teacher, very nice teacher, she sent all the boys out and she talked to the girls, and she talked to us about menstruation. And she said when she was young nobody told her about that and she was so embarrassed when it happened in school that she said she would never let that happen to her girls. And so she did this, and I always thanked her, in my mind I always thanked her.

TI: But you had the advantage of having older sisters. Do you think you would have, someone would have told you, your sisters or your mother?

KK: They might have, but then to have gotten it from this lady, you know, you knew what to -- and then, because I was a very late, I didn't start until I was sixteen, most people start when they're, you know, anywhere from thirteen on, and twelve, I guess. And so I kept waiting and waiting and it never happened. [Laughs] Finally when I'm sixteen, "Oh, late, I'm odd."

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So let's move from Amache to Crystal City, and let's talk about why you needed to move from Amache to Crystal City first.

KK: Okay, so then we found out that there was a family camp in Crystal City, in which the men who are going to be deported could join with their family and then wait there to be deported. And so my (father) said, from Santa Fe, he said, you know, let's go there, so my mother says all right, so she took the three of us. Ernie had just turned eighteen and he decided to join the 442nd. He went all the way to Santa Fe to get my father to sign the paper, came back to camp and found out he had a hernia. He had to have an operation before the army would take him, but he went in the army and...

TI: But before that, so you, why did Ernie have to get your father's signature? He was eighteen, so did he... I'm not clear why the signature was needed.

KK: I don't know why, but that's what he did.

TI: And when he did this, because your father at that point was thinking he was going to be going back to Japan, and here Ernie was going to join the U.S. Army, do you know if there was a discussion about that between your father and Ernie?

KK: Well, Ernie always said that my father said that he wouldn't see him again and that he should go and he should die for his country. And Ernie felt that his dad had said, "You should go and die," but really what my father was saying is that, you know, "You're a soldier of this country, you should go and be prepared to die." Well, anyway, that for many, many years Ernie held it against my father.

TI: So how do you know the other, how did you know your father said to fight for your country?

KK: Much later, when I heard about what happened, and then when I heard from Ernie how he felt, and then I heard my dad, and my dad said what he said and then my brother finally forgave my dad.

TI: Oh, so there's a miscommunication.

KK: Yeah, there was a misunderstanding.

TI: I see, okay.

KK: But that's how he went to Italy, with this feeling that his dad wanted him to die. But my mother said none of the boys would die, they'd all come home.

TI: Now when your mother said that, did you believe her? Like there was, like, "Wow, Mom knows this," or... what would you, what would you think...

KK: I did, because every time my mother had said something it was true, so I've always believed my mother, you know.

TI: Amazing. So Robert, Edison and you go with your mother to Crystal City, to meet your father there.

KK: Yes.

<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So describe Crystal City, or describe meeting your father after all these years now.

KK: Oh, just, you know, we're a family that would just hug each other and say hi. It was nice to have him around. Crystal City was a different kind of a camp, in that each family had a unit, and it had a sink in it and it had a kerosene stove, so we cooked for ourselves. We didn't go to a mess hall. And we had camp money. There was one kind of money for clothes, another kind of money for buying food, etcetera, and there were stores that we went to that had whatever we needed. You know, butter and meat and fish and vegetables and all. And, of course, a lot of that was rationed, but we could still get it, but we had to pay for it with our money. And so it was like living in a little town, rather than a camp. And half the camp was German, and when we first got there there was a couple of Italian families there, also. But as soon as Italy joined the U.S. then the Italians were taken out, but my first ballet teacher was an Italian lady. And then I had to stop because she left.

TI: And when the Italian teacher, was she like an Italian immigrant, or was she like a Nisei, like a U.S. citizen but with Italian parents, do you recall?

KK: I think her husband was Italian Issei and that she was a Nisei, or maybe Sansei, I don't know, but she was American, American-American.

TI: So she just, to you, seemed like another American, and you took ballet from her.

KK: Uh-huh. And I also took piano from a German lady that was there, and then she left, so I didn't take any more. It was an interesting camp because of the two... and the Japanese, the Japanese camp was very "Japanesey," and the Buddhist priests kind of tried to run the Japanese camp. We had Japanese school from nursery to high school. The Germans had German school from nursery to high school. Then the Americans, we had from kindergarten through high school. We had two schools, the elementary school and the high school. And most of the Japanese went to the Japanese school during the day, but those of us who didn't want to go to the Japanese school, we went to the English schools.

TI: Oh, interesting, so you had a choice between Japanese or the English.

KK: Yes. But then we had to go to Japanese school after school. My brothers wouldn't go, so I had to go.

TI: So your brothers went to the English school and then after that they refused to go to --

KK: They refused to go to Japanese school.

TI: Why did they refuse?

KK: They didn't want to go to Japan. They didn't want to learn Japanese, they didn't want, they're just real Americans, you know.

TI: So why did you go to Japanese school, then?

KK: Because I was the youngest and somebody had to go. [Laughs] I had a lot of things because I was the youngest. You do it, you know.

TI: Going back to the English school, was then that a mixture of Germans and Japanese?

KK: Yes. That's where I got my good, my German girlfriends.

