<Begin Segment 8>

MN: Now, since we were talking about Tule Lake, I wanted to ask you if the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" was an issue with your parents.

KY: Again, I was ten years old, so they're not going to talk to me about that.

MN: Did your parents ever say in front of you that they want to go back to Japan?

KY: No, they did not. I don't think they even considered it since they had three grown daughters here, all of who were married. And they still had me, and I was like ten or eleven or twelve, whatever. So I don't think they wanted to sacrifice what they had here for what they might have had to face in Japan. Especially if Japan lost the war, they're going to be in very poor economic shape. And once we got to, back to Los Angeles, my parents used to send packages back to Hiroshima. At that time, there was a company called Asahi Shoe in Little Tokyo that prepared the customs records so that you can take things that were allowed to be sent to Japan, and they would package it, fill out all the necessary documents, and send it to Japan for my parents. So I'm sure they sent food and clothing back to Hiroshima. I went back to -- well, I went to Hiroshima for the first time in 1992, and I met my Hiroshima cousins. One was my father's nephew, one was my mother's nephew. And I think they welcomed the chance to repay my parents by being nice to me, and so they showed me around, they wouldn't let me spend any money, and it was a very enjoyable trip for me. And my Japanese was adequate, so I could converse with them on a very basic level. And when they were talking to me and I couldn't understand what they were saying, I would say, "Hey, wait a minute," and then they would stop and repeat what they were saying at a much slower pace.

MN: Do you know if your family in Hiroshima were affected by the atomic bomb?

KY: I sort of asked my two male cousins about that, and one of them, fortunately, was (out of) Hiroshima for work. And I'm not sure where the other cousin was, but they had no apparent damage from the atomic bomb although both of them died relatively young.

MN: How did you feel meeting your relatives in Hiroshima for the first time?

KY: Well, the two male cousins had been in the United States, and I had met them here. So when I went back it was not like being with strangers, but I had never met their wives. And one of my cousins had two or three sisters who came to his house, and that was the first time that I had met them. And when I went to Nihon, I took my jizu with me. And the first thing I did when I got to their house was I went to the back where the family cemetery is and paid my respects. And I think they appreciated that, for a gaijin I knew enough to do that.

MN: Now one of the things also people worry about going to Japan or coming back is omiyage.

KY: Yes.

MN: What kind of omiyage did you bring over?

KY: Well, I went to Japan on a kankodan, a group tour, with Yamato Travel. And my auntie had written to my cousins and told them that, "Okay, Kazumi is coming over, but he's coming on a kankodan, so he can't bring any omiyage with him. So don't give him any because he can't bring it back." And so at that time people in Japan liked beef jerky. So that's all I took was beef jerky to them. And I think they appreciated that and, I mean, just the fact that I was there, I think was... they liked that. And the last day I left, after they had shown me around Hiroshima, they came to the Bullet Train station to see me off, and both of them gave me an envelope full of money. And they said, "Well, you can put this is your suitcase," and what can I say? So I was trying to spend all my yen before I left Japan, but I ended up with this money from both of my cousins. And I had taken pictures of my cousins, so once I got home I made 8x10 prints, and I sent them back to Japan. And because I didn't know what else to do, and I think they appreciated the fact that they now had a formal record of me being there with them. The wives of my two cousins said that they understood romaji, so I wrote in romaji to them thanking them, and I had told them that I can read a little bit of katakana. So when they wrote back, they wrote back in katakana, and what I couldn't read I took to someone who could read it and had them translate it for me. So we exchanged a couple of letters after I got back, and I took copy machine pictures of my sister's adult children and I sent them back to Hiroshima saying, "Okay, this is Neesan Mitsuye no musume," or mago or himago. And so that they could relate to who these pictures were of.

MN: Now when you were in Hiroshima, did your relatives take you to the Peace Park?

KY: I'm sure they did, but that's part of the tour. I mean, when you go to Hiroshima, almost automatically you end up in the Peace Park.

MN: How did you feel about witnessing what the atomic bomb had done?

KY: Well, it wasn't the first time I had seen pictures of the destruction, so I don't know if it affected me that much.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.