Densho Digital Repository - Gary M. Itano Interview (Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-479-9)

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LT: In 1970, when you were twenty years old, you went to Japan for a six-month tour. And during that tour, you had an aha moment.

GI: Which one?

LT: When you visited your family and you visited the family tomb?

GI: Oh, the graveyard?

LT: The gravesite.

GI: Oh, sure. That's where I was shown my father's tombstone, and on the back was all this writing. I asked my cousin what is this, and she said, "Oh, well, that's the name of the men who joined your father protesting the internment during the war." And I said, "Well, what's that?" and she had to explain it to me and she was kind of shocked that I didn't know. And okay, so now I find this out, I had no idea what to make of it, I just, okay, that's pretty interesting, I'll have to ask Mom about that when I get back.

LT: And by the way, when you were in Japan, you noticed that people treated you differently.

GI: You know, I remember getting off the boat in Nagoya. We took the last scheduled passenger liner in the pre-cruise line days to carry passengers across the Pacific, it just so happened. And we went into Nagoya harbor, and I remember getting off, and Mayumi, my cousin, who was escorting me, would ask these people which way to the restaurant or something, and they were so kind, and they would actually take us by the hand and lead us there. This was very un-American, like what kind of world is that, where just complete strangers would take you by the hand and take you and drop you off right at the restaurant. And then kind of hang around and see if you needed any help, and then, it was a clutch of girlfriends or something, and they would bid each other farewell, go their different ways. And so when I went to Okayama and I got separated from my cousin. Oh, she had to, she put me up in like a hotel or something because she had to go and prepare the house for my arrival. Because I don't know that she had already arranged with her parents for me to be there. And so I made my way to the town and got off the train, and I started walking up this little town road. And I would go into a shop and, in my little broken Japanese with my little dictionary, I would say, "Do you know the way to the Shimizu house?" "Shimizu ue wa doko desu ka?" And then the people would, "Oh, hai, hai," and they would be very gracious and bowing down like this, and then they would hand me off to the next person. And then that person would take me a little way and hand me off and hand me off, and they would actually deposit me at the doorstep. And it just, I found out later that the reason they were so helpful or obedient or whatever you call it is because I didn't realize that, for hundreds of years before, the Itanos and the Shimizus were the ones that had total authority of life and death over the people. And so that was the custom, you had to bow down to these nobles at the risk of being beheaded, actually. So I didn't know that was going on.

LT: You also visited a special castle.

GI: Yes. My uncle Toshimasa, my father's second brother, he took me to this huge, wooden, ancient wooden building. And inside was this giant, eight-foot long samurai sword, that they said used to be wielded by a giant person. And he said inside there, that's one of the Japanese archives, and inside there is thirty years of Itano history, which I later kind of determined was like records of births and deaths and property exchanges and that sort of thing, but going back hundreds of years. And then he took me to this castle, it was like a five-story keep, the corner of a, the remnants of a castle, and he said, "This is what's left of Itano Castle." And I have a picture here somewhere showing us looking out over the parapet, and then out in front is this huge tree, and he would show me these carvings and he would say, "These are the carvings of the Itano kids." Over the centuries they would carve their names into this tree.