TI: So, in the same way, the Germans had a choice to go either to German school or the English school.

KK: Yes.

TI: And roughly, what was mix between Germans and Japanese? Like, how many, was it about half and half, or was there, do you know what the ratio was?

KK: You mean in the whole camp?

TI: No, just in the school.

KK: Oh, in the school? Oh, no, there were just a few Germans. Mainly Japanese. And, let's see, what else would you want to know?

TI: Well, so you mentioned, so you, there were a few Germans, but you made friends with a couple of German girls.

KK: Yeah.

TI: More so than Japanese girls?

KK: Yes.

TI: So talk about that. Why... tell me about the German girls first.

KK: Oh, well, we just kind of came together. We're still friends. One played the accordion, and so when the Germans had any kind of, they would have Friday night beer parties and stuff, or whenever they had, she'd have to play accordion, so we would go in and watch her, go with her. And then Rosemary was, she was just a nice person, and she and I just got together like that, you know. Her father, it was her mother that was interned, and then the father lost his job because they found out the mother was interned. And he couldn't support Rosemary without a job, so he packed her up and took her to Ellis Island, and took her suitcase and told her you're going with your mother. And then he went to the men's side and he said, "Let me in," and so he went in, and then they came to Crystal City as a family.

TI: You know, I'm curious, so the mother was interned. Do you know why she was interned?

KK: They, she belonged to this exercise gym, and the Germans used the gyms a lot, I found out later. And she happened to be in this one gym that the Germans used. She had nothing to do with it, but because she was a member and she was not a citizen, they interned her.

TI: Okay. So it's like guilt by association, not because she had done something, but because she was there. So you're friends with two Germans, did you have the same relationship with, say, other Japanese Americans? Close, a close...

KK: Not really. I spent most of my time with the Germans. But I had a few Japanese friends. We did a few things together and all, but my long friendships were with the two German girls.

TI: How about Edison and Robert, did they hang out with Japanese or Germans?

KK: Japanese. And they were very popular. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So let's talk a little bit about Robert and Edison. Why were they popular? What were they like?

KK: Well, they're both really friendly fellows, and they like to do things. And Robert was kind of a leader of groups and all, and a writer and, I don't know, he just got along with people. Edison liked to cook, and he and these girls were having this thing about who could cook the better cake and stuff, and then he taught them how to do some cooking that they didn't know. And so this group of ladies, girls, would meet with Edison at one of their houses, or at our place, and cook, and he got along with them. And then at school, I guess he was popular, and...

TI: 'Cause I think he, I went through the Crystal City yearbook, and Edison, I think, was the class president.

KK: Right, yeah.

TI: So he was pretty popular.

KK: He was popular, yeah.

[Interruption]

TI: So we were talking when we last, before we left, we were talking a little bit about your brother Edison, but before we talk more about him, I want to go back to the camp and just how it was operated. You mentioned it was sort of "Japanesey," the way it was run. and, which kind of makes sense to me because, you know, here were, most of the men were planning to go back to Japan, and they probably wanted, in some ways, to prepare people to go back to Japan.

KK: Yes.

TI: I'm curious if you could recall how it was structured. Was there kind of a hierarchy, or how was authority or order maintained in camp, in terms of people wanting it a certain way?

KK: I'm not, I can't tell you anything about that. I just know that that's the way it was, you know. I just had that, because we were not Buddhist and we didn't really go into the Buddhist group, we kind of stayed out. We were kind of different.

<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Let's talk about your father, though. Would he, like, go to meetings, or talk with other men about this?

KK: No. I guess people would talk, but then he wouldn't go to meetings. He was funny.

TI: Now, did you get a sense that he was starting to talk to your mother about going back to, going back to Japan or his thoughts about that?

KK: In the beginning, and then after a while, then he didn't and then my mother left, you know. Because my sister had a baby in Amache and had problems with her breast, and so we, my sister Hana asked if my mother could come and take care of Mei. And we sent her out. And then we told her, "Don't come back to camp," so then it ended up I took care of the three men.

TI: So you started cooking and...

KK: I did all the, everything, housekeeping.

TI: And how old were you at this point?

KK: Oh, gosh, what? Ten, eleven, twelve? Twelve.

TI: And so how was that for you, taking care of the boys, even though you're the youngest, taking care of three men?

KK: It just, it was just one of those things. You just accept things, you know. You just do.

TI: During this time did you get closer to your father?

KK: Oh, yeah.

TI: So describe that. How did you get closer to your father?

