<Begin Segment 8>

gky: After the war was over, will you describe Japan when you first got there after the, with the occupation?

RK: Explain the what?

gky: Will you describe Japan when you first got off the boat? You got off the boat in Yokohama, right? What did it look like? What did it smell like?

RK: Well, there's no -- I don't recall any particular smell, but it was, Yokohama was really bombed out. I mean, but what surprised me was that all the streets were cleared off, you know. In the Philippines, when we entered the Philippines, there was debris all over the streets, bricks, tree branches, or whatever, all kinds of debris on the streets. In Yokohama, everything was cleared off. All the bricks were piled up in that burned out area, block, neatly piled up. The corrugated tins were all piled up. But there were blocks and blocks that were burned out. No structures at all. Perhaps a little entrance to the basement, or something. You know how an entrance to the basement sometime have concrete, whatever you call it, structure there. And Tokyo was similar, except that Yokohama, it appeared to me that Yokohama was, suffered more than Tokyo.

gky: Where'd all the people go?

RK: Huh?

gky: Where did all the people go? If blocks and blocks were bombed out, where did the people live?

RK: I don't know. I think they just had to assemble in areas where their government arranged refugee areas or something, you know, camps, churches or schools, or whatever.

gky: How did that make you feel?

RK: What?

gky: How did that make you feel that...?

RK: Well, the only -- one feeling I did have was that it's too bad we had to have a war with Japan. I wish the war had been with somebody else, that is, a war that I'm in. But the peoples, right after the war when we went, we'd see people wandering through the streets as if they had no purpose, aimlessly, you might say. Not everybody, but some, a few. The bombing and everything, I think, it just -- people who feel that all their dreams and hopes are destroyed. That type. That's the feeling I got. Even a young couple walking, they don't care if a car runs over them or what. You know what I mean?

gky: It's really sad. And the time that were in Japan for the occupation, did you feel that the feeling had changed, that feeling?

RK: Oh, yeah.

gky: How?

RK: Yeah, they -- the Japanese -- oh, within ten years, they were a busy, happy people. New buildings put up, entertainment spots and new buildings that would put L.A. to shame, you know. That's why, when I came back to, eventually came back to the States, Los Angeles looked like it was, what would you call it, ancient, out of style. Tokyo had nicer looking skyscrapers.

gky: What role do you think the Nisei played...

RK: Huh?

gky: What role do you think the Nisei played in helping Japan get back on its feet?

RK: Oh, I think there were Niseis in positions to help the Japanese people recover. Whether it was in the agrarian area, you know, agriculture, or in businesses, and in politics, political, you know, the administration and so forth. I think a Nisei helped write the Japanese constitution, for example. And there were fellows who were in a position to help Japanese get back into business. I think Cappy Harada was in a position to help. He was with Major General Marquette, who was in charge of that.

gky: Do you think the Nisei had any more compassion than other Americans had?

RK: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think we had more compassion for the Japanese people than anybody else, and in individual little ways, did much to help, you know. Collectively, it amounted to a great deal of help to the people. Like, let's say, for example, I helped a little family over here, say in their obtaining daily necessities. Let's say that I provided the finances to purchase, finance for a family to buy the food, even if it's on the black market. Things like that. Taking them on jaunts.

gky: Can you just stop a minute because of the sirens? Okay. Can we backtrack a little bit and tell me again about how you would help a family?

RK: Well, I think almost every individual Nisei that had contact with Japanese would, in some way would help them, whether it's obtaining daily necessities or entertaining them, taking them out to places of entertainment, you know. Like even if it's to a picnic or to a restaurant, or just taking a trip, because the Niseis, most Niseis had cars or had access to cars, especially during the later years, say after the Japanese began to manage to make a fair living; managed to recover some of their past, what would you say, living capability.

gky: Did it make you proud to be an American, to be part of the occupation forces?

RK: Was I proud to be an American? Oh, yes. I think every Nikkei was.

gky: You spent a long time in Japan after the war, so you didn't really come back to the United States and get, be treated either with discrimination or with praise. You stayed there after the war for how many years? Seventeen?

RK: Yeah, let's see. '45, from October of '45 to December, end of December of '64. That's nineteen years. Yeah, nineteen years and three months.

gky: So you never really got the feeling that your civil rights had been violated because you were in Japan, not in America.

RK: Oh, I think my civil rights were violated when we were put into camp.

gky: But what choice did you have?

RK: Huh?

gky: What choice did you have?

RK: What do you mean, what choice?

gky: What could you do about it?

RK: At that time, when they put us in the camp, I don't think there's anything that anybody could have done about it. No Nikkei could do anything about it. They could refuse to go to camp, or as some, few individuals did, but, