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Densho Visual History Collection

Title: Flora Ninomiya Interview

Narrator: Flora Ninomiya

Interviewer: Virginia Yamada

Location: Emeryville, California

Date: March 13, 2019

Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-473-13

[Correct spelling of certain names, words and terms used in this interview have not been verified.]

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VY: Do you think your friends and other adults understood what happened and what you went through?

FN: I really don't know, I've never thought about that, if people understood. But truthfully, I'd say that it was really the Isseis and the older Niseis that really suffered. The children were really not told, they were experiencing what was happening, but they just accepted it and did not really think about it as much as it affected the Isseis and the older Niseis. It was very, very difficult. My mother's siblings, none of them returned to California.

VY: Where did they go?

FN: Well, my uncle, by then, he was a doctor, so he had worked a little bit in Stockton, but he had to leave. And so he went into the camps and he treated the Japanese, and one thing he did say is that there was a good experience for him being a young doctor. He got a lot of patients that he could work with, I mean, that he could help, so it was a good experience, he got a lot of experience. But you know, when it came time to leave the camps, the government encouraged people to leave the camps. But in order to leave the camps, you had to get a sponsor to prove that you wouldn't be indigent, and you had to find a job. And so in order to leave the camps, my uncle got a job in the state of Missouri in the state prison system, so he got a sponsor. And so he really wanted to get out of camp, so he took that job. And then he moved to Jefferson City, Missouri, which is where the state prison is, it's right in the middle of the city. He started to establish his own private practice, and he sent for his family so that they were with him, and he bought himself a motorcycle, and he would make housecalls, isn't that something? And my uncle was very charismatic, and he was also a good doctor. And so without too much trouble, he was able to start a practice in Jefferson City, and so this family has lived in Jefferson City, and my cousin became a doctor, and he also lived in Jefferson City. But my uncle passed away, and my cousin is now retired, so he lives in Springfield, Missouri. So his family is all living in Missouri. And all of my first cousins live in other states. My uncle's brother, my other uncle, he settled in Kansas City, Missouri, and he has three children, and one son became a dentist, and he lives in Kansas City. His daughter, my other cousin, became a dental hygienist, and she lived in Kansas City. And their brother became an engineer, and he worked for General Motors in Detroit. And so this last summer, I went to visit my cousin in Detroit, and he and his wife, we all drove 1,600 miles, and we made this trip from Detroit all the way to Arkansas, and then we swung around and came into Missouri and we visited our cousins. So we had a really good time, took two weeks. And we visited different museums because I really am into museums, and we just had a lot of fun.

VY: Sounds like a great trip.

FN: It is. And one of my cousins that used to live in Jefferson City, his daughter has a huge house in Springfield, so all these other cousins came, and we spent about four days together at her house.

VY: That's so interesting. So your mom's siblings, after the war, none of them came back to California?

FN: None of them came back to California. But we're still very close to our cousins, because I think it was really important to our family to remain close. So when we went to Springfield to the cousin's daughter's house, we were all supposed to be there, but one cousin couldn't make it because her husband became sick. And so she couldn't come, but she lives in Virginia. It's nice to live in mid-America, it's very different from California.

VY: How is it different?

FN: Well, there were a lot of small towns, and there's still a lot of community there. And all of my first cousins are married to non-Japanese, so they don't have a lot of Japanese friends like I do. Most of my closest friends are Japanese American because we have a community, and we do a lot of things together, and we have our community organizations like Japanese museums, we have the senior programs, we have two different, well, several programs that I participate in. So most of my friends are Japanese American. So it's really interesting to have our family get-togethers because we're so diverse now.

VY: Do you think people in the Midwest have as much of an understanding of what happened to Japanese Americans during World War II?

FN: Well, I know that my cousins do, because they know what happened to their parents. And two of my cousins were born in California, so they really feel the injustice that was done to us. But all of my first cousins understand how it was for their parents and for their grandparents, they know. And we still do have a family reunion that we participate in. We've been meeting for, like, almost fifty years now. And all of my first cousins do not come every year, but they have been to our family reunions. So that's a good thing. Family reunions are really important to us because since we're not all in California, we don't get together always every year, but my first cousins try to come to California when we have our family reunions here in California. So what else could we talk about?

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.