KK: Well, we spent more time together, and I saw the things that he was doing and all. He did a lot of really very good things for us in camp. The way the barrack was built, we had one room and a half. And in this half room was a bunk bed and a single bed, and I was on the top of the bunk bed. Well, the wall to the (next apartment), was open, so if I stood on my bunk bed and looked up I could look over, you know, and all the sounds would go back and forth. And then the other part was, my folks made the bedroom in the back, and then the kitchen, and then it went out and my father made a porch. He got cement and he laid out this big porch. And then he had a man come and they built this porch, and it was another nice, big room for us. And he did all kinds of interesting things. He had, he figured out how to make a lamp that went up and down. It went up and over here was a can of nails and stuff as weight, and so it would go up and down over the table. In the kitchen, in the corner, he made a round, he made cupboards, but he made a round thing so that that corner was not wasted. I could put pots and pans and, you know. And above was storage area, and we wanted to cover it, and he took a sheet and he tie-dyed it. We dyed it in, we thought was yellow, and when it came out it was yellow and almost kind of like a brown, but it was beautiful. It was like pineapples, all over. So we hung that up. He was very creative in what he did. And then every day he would listen to the news, and he'd write it in Japanese. And then he'd go out and he'd -- there was an area where he would go, and there was a stage and a podium -- and he'd stand at the podium and people would come, bring their folding chairs and listen to him give the news in Japanese. And sometimes he'd do that twice a day, other times three times, it depends on how the war was going.

TI: I'm curious how that was received. Because, so he was listening to the --

KK: English.

TI: -- American --

KK: American, yeah.

TI: -- news and reporting that --

KK: In Japanese.

TI: In places like Tule Lake and other places where people are going back to Japan, many people thought Japan was winning the war, and that, you know, the American news was all propaganda and it was all being spun in favor of the Americans. So when he would announce the American news, did you get a sense that people maybe questioned or, what he was saying and what he was hearing?

KK: I really don't know. I wasn't aware of what he, how people affected him.

TI: But that was interesting. So people wanted to hear the news, and so he would listen to the radio, take notes, and then go out there and talk about that. Did you ever go to any of these?

KK: No. And then one time, one time he got so excited about something and his teeth fell out. [Laughs] He said he had to get his teeth and put 'em back in.

TI: Do you know what that was? So he's listening to the radio and he got so excited?

KK: No, no, when he was talking.

TI: Oh, when he was talking?

KK: And so we heard that from somebody else that my father, his teeth fell out while he was talking.

<Begin Segment 21>

TI: How did things change for your father when he decided he was not going to Japan? Did his relationship change with others at Crystal City?

KK: I think so. I think so, but I wasn't aware of it. He kept busy. He didn't, in fact, he spent more time with the Germans than with the Japanese, and he learned how to do taxidermy from one of the Germans. And then he did a lot of taxidermy, and I had to cook all the meat. And he taught us all how to blow this pipe with -- he'd make these paper darts -- and how to blow it and where to hit the bird or whatever it is that you're blowing at, so knock 'em out without killing 'em. And then he'd pick 'em up and then he'd hold it and kill it, but he wanted to do that to keep the skin and everything nice. And then he would take the meat out and give to me whatever he's... I had, I've cooked, let me tell you, I've cooked birds, I've cooked armadillos, I've cooked roadrunners, I've cooked lizards. He cooked the snakes. I didn't have to do that.

TI: And when he did the taxidermy, where, did he display them in your apartment, or where would they go?

KK: He'd, we'd have it in the house or he'd give them away, to schools and to people. A lot of the people who worked for the camps would bring in the heads, the deer heads, and my father did a lot of deer heads for people. Then they would bring in the cats, you know the pumas? What do call them? They're spotted and they're big cats.

TI: So not cougars, but leopards or...

KK: Something like that, that were wild in Texas, and he did several of those. I've always wondered where those ended up, and if they're still around. I would like to find out. I was going to write to the newspaper in San Antonio and ask in anybody remembers this.

TI: Yeah, that's fascinating. So, yeah, it sounds like he was busy, doing lots of things.

KK: Yeah, he was busy. And then he did turtles, and he, oh, the one that he did the skunk, that was awful. [Laughs]

TI: What happened when he did the skunk? Did the sac break or something?

KK: He was told the first thing you do is take those sacs and bury 'em, so he took these sacs out and buried 'em, but he took the wrong sacs out. [Laughs] And when his thing slipped he, [screams], it got all over him and he was stinking like mad. And he didn't know what to do, he was supposed to go down and decorate the gym for the dance that they were gonna have, and so he told me, "Tell everybody to go home, but just you and I are gonna decorate." So just me and my dad decorated this whole gym, but I learned a lot about how to decorate. He would take, he would take crepe paper and stretch it 'til you could stretch it no more and then use it like cloth, and drape it, make big bows and stuff. It was really fascinating to, to... he was so creative, and he had us make flowers out of Kleenex, flowers out of toilet paper, flowers out of just almost anything you could think of, that you could get enough of to make different colors of flowers and all. And he would arrange those for the funerals or for the dance or whatever anybody needed flowers. 'Cause he was, at one time he was a floral decorator in Salt Lake City, and he decorated all the homes of the leaders of the Mormons. Like, if they were having a banquet at home or something, he would decorate, make a decoration, take it there, put it on their tables.

<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.

<Begin Segment 23>

TI: Well, let's talk a little bit about your brother Edison, because in Japanese American history he's quite well-known, that later on he is kind of commonly known as one of, if not the first, one of the first to propose redress for the Japanese Americans who were put in camps.

KK: Well, he said that, he was still in Crystal City in when he said that.

TI: So tell me about that. So early on, as a young, as a teenager, he thought that something had to happen?

