<Begin Segment 13>

MN: Well, let me take you back to Topaz, okay?

TS: Sure.

MN: When there was talks that they were gonna close the camps and you were gonna be leaving camp, how did you feel about leaving this camp life?

TS: I, you know what, first of all, there was no preconceived plans. We didn't know where the hell we were gonna go. We didn't know where the hell they were gonna send us. But I remember the night before Mama said, "We're gonna leave in the morning. We're gonna get up real early." We got up at two o'clock in the morning. We had all our stuff packed, what we were gonna carry. And it was, I guess in retrospect now it was really kinda traumatic, 'cause we didn't know where we were going. Were we gonna go back to Japantown, San Francisco? We had no idea. And I remember my mother was pregnant with, with my sister Haruko. And we got up in the morning, we got dressed, and we, we had to go behind the men's latrine where the, this old school bus came to pick us up, and it was my mother, my stepfather, and the five of us and my brother Hajime, who was born in Topaz. So we walked out of the door down the gravel walkway, we made a left turn, and we all turned around, we faced our building, and I remember my stepfather said, "Goodbye, house." And we all bowed to that house, barrack. We turned around and we got on this bus, and the bus took us to a train and we, it was the only train in town. There was only one track that came through Delta, so we were on that train until we got to San Francisco, and we lived in Hunter's Point. So looking back on it, it was very traumatic because my mother didn't know what the hell was gonna happen to us. We didn't know. It was, it was like a blind date. You didn't know what you were gonna get.

MN: Now, why didn't the family go back to San Francisco's Japantown?

TS: Well, that was our home, except after we left, it was Japantown, there was Chinatown across, over the hill, next to Japantown was the Fillmore where, where the blacks had to leave, live, and when Japantown was vacated the hakujins didn't want to live where we lived, so the only people who could, who would live there were the, the blacks that were brought up from the South to work in the shipyard. Housing was at a shortage then, so they, they occupied Japantown. Well, when we came out of the camps the blacks couldn't move because the hakujins didn't want blacks living next to them, so these blacks had no place to live. So the government said, "We're stuck with these Japanese," so they put us into Hunter's Point, which was a shipyard. It was a federal housing shipyard, so they put us in there for about nine months. Yeah. Almost a year, as I recall. And, but it was, that was dormitory living. There was a parlor where everybody congregated. There was a men and women's bathroom. There was a laundry facility behind that, and there were two wings that went out, and each wing had rooms that had two single beds and a dresser. So you have a family of five, six kids now, almost eight, and you have mother and father in one room, or two brothers and sister in each room. I mean, that's a hell of a way to live. And across the street was where the cafeteria was. So the government moved us to Richmond, California, and we lived in these, that was wall to wall federal housing project, these cheap buildings that housed sixteen families per. And what the government did, it was, it was segregated. The blacks lived in the middle and the hakujins lived around them. The government cleared out one side of the street from the, from the blacks, put us there facing the blacks, and then over here on Victor and Gordon, the same situation.

So we grew up, the blacks were from the South and they were sympathetic for, they weren't about to discriminate us, 'cause they were discriminated on and shit on in the South. But behind us, these uneducated, working class, ignorant rednecks, they kicked our ass every goddamn day. They spit on us, they called us dirty names. "Fuckin' Jap" was the cleanest thing they ever called us. And I'll never forget this, we could only play with other kids 'cause we would never be caught alone because those kids would, it was a game for those hakujin kids. They would surround us, surround us and throw rocks at us, spit us, spit on us and beat the shit out of us. And I remember one day, for one reason, I can't explain the reason, but I was out there by myself playing in the sandbox and I made my little castle, and all of a sudden, I was on my hands and knees, and all of a sudden there were these two huge shoes stepping on my castle. And I looked up and it was about a nineteen, twenty year old redneck guy, and I go, oh shit. I'm on my hands and knees; he's gonna kick the shit outta me. I couldn't get away. I was on my hands and knees. So I looked up to him, he looked down at me, and he said, "Do you have any sisters?" "Yeah," I said, "Yes, I have two sisters." And he goes, "I wanna fuck your sisters." And it broke my, it just, even today I feel this, Jesus Christ, it's like a dagger through my heart. So I went, he didn't do nothin' else to me. I went home, I was cryin' and went home. Mother said, my mother said, "What happened?" I said, I couldn't tell my mother that. But I remember that, to them we were just like shit. We were like something for them to play with. And it's just so demeaning, to me as a human being, that these fuckin' low son of a bitches are gonna look at me and say, "You have any brothers or sisters? I'm gonna fuck your sister." What the fuck am I? What are we as a people? Something to satisfy these low motherfuckers because they want to have sex? Come on. What the hell would happen if I said, "Yeah, but then you have any white girls that I can fuck?" He would've killed me. It's just like the South. You know, they, hakujins have sex with their slaves and that's where the word "motherfucker" comes from, but it never is the other way around, because we're the, we're the inferior people. So they can look down their nose at us and our women are something for them to play around with and say, "Get the fuck outta here. I've had my fun." They don't value you as a human being. They don't look at you as a person that has feelings and emotion. I mean, that's, if that's not insulting.

And that's why, to this day, when I see hakujin, these Asian women with hakujin guys I go, oh my God. It brings back those memories. And I go, oh my God, I hope to hell this same shit ain't happening, you know? 'Cause I heard so many stories. I'm, so many stories with these hakujin, these Asian girls, "Oh, some white guy asked me out. Sure I'm gonna go out with him." He may look like shit. He may be a piece of shit, but he's white. So when they, she goes out with him and she gets "screwed, blued, and tic tac twoed" and kicked out the door and said, "I don't need it, I don't need you anymore. I've had enough of you." And they're resentful as hell, and I say to myself, hey, I could've told you that shit before. I could've told you that shit before. So as, as many hakujin girlfriends I had, I told every one of 'em, "Never marry a hakujin." Because if I'm married to a hakujin and one day she gets pissed off and calls me a motherfuckin' Jap, that would, that would kill me. I couldn't face her anymore. I couldn't face anybody who says "I love you, I'll be with you for the rest of my life," and when they get mad I'm a "fuckin' Jap?" No, thank you. Besides, the way I look at it, if I can't find an Asian woman to marry me, am I that much of a goddamn loser? Come on. I'm better than that. If I can't find an Asian woman to marry me there's something the hell wrong with me. That's how I look at it.

MN: But wouldn't you say camp sorta screwed up the psychology of, you know, what you're talking about is the status symbol to go out with a white person?

TS: Of course. We were the goddamn, we were the, we were like the pigs in the pig pen, and then the hakujins were the ones who were the farmers and they, they decided when you're gonna live and when you're gonna die, what they feed you, what they don't. We were the pigs. We were the animals. And shit, I can't go along with that kind of thinking. I mean, what the hell, I couldn't face myself in the goddamn mirror if I said, yeah, we're pieces of shit. Shit all over me. Fuck you. Not, you're not doin' that shit to me. No way. I've been through that shit and I ain't takin' it anymore, 'cause I know in my heart I'm better than that. I deserve the good stuff. I deserve the good stuff. I deserve nothing but the good stuff. I wouldn't settle for nothing less.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.