<Begin Segment 28>

TI: Any other thoughts or memories about Tule Lake? I know, I know it was a difficult time, lots of fights, friction. Anything that you saw that you want to share or anything like that?

MK: There, I know there were a couple riots. One of 'em was when that farmer got killed by the GI, got shot. But most of it was all preparation for Japan. Until the war ended, then everything changed. Was hundred, one-hundred-eighty degrees of different from where we were.

TI: Yeah, so talk about that. So all of a sudden now the war ends, your father and the family are thinking, "We'll go back to Japan," but then the thinking changes. So talk about that. Why, why did it, why do you think it changed?

MK: Let's see. We were scheduled to ship back to Japan on October ship. My buddy Nakamura got shipped in a June shipment. I never heard from him again. In the July shipment, a friend, Hamaji, he left. I told him goodbye and he left, and I didn't know what had happened to him until 1964 when I met him in Honolulu over here. I said, "Oh, you went to Japan the July shipment." Just like that. He says, "Yeah, we made it. But you think Tule Lake was tough, Japan was tougher." [Laughs]

TI: 'Cause they went to a war-torn country.

MK: Yeah, and then the war ended right after. They had nothing, and there were gaijin, right? He said Japan was tougher than it was in Tule Lake.

TI: But they were going back even before the war had ended.

MK: Before it ended, yes. The June shipment, the guy in it, the ship sank. It was all Japanese ships, so it got torpedoed someplace along the way. And July shipment made it. We were scheduled to go out on a October shipment. The war ended in August, so at that time my father was still determined to go. But as soon as the war was over, we had to decide whether we were gonna back, go back to Japan or stay, go back to Hawaii. Two choices: Hawaii or Japan. Dad said Japan, Mom says she doesn't know, until about September, late September, she says, "Dad, why you want to go back to Japan?" Because she hates the United States, how the dissension, how he hated the dissension for the United States was, but then Mom said, "Look, your children, your five children are all American citizens. Japan is a torn, war-torn country. No matter how bad, how bad you think the United States is, Japan is gonna be worse. And we go over to Japan, where are we gonna go?" And she talked more, "What your five children gonna do when you go to Japan? How you gonna support 'em?" All these other things that goes with family. She worked on him and finally he decided, "I guess she's right." She's gonna go to Japan, not go to Japan. So he put in papers to return back.

TI: I'm really impressed with your mother's thinking. How she was able to think so... these steps ahead.

MK: Logically, yeah. She always was ahead, always thought ahead.

TI: It reminds me of that story you told me about not wanting your father to come to visit, because it would be hard on the family. She was very much thinking of you and your...

MK: Always the kids.

TI: ...brothers and sisters in terms of what it would mean to them. All these big decisions. So she convinced your father --

MK: My father to come back to Japan, come back to Hawaii.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.