KK: Yeah. He says, "This is against our Constitutional rights. We're American citizens, and as American citizens we should not have been put into camps, one." Once, he says, if you were in L.A. and you were taken into prison and they found out that you were not supposed to be in prison, when they let you go they give you money and they give you a letter of pardon, and they clear your record. "We need that," he said. "We need that."

TI: But then lots of Niseis...

KK: Said no.

TI: Well, no, a lot of Niseis probably thought the same thing, but your brother was one of the, was the only, or one of the few to actually try to do something about it.

KK: Right.

TI: So what was different about Edison that made him take that extra step? Because, you know, again, Nisei say this was wrong, it shouldn't have happened...

KK: Edison is Edison. You know, he just was one of those people. All my, I guess, everybody in our family was different, and everybody had kind of a way of... nobody was shy to speak in front of people or be part of a group and be an officer or anything. Edison, Bobby, Ernie, all of them. So, I'm not, I wasn't surprised.

TI: So tell me again, what made him, I mean, you were just three years apart, so he was your, directly your oldest brother, so you were pretty close. And you said people in your family were all outspoken, but was there something different, or what was the special quality about Edison that, that made him do what he did? 'Cause he was outspoken. He spoke, he was at, he gave speeches, he swayed a national organization, the JACL, to put this on their agenda, so it was more than just wanting it. He had to have something to make these things happen.

KK: That was his personality. I mean, even in high school he was a president. Okay, he comes out of, out of camp, he goes to a high school and they send him to, oh, where was it? Somewhere in Colorado, to a big gathering of young people. He ends up being president of that group. And he'd just come out of camp. And then he comes back, and he graduates and he joins the Navy. But in the meantime, he's talking to these people in JACL. He's only nineteen and they want to make him president of their chapter. And he's talking about redress and reparation, and that's when they said, "Don't talk about that now." But he said no. And that's, when he was nineteen, that's when he first, and that one JACL meeting, that's the first time he talked to JACL about it. And they said, "Don't talk about it."

TI: And why did they tell him not to talk about it then?

KK: Because they were just getting settled and they didn't think that should be brought up. But he kept talking to people about it.

TI: And so when did he make the big sort of speech, or when did it really come out?

KK: 1972.

TI: And this was at a national convention, JACL?

KK: It was in Washington, D.C. national convention.

TI: And what did you and the other siblings think when your brother goes out there on a national level asking for redress and reparations for...

KK: We think it was good. We encouraged him.

TI: Because most Japanese Americans at this point did not think it was a good idea.

KK: Still didn't, yeah. Well, they were beginning to, you know, they were beginning to. But, see, in the meantime, he'd been talking to, he kept talking to young people, and especially people who were going to, who said they were interested in the law. Then he would really corner them and start talking to them, and talking about -- he wanted to be a lawyer. And he had a heart attack when he went to law school, so then that ended that, but he talked to all these young people he knew were going to be lawyers, and said, "One of these days, you gotta bring this up."

TI: Do you know if he talked to any of the coram nobis lawyers?

KK: I think he did. I think he did.

TI: Now as Edison is proposing this, do other family members get involved in the redress movement?

KK: No. Well, yes, my sister Hana and Amy. Those two did, but nobody else. In fact, Ernie was against it, kept telling to, "Hush up, hush up, you shouldn't be doing this," and that and that, and it wasn't until Edison died and then they turned to Ernie, and then Ernie, you'd think he was the one that had thought of it. [Laughs]

TI: So Ernie was a 442 veteran, and he was initially opposed to this. He didn't think it was a good idea.

KK: Yes. He didn't think it was a good idea.

<Begin Segment 24>

TI: You mentioned Edison's death. What year did Edison pass away?

KK: He passed away, and I knew you were going to ask me and I was trying to think of what year it was... 1960...

TI: Well, if you can't remember that's okay, but I guess --

KK: It was the year my daughter was born. I'm trying to think... she is forty... because I had to take Trisha with me -- no, no that was my father's funeral, that's, that's... Edison died before my father died.

TI: It would be after 1972, though.

KK: Yeah.

TI: And before redress passed.

KK: Right, right.

TI: Which, and redress passed in 1988.

KK: I think he died in 1974. When did we celebrate the U.S....

TI: Bicentennial?

KK: Bicentennial is 19 --

TI: '76.

KK: 1976 he died, then. 'Cause it was that year that he died.

TI: So even that was very early in the redress movement.

KK: Oh, yeah.

TI: Because, even thought the JACL national had passed resolutions...

KK: They really hadn't worked on it.

TI: They hadn't worked on it 'til then. So do you have a sense that, was he frustrated during those early years?

KK: Oh, yeah.

TI: When he'd be out there talking. And how would he show his frustration?

KK: Well, he'd just talk more, find more people to talk to.

TI: But then, even though he's frustrated, my sense is people were gradually coming around.

KK: Yes.

TI: 'Cause it was, again, when I read, the, you know, the kind of historical documents, it appears most of the Japanese American community was against redress.

KK: That's right.

TI: But if you ask them now, everyone was for it, but if you look at what the community press and people were saying, they weren't...

