Densho Digital Archive
Emiko and Chizuko Omori Collection
Title: Frank Miyamoto Interview
Narrator: Frank Miyamoto
Interviewers: Chizu Omori (primary), Emiko Omori (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 28, 1992
Densho ID: denshovh-mfrank-05-0016

<Begin Segment 16>

CO: But you... so, tell us about life after leaving.

FM: Well, we left the center to go to Chicago because Dorothy Thomas felt that there was another aspect to this study which needed to be followed. The study was from the origin, called The Evacuation and Resettlement Study. And "resettlement" meant the further migration of the population. In our case, it meant the movement of people from the centers to places like Chicago. Therefore, when it was decided that it was not any longer appropriate for us to try to carry on research in the centers, Dorothy Thomas agreed that we should be moved to Chicago to follow up on the resettlement program that was being carried out there. As far as I was concerned, Chicago was an old territory for me, having done my graduate work in, at the University of Chicago, so it was not a striking experience to me to be moved there. But for many others, I think it was quite a new experience to be sent to a place like Chicago or other Midwestern and Eastern areas. And one could tell various kinds of stories of people experiencing this situation anew, but I'm not sure how I can be selective in telling such stories.

CO: You continued working with...

FM: Yes, I continued working for the Evacuation and Resettlement Study. Following up now, the history, the story of these evacuees as they tried to adjust themselves to the life in their new communities, wherever they might, might go.

CO: So, what did your work consist of?

FM: We tried to carry out interviews and so on of people who had moved to Chicago and there was then a series of life histories which we were instructed to gather from the residents in the Chicago area. Charlie Kikuchi, who was part of our office and of our staff in Chicago, was perhaps the most effective of the people doing this work of collecting life histories. And his material was brought together subsequently by Dorothy Thomas in a book entitled, The Salvage, which was the other part of the story, compared to what happened to the people who were left in the segregation centers.

CO: And then there was one other book, by TenBroek.

FM: Oh, yes.

CO: But you were not connected to that?

FM: No, I did not have anything directly to do with that. In fact, I would, in my personal view I've always felt that Morton Grodzins's book, Americans Betrayed, was also a part of the product of the Evacuation and Resettlement Study. But as you know, a sharp disagreement arose between Grodzins and Thomas over that book and therefore it was never made a part of the E.R.S.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1992, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.