<Begin Segment 9>

HM: What is the background of your parents, your mother and father? Why did they leave Japan and come to the United States?

JK: Well, my father came here, but the main thing was to make enough money to go back to Japan. But a lot of people, they make that, and they stayed in the United States here, and that's how all the Nisei got involved in that evacuation and everything. And California people, Manzanar people, they were, well, they didn't like to evacuate. And they talked about U.S. government, what are they doing, you know, putting us into the camp because we're citizens. But to the country, I don't know what it was, but they didn't consider Nisei as American citizens. So like some people used to say that "Jap is a Jap." You don't hear that words anymore, nowadays, but those days, they usually hate the Japanese people or whoever connected to the Japanese people. That's why a lot of people from camp, lot of people volunteered into the army. And the other people said, I think a lot of people answered "yes" and "no" because they don't exactly know what's going to happen. I answered "yes" and "no" because my dad wasn't home, so nobody to take care of the family at that time. But after my dad come home, it was too late to volunteer or anything because the war is already over. They didn't draft me or anything.

[Interruption]

HM: I guess I could go back to that, the person who was put in charge of your land, of your Bainbridge Island piece of land, was he supposed to keep in touch with you, or was it because your dad was taken away that things got all mixed up?

JK: Yeah, he was, but when we evacuated, then the people that were working for us, we asked them to keep everything together. But after we moved to Manzanar, we didn't hear anything from them, so we didn't exactly know what was happening in Bainbridge Island.

HM: So the taxes were due and they lapsed, and then so it was a foreclosure.

JK: Uh-huh. So evidently, the tax mail probably went there, but I don't think they even looked back to see whether they have to pay a tax, so they just let it go. I don't know how long they were there after we moved out, but Manzanar, we didn't hear anything from them.

HM: From all of this experience, what, what do you think... what impact did it have on your life and how you look at things?

JK: Well, thinking back on the whole thing, for myself, I was kind of disappointed because I couldn't get enough education in United States. When I came back, my thought was to go to school and get a degree in engineering. But when the war started, that plan was all gone. Couldn't do anything with... I had to get out of there, get out of the Bainbridge Island or we couldn't go to school or anything. So that's the only regret that I have right now, today. Anything else? Well, is there even anything else. I don't know too much about before the war. The only correction on that, when I was living on Bainbridge Island.

HM: Just a story of the whole community, just each one, each family seems to have a different story.

JK: Well, I think I have a different prospect between the people that lived in the island all their lives, and I come back from Japan to live on the island for only four years, I certainly have a different kind of opinion, I guess.

HM: How old were you when you went to Japan to be educated? When your parents sent you to Japan, how old were you?

JK: I was only eight years old when I went to Japan. And then after ten years I came back, 1938. It was 1928 that my mother took us boys to Japan. And then I came back in 1938, so during that time, I never used English word at all, so I forgot all the English that I learned up to eight years old. And up to eight years old, you don't learn too much, so you forget right away if you don't use it.

HM: I guess I should ask you what the names of your parents were also. You told us the names of your siblings, but not of your parents.

JK: Well, my dad's name was Kusunosuke Kino, and my mother was, her maiden name was Sono Itani, but after married to my dad, it was Sono Kino.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.