KK: Yeah, they said, "No, no, keep it quiet, keep it quiet," you know, "you shouldn't ask for it," this and that. But he told all these young people that he was talking to, especially these people who were going to be lawyers, you know, he said if you look at the law, if they took you into prison today, and it was a mistake, when they let you go, they would give you money and they would give you a letter of, you know, to clear your record. Says, the same thing for us. And it made sense.

TI: And it was the lawyers later on, really towards the late '70s, when documents were uncovered by people like Aiko Herzig, then it really started accelerating because there they could really have hard evidence that indeed there was wrongdoings.

KK: Wrongdoings, yeah. That was really what helped, was when they found in San Diego that, the box with that document in it said that was covered up...

TI: But my sense is that Edison did a lot to prepare the community to take those steps, that in some ways he had the... what's the right word? I mean, he prepared them almost mentally to accept the challenge. And when these documents did appear, then things went more smoothly.

KK: Yes. And then a lot of these young lawyers had talked to him and knew what he had said and it made sense, and so then they start working on it really. And my sisters went on their own to Washington, D.C. to lobby for this. Nobody knows that, 'cause they went on their own.

TI: And who were they lobbying? Congress?

KK: Uh-huh, mainly Congress. My sister Hana, she did it all on her own.

TI: In terms of siblings, was Edison the first of the siblings to die?

KK: Oh, no, no. No. Let's see... Stanley died first, and then Bob, and then Edison.

TI: I see. Going back to Edison, what was the impact on the redress movement when, when Edison passed away?

KK: They just, I think, then the people he had talked to start picking it up, you know, young lawyers. And, you see, once I was married I was kind of out of the family, and so I didn't get to know a lot of what was going on in the California, 'cause I lived in Michigan, then I lived in Virginia and I lived in Hawaii. But I spent short time, one year, in California, when my husband went to UC Berkeley, but otherwise the family kind of kept to themselves and I wasn't part of the family anymore. And it wasn't until I came and I'm, start looking for all these and I'm getting all these papers in my house and I'm starting to get ready for this reunion that I'm reading all this, and I thought, "My goodness, I didn't know all of this went on, and the feelings that were going on in the various families." And it's opened my eyes quite a bit. Now I understand a lot of what went on and why it went the way it went.

TI: So a lot of fighting within the family. And what were the issues that people would fight about?

KK: No, there weren't, there wasn't fighting. There was just, mainly... you see, my father didn't have an income after he came out of camp, only social security, I think, he got. And then my, when my mother passed away, which was when I was sixteen, so he had to live with different families, and so they'd move him around to the various families. And some of the families liked to have him there, and some of the families didn't like to have him there and they felt bad about it. And he even came to Hawaii and stayed with us, and we enjoyed him, and I think he really liked it and liked being with us. But some of the families, he was just a burden. And he knew it. And he was always trying to make money to send to Buddy, knowing that Buddy was having a hard time. So his life was very difficult.

<Begin Segment 25>

TI: Going back to redress, eventually you got a little more involved. Especially during the, when the hearings started happening in the early eighties. It was probably '80... probably '81, '82. So can you describe how you got involved and why you got you involved?

KK: Well, I was in Honolulu and, I can't remember the two men's names, I'm sorry, but they came and talked to me, and they said did I know about JACL, we should have a JACL chapter here in Hawaii. And I said, "Yes, you should." And so they said, "Well, let's call these people and let's have a meeting and let's make a JACL meeting," and I says, good. So then, we did. We had a JACL chapter -- well, I was working, and I had to, I couldn't always stay in the meetings 'cause I was on call all the time. I was a public health nurse for a private agency and I was on call twenty-four hours a day. And I had the whole island. So, sometimes I'd be at a meeting and then I'd get a call and I'd have to leave and all, but I was there when we started. And then it came up that we were going to have these hearings, and so I helped them, helped the people get their hearings. And it dawned on me, who's going for my family? And I call my sister and she says, "Nobody, but if you will go, I'll pay for you." So I said, "Well, somebody's got to do it. You know, if Edison was alive he would've done it, but he's not." So then I wrote up something, and she said, "I'll give you a ticket to go." Well, I says, "I missed the San Francisco one, I have to go all the way to Chicago." She says, "Okay." So I didn't know anybody in Chicago, I didn't know where to stay or anything. And then my friend, my Peruvian friend said, "Oh, such and such a person is living in Chicago, you can go stay with them, and they'll help you." So that's what I did, 'cause I had no money to stay in a hotel or anything. And this family helped me and took me to the hearings and all, but I didn't get to see Chicago anything because we were busy, and then I had to leave right away 'cause I still had work to do at home. So I went and did the hearing and then came home.

TI: So describe the hearing. Do you recall, not maybe the exact details of what you said, but what were some of the general themes or topics you talked about?

KK: That I talked about? I just told my father and my brother's and my story, you know. And everybody else seemed to have stories of sadness and death and this and that, but I'm -- there's three of us on the table, and I'm the last one -- and their stories are so involved with death and sad things that happened to the family and everything. And mine wasn't like that. And I said, well, it was sad that we had, my father was taken and we, you know, and he went to this camp and then we ended up in Crystal City and this and that, and my brother Edison and Bob and I... so I told our story, and the rest of the family, and what happened to the rest of the family, but it wasn't sad like others.

