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TI: How about your father and mother?

YU: Well, my mother was still there. My father, they moved him to Bismarck, North Dakota.

TI: Okay. And while this is going on, what are you thinking? Because not only --

YU: I'm just thinking, "This is just crazy, you know? They're not dangerous criminals or alien or anything like that. They just speak their mind." And, like my brother had, Sam, although he went just to high school education, but he used to be a leader for a lot of the Kibeis in Los Angeles area. So like Kumamoto Kenjinkai, he would be the leader speaking up for things. And he had no fear.

TI: Yeah, so if you were to ask people about the Uchida brothers, Sam, Yosh, Henry, George, you're all good in judo, were you viewed as kind of like tough kids?

YU: Not really. We were...

TI: Or people to be careful around, maybe?

YU: No, because we were not like some of the hoods that you'd find roaming the community. We didn't do anything like that, so we were...

TI: But at least from the government perspective, they were, seemed like they were a little fearful.

YU: Well, you see, it could be, because they were, they had no information on... they thought Niseis that did judo were dangerous. They thought the people that did kendo were dangerous, because with kendo they would, they were taught to cut, a samurai spirit. Judo, there was not that much, you might say, a Japanese spirit or anything like that. They had a bushido spirit in all martial arts.

TI: And so when you think about now, the fact that they sent your brothers to Santa Fe, do you think being labeled as a judo person kind of made that happen more so because of that?

YU: Could be, but it was sort of a, yeah, I think they could, they could be... because he was good in judo.

TI: Again, I'm wondering why they would do that, because again, there weren't really that many, especially from places like Poston, that many that went from Poston to Santa Fe.

YU: No, there was a whole bunch of judo people went.

TI: So yeah, they...

YU: 'Cause, and they were not good judo people. They were people, probably... today they would not make San Jose State Judo Team. [Laughs]

TI: But they hung around good judo people, so... [Laughs] Okay. And what happened to your brothers? They were in Santa Fe, and then did they stay there for the duration of the war?

YU: Then my older brother was sent to Bismarck because Santa Fe had a bunch, from what I understand, they had a bunch of people there that were Isseis, and they were a very outspoken bunch of Isseis, and, like, there was a reverend from San Jose Buddhist Church that was there, he had gone to Stanford and he was really speaking out against, against the government. But he was not dangerous 'cause he didn't know judo. He was a small man. But he told me that my brother was a spokesman for all the old people, and because he knew judo they sort of feared him.

TI: So he was kind of, it sounded like your brother was kind of fearless too. He was able to...

YU: Yeah, spoke, spoke in behalf of all them.

TI: And so they moved him to Bismarck to kind of separate him from the rest of the people.

YU: Right, right.

TI: But your father was...

YU: My father was in Bismarck, too. He, but he's a Issei and he didn't do anything, but from what I understand, he used to listen to, what do you call, shortwave, shortwave radio.

TI: Now, after the war -- I'm jumping around a little bit -- what, how do you think the Santa Fe, and in the case of your older brother, Bismarck, that experience, how did that affect them?

YU: Well, because of that they decided that, well, my father, from what I understand, came back to Tule Lake -- not came back, came to Tule Lake -- and my mother said, well, they decided to go back to Japan because he was already in his sixties. I don't know how old he was, but he passed away at sixty-eight or something, he was sixty-eight years old, something like that. But he was about sixty-five, and he felt that he just didn't have the strength to start up again.

TI: So he and your mother went back to Japan, then.

YU: My father went.

TI: Your father went back. But not your mother?

YU: No, she did, but she went on the second or third wave.

TI: Okay. And how about Sam? What did Sam...

YU: They, he went home. He went back with my father.

TI: Okay, so the two of them went...

YU: Yeah. Then my --

TI: And this was during the war they went to Japan?

YU: No, the war ended.

TI: The war had ended, okay. Then they...

YU: Then my two younger brothers went with Sam.

TI: Also to Japan.

YU: Japan, yeah.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.