<Begin Segment 24>

DG: What did you think was going to happen to you?

SS: I thought at the time we went from Jerome to Tule that eventually we would be sent home to Hawaii. Who would have thought that they would let you renounce. And I think that happened in early... late '44, early '45?

DG: Oh, that early?

SS: The war ended in '45 you figure, so, it must have been in late '44, when they started the renunciation. Maybe you can check on that. I'm not too clear.

DG: And so, what was the discussion in your family?

SS: In my family, just before the war, now my dad's family in Peru, because my grandfather drank so much and he was embarrassing the family, my uncles, Dad's brothers, sent him alone to Japan. Now remember, the Okada family had no house, no property and so....

DG: Because they had sold it all.

SS: They sold it all to go to Peru. So Dad was really concerned about Grandpa. Number one he was a drunkard, no property, nothing to support him. And during the war no one can send money or anything right? So Dad (said) he had to go to Japan to see how Grandpa was doing. Mom says no she wasn't going to go. Then I thought I didn't want Dad and Mom separated. So I asked Mom and I said, "If I go with you, would you go with Dad?" So Mom thought about it, she said she doesn't want to but she said if I go then she'll go with Dad. So, when we went to renounce, Dad told them the reason why he wanted to go to Japan because he was worried about his father. For that they made him renounce, okay, because he said he was... so Mom said she was renouncing because she was going with Dad. And when I went, I said I'm going because if I don't go, then my parents would be separated. So for that I got my renunciation. So when people say only "no-nos" were renounced, that's not true. Then, I wrote to my auntie Edith and my auntie Helen, and I said...

DG: This is in Hawaii?

SS: Yeah. I said, "I'm going to Japan with Mom and Dad because if I don't go, Dad would be sent alone and I don't know what's going to happen to him."

DG: That's an enormous amount of responsibility on your part.

SS: Well, I think the evacuation had a lot to do already because after Dad got interned and I saw how Mom was. So then, my auntie Edith's husband wrote back and said, "Yes, we'll take care of your sisters and brother. So, they can come back." And so, I really have real supportive good aunties and uncles. You know without them, I think if the whole family went to Japan, it would have been so difficult. And so my, I guess, from what Patsy has told me recently was that she was not going to go back to Hawaii, she wanted to go out to LA to become a beautician with her girlfriend. But she went back to Hawaii to take the two younger siblings. But, when we got to Japan, I hate to even think about it... it was... so, war torn, poor, dirty. It's difficult to explain, you just had to be there and then, we were put on a train. Oh, but let me tell you when they... you got there as you got off the boat, they DDT'd you. It just came back now. Can you believe? And now you find out DDT, I forgot all about that!

DG: Really dehumanizing, huh?

SS: It is, when you think about it.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.