TI: What reaction did you get from testifying? Did you get any feedback from anyone?

KK: No, no.

TI: How about from the family that you testified? Any feedback from family?

KK: No, from... no. They hadn't heard it anyway, so, you know. They said thanks for doing it. That's all.

TI: Well, after the testimonies, Congress passed the Civil Liberties Act and President Reagan signed it. What were your feelings when the law passed?

KK: I felt good. I said, "Edison, you were right." My brother Ernie was in, I think he was at a meeting in Seattle or something...

TI: Yeah, the Seattle, the JACL national convention was in Seattle right, days before Reagan signed it.

KK: That's right. And I think he went with them to Washington, D.C. and he observed the signing. But he was funny, he... I would have made a bigger deal of it, but he didn't. But he told everybody that he went, and he signed it, he saw the signing. I don't know, 'cause he wasn't really the one that was for it at the beginning.

TI: But the committee wanted someone representing the family, because Edison was, is viewed as kind of the beginner, or the founder of this movement.

KK: That's right, yeah.

TI: I want to now talk a little bit about -- is there anything else about redress you want to say? Because I wanted to ask about your efforts to collect and preserve family history, but before I go there, is there anything that you want to talk about, more about redress?

KK: Well, I was glad to get redress 'cause I never had that much money of my own for myself, so I took it and I invested most of it.

TI: Okay, good.

<Begin Segment 26>

TI: So we, off camera we talked about your efforts to collect all this family history and to put together a family reunion in Los Angeles. So why are you doing this?

KK: Why? I'm the last of my family to be alive. And I feel that I have so much material about the family that I really need to share it with them, and so I'm trying to put things together.

TI: And how receptive is the next generation, the Sansei generation, to the fact that you have all this information and you're gonna make it available. What's their reception to this?

KK: I think they're very receptive. We'll find out after this. Our last reunion was about... it was in Salt Lake City, and it was five years ago, I think -- four years ago, no, five years ago -- and somehow my box of materials got lost, and I never received it. It was supposed to be mailed to me, and I felt really bad because I would have liked to have gone through that and, the material, but luckily there was, one of Raymond's nieces was in California when I was in California, and, with my daughter, and I had the material with me and she took it all and copied it. So wherever she is, wherever she stored it, there is everything that I had is copied somewhere. But she's not coming to this reunion. I was hoping she'd come to this reunion, but somehow she's gotten estranged from the family because when her father died none of us went to his funeral. But it happened at a very difficult time. Raymond was in the hospital having open heart surgery. I had just been to Salt Lake and I couldn't go back. It was just, timing was wrong.

TI: So, even though she has materials, she doesn't really feel compelled to share it right now with the rest of the family.

KK: No.

TI: But you're trying to pull it all together, though.

KK: Yes.

TI: And so are the last surviving...

KK: Of my family.

TI: Okay, so of the ten you're the last.

KK: I'm the last.

<Begin Segment 27>

TI: So, Kay, I've gone through all my questions, and so I'm going to open up right now, in terms of... so what have I left out? What else do you want to talk about, in terms of, you know, your life or your thoughts? Because right now we have a pretty good record of your life and what you went through, and so is there anything else that you'd like to talk about?

KK: Well, yes. I'd like to talk about my getting married to my husband who's from Hawaii. He's a native of Kona, and that's why we're here.

TI: Okay, so let me start, let me ask you the questions. So how did you meet your husband?

KK: Oh, well, when he graduated he and a bunch of boys went in the army right away, and one of those boys plus a boy from Maui, these two young men, came to L.A. because a boy from Maui was told to go to Union Church. And I was in the choir there, and that's how I met those two young men. And then it was Christmas vacation time, so then my father says I should show them around, so every day I would take the bus from -- we were out in Rodger Young Village which was out, it was a army veterans' housing Quonset huts in Griffith Park. I would have to take the bus into town, and I'd meet them and then I would take them around. And we went by street car and bus and I showed them L.A. And, because I was going to school in the Hollywood area, a lot of my classmates' families worked for television shows, etcetera, and so they would have tickets ready for us, different places... so I would take these guys and we went to shows and things, you know. And they had such a good time, when they went back they said, "When you go back to, when you go to L.A., go look up the Unos." Well, Ed and this other boy from Kona didn't come until January. Well, we lost my mother on January 19th, so when they came -- and of course I was back in school, I was only sixteen -- so I said, you know, I couldn't meet them or anything. Those two young men came all the way out to our house with flowers to say they're sorry my mother had passed away, Japanese style, you know. And I was so impressed with that, and so was my sisters and brothers and all. And then, of course, they went off to wherever they went, and my sister Amy and I wrote a few times to the three boys, but I'm not a good writer, so I didn't write very often. But every so often I'd get a letter from one of them and I'd write back. And so Paul and Ed were the two that we kind of kept in contact with.

