Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Kazie Good Interview
Narrator: Kazie Good
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: February 26, 2015
Densho ID: denshovh-gkazie-01-0018

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TI: Yeah, I want to cycle back now to your sister a little bit, because you told that interesting story about how she was at Tule Lake from seven to ten, and then when she left, she talked about sort of the first town, noticing there was no barbed wires. I'm curious, so she's still young, how well did she adapt to being out of camp?

KG: Well, it was very difficult because she really put up with a lot of abuse. Kids picking on her... children can be cruel. And so when we were out in Philadelphia, in that area where there were no other Asians, that was hard. And it's hard being a minority anyway, especially during the war. And she had kids grab her and crop her hair off. I remember she said she was eating an ice cream cone, they just grabbed it and smeared it all over her face. I mean, she put up with that kind of abuse, which was difficult. But then my brother went through the same thing. When he came back from overseas, he couldn't get a haircut because the barber said, "I don't cut a Jap's hair." And there he was in his uniform. We all went through that, especially on the East Coast, I think, where there were no other Asians around. It was just a racial profiling period.

TI: Now was, like, going back to your sister, was she essentially bullied, hair cuts, like that, was it because she was Japanese, or was it...

KG: Yeah. Children can be very abusive. There's a lot of name calling and all that.

TI: And how about your parents? How did they adapt to being on the East Coast?

KG: Well, they finally went to, worked at Seabrook Farms, and there were a lot of Japanese around, so there was no problem. They managed. And they were there until I finished college and then they went to Chicago because my (one) brother was there and also I don't know... well, it was time for a change, I guess. So they were in Chicago for a while and then left because the weather was just too bad for them. And my (second) brother was down in Boeing, or down at Edwards Air Force Base, so they settled down in the L.A. area. That's where they remained.

TI: And so going back to your brother, so your brother who loved to do airplanes and then went to that school that he had to leave, then went into the 442, ended up, it sounds like, at Edwards Air Force Base for the rest of his career?

KG: Well, he went to school after he got out of service, and then he got a job at Edwards Air Force Base. And he, for a while... I don't know if you know about the SAC bases. The government had airports throughout the country ready for a nuclear attack, you know, and they couldn't penetrate any of the airports because they were ready for, in case there should be an attack, they carried on mock attacks. They had these, they called them SAC bases, Strategic Air Force Camp or something...

TI: Command, I think.

KG: And whenever the planes had a problem, then my brother would be flown out to investigate all over.

TI: Oh, so he was like a mechanic.

KG: Yeah.

TI: And was he in the service, or as a civilian?

KG: He was a civilian, but I think he was out of the service.

TI: It sounds like he... so he was working essentially on B-52s, I think?

KG: Yeah, that was his... he wanted to work on jets and anything that was difficult or complicated.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.