Well, then Ed ended up going to the Korean War, so he was in Osaka before he went over to Korea. And I said, "Oh, I have a brother in Osaka." And so he looked Buddy up, and he took pictures of Buddy and the children and sent the pictures to us, and of course then we wrote, you know. And then he went to Korea. He says I never wrote to him when he was in Korea, let alone... I didn't, I'm sorry. Then he came back from Korea. He went to see them before he left Japan altogether, and so, again, he sent pictures and all. And so then I finished high school and I was going to City College, and my advisor asked me what I wanted to do when I got my nursing degree, and I says I wanted to go either up to Alaska or go overseas with a missionary. And she says, "Then you should get your degree, a baccalaureate degree." I says, "Oh, I don't have grades for that. I couldn't get in." "Oh, yes you do," she says. "You can get in. You can go up to UC." So I went up to UC Berkeley, and I did a semester and a summer there. And then I went into the school of nursing at, in San Francisco, and I get in and I settle down, and I get a telegram from UC. I was not accepted for this semester because I might, I needed one more fine arts credit. So I had to move out. But they said, "Come back in February, we're gonna have a February class." And so I stayed in San Francisco and worked at Macy's, and by correspondence I got that one credit. And so in February I went back, and we had a class of eleven students, and we're the only class, all eleven of us graduated. They had another eleven class later, but not everybody graduated, so I said we're the only class that started together and went all the way through and graduated.

TI: But going back to your husband, so Ed... so how --

KK: So then he -- I was at UC in San Francisco -- I get this letter that he was gonna go to Michigan State. And he said he could go either to UC or Michigan State, and I think I had written to him that I was engaged. Then I broke the engagement right away, 'cause I thought, "Oh, no, this is not good. I should not have done this." Anyway, by the time I wrote to him that I was not engaged he had already accepted to go to Michigan State, so on the way to Michigan State he came up. And he always brings a friend, so I had to get a double date, you know. And we went out on this date and everything. We spent the whole day together and it was very nice. Then he and his friend left to go to Michigan State, and he wrote every day, sometimes twice a day. My house mother loved him, and so she would save all his letters for me and everything. And I was also dating -- I was still dating other fellows, but I was, I had three Eds I was dating. [Laughs] Actually one was... Ed I wasn't dating because he was gone, but then the other two were Eds, and one was in the navy -- no, air force. He was in the air force and the other one was at Stanford. Anyway, there's all these Eds.

TI: And so how did you choose the Ed at Michigan?

KK: He came out three different summers to visit. Then the last summer he came out I decided, yeah, he's the one. So we wrote to each other, and we'd been writing to each other and all, but this time we really wrote and decided we would get married. And I wanted to announce my engagement before I left school, so I bought Uno bars, and I was going to just put "Kaneko" over them and pass them around, and I had written to him about that. Well then I had to go to the county hospital for communicable diseases, and, because I had no record of having had communicable diseases when I was young, they kept me an extra week there, in case I came down with something. And I didn't realize that he and my house mother had been in communication, and I was supposed to be back at Easter, it was Easter time, at the dorm, and I wasn't. Well, when I got back we had a meeting, and when they, the girls said, oh... and the girls would never let me go into the, to the room that we store our bags, because I had bags I had to go store, and oh, no, they'll take it in and they did all this and they were helping, everybody was so helpful. I didn't think anything of it. And we were at a meeting, and they said, "Kay, you have a call." So I go down, and my room was across from the house mother's, and so there was a telephone with a long cord so she could take the telephone into her room and I could take it into my room. So I took it into my room and I said, "Hello?" And he said, "This is Ed," and I didn't know which Ed it was. [Laughs] And then he says, "Is Mrs. Von Breck there?" And I says, "Well, just a minute. I don't know," and I was wondering what does he want Mrs. Von Breck for? I open the door; there was my niece, my sister-in-law, Mrs. Von Breck, and my nephew, and they had a tray with Ed's picture and a ring and a lei. He says, "I got to ask you a question," and I says, "Okay." And he asked the question and I said, "Yes," and I hear all this giggling. The girls had gone outside. They'd gone to the front desk and everybody was listening in on our, his proposal to me. And then they left, they put the ring on my finger and they left. And then I talked to him a little bit, and I said, "Oh, I have to, you know, hang up and show my ring to everybody." So I hung up and I go out to show it to them, they had the place decorated. They had punch bowl and goodies, and they had my relatives and they had flowers and everything. Everybody knew about this but me. And that's how we got engaged.

TI: Wow, what an amazing surprise engagement. Good thing you said, "Yes." [Laughs]

KK: And I had to think, "Which Ed is this?" [Laughs]

TI: Well, now it's saved for posterity. Good.

<Begin Segment 28>

TI: And you had three children?

KK: We have three children.

TI: And why don't you go through the three children, in terms of their...

KK: Kris, Kris is the oldest. He was born in Michigan, 'cause after we got married we went to Michigan, where Ed had to finish school, and then we stayed on for him to get his master's degree. So I stayed there five years. He was there eight years, and I was there five years. And I had Kris there. Then we came back to Hawaii because his father had cancer, and they said his father wouldn't talk to anybody or do anything. And when any men came up to him, they, his father would always call him by my husband's name, Tetsuo, so they said, "Tetsuo, maybe you should come home." So we went home and he got his father well enough to get out, and his father made pots for everybody, you know... he got him out so that he would be working with people, and got out talking and... just helped his father a lot.

TI: So that brought you back to, to Kona.

KK: And that's what brought us back to Hawaii. And then I got pregnant and I kept having difficulty with this pregnancy, so we'd have to go (stay) with his mother and father in Pearl City. We lived in, at that time we lived in Kaneohe. I don't know if you know where that is, but that's on the other side of the island on Oahu. And then we were going back and forth all the time. So I finally had to have an emergency caesarean and had my daughter Julie. And then after that we built a house in Waipahu, and we moved there. And that's where my father came and stayed with us, in Waipahu. We had a nice life while we were there.

TI: And you had one more daughter then?

KK: And then... I thought I was finished with having the two kids, and then all of a sudden, "Oh, I'm pregnant again." And it was Tricia, and, again, I was having difficulties, so there was a point where I had to stay off my feet until she was born, and again, she was a caesarean, also. After that I had my tubes tied, so I only have the three kids.

TI: Okay, good. So we're almost out of time. Is there anything else that you wanted to talk about?

KK: Well, Ed and I lived in Hawaii, and then the government sent him to school at UC Berkeley for a second master's. He already had a master's, but he got a second master's degree. And it so happened that the advisor happened to be the same man who was an advisor at Michigan State. So we had a good time there. And then from Berkeley he was sent to Washington, D.C. And I had come home to Hawaii, and so he says, "You have to... we've got to move," and so I got the kids together and we went to Arlington, Virginia.

TI: And what was Ed's field of study? What made him move from place to place?

KK: Oh, well, he was a civil engineer by education, but when he (worked) the Federal Aviation Administration, they just, he just went up and up and up and... until he was more in administration than in... and so then we went to Washington, D.C. for five years and enjoyed that very much. Then we wanted to come back to Hawaii, and we'd gone on a vacation, we came back and the telephone company knocked on our door and says, "Your telephone must be off the hook because we've been trying to (check it as) somebody's been trying to call you from Hawaii and we haven't been able to put it through." So sure enough, there was a phone upstairs that was off the hook, and when we put it on we got this call from Hawaii and they said, "Ed, do you want to come back to Hawaii?" He says, "Yes," so we came back to Hawaii and they sent us out to Guam. [Laughs] And he was the, they had a new position there, and so he was the... oh, Administrator of FAA for Guam and the Pacific. And so FAA had its own little village, like. And FAA and the weather, U.S. weathermen lived in this. And so he was kind of like the mayor of that, plus he had to deal with the navy, the air force, the Guam government, and all that. That was very interesting. Then when the Vietnamese start coming through, FAA, and naval air station were in charge of one of the camps, and so we went there and he helped them do all kinds of things. And we have a picture book that I'm going to take to L.A. with me and try to give to some Vietnamese organization, that tells of all the things that we did there, you know. And I worked as a Red Cross worker and went to all the various camps to look for pregnant women and children who needed to, you know, orphans who needed to be cared for. So we had a very interesting time while in Guam.

TI: Wow, yeah, really rich, rich life. So, Kay, we're out of time. This has been such a pleasure, a really interesting several hours talking about these things. So thank you so much.

KK: You're welcome.

TI: And I'm glad we came all the way to Kona for this. So thank you.

KK: Well, I got to tell you the rest of Ed because after we -- it could be off of this --

TI: No, we can... go ahead.

KK: But he decided while we were in Japan that he wanted to retire and be a coffee farmer again. And so his sister found out about this farm, and so we, sight unseen we bought the farm and came and started this coffee farm. And then he was, we were contacted by a lady who was getting old and she learned how to make a certain kind of a hat, to weave a lauhala hat, a certain kind of lauhala hat, because when she was, like, thirteen, her parents left her. And a teacher and a Hawaiian lady took her under their wings, and the Hawaiian lady taught her to make this hat and told her, "You don't teach this to anybody else. You just make this hat, and you take it to Mrs. Kimura. Mrs. Kimura's lauhala shop will sell the hats for you and you can live off of this." She did this for years and years. She was in her eighties, and so she says, "If I die nobody will know how to make this hat." She asked Mrs. Kimura, "What shall I do?" And so Mrs. Kimura said, "Let's have a class," and we had six people, and she taught us all, but Ed's the only one that could really remember it and to teach it to other people. And so he started making these lauhala hats. Well then pretty soon he got in with the lauhala group, and he learned how to make other hats. And you'll see the hat I'm wearing now. He made that. And he makes beautiful hats, all kinds of hats, and his hats are, people really want them. So he runs a coffee farm, so we have coffee to sell, and he makes hats and he sells hats, and that's how we live here.

TI: Good. Well, again, thank you so much.

(Narr. note: After Guam we lived fourteen years on Oahu. Ed was the first "local" to get a Division Chief's job in the FAA. At the time, Hawaii was the center for the Pacific Region. When the FAA combined the Pacific and West Coast Regions into one Region we could have moved to Los Angeles. We decided to stay in Hawaii and Ed had the top job for the FAA here. In 1986 Ed was appointed to be the FAA manager for the whole Asian Area. His office was in the Tokyo American Embassy and he travelled all over Asia as far as India. We spent three years in Tokyo. He came of age to retire and did so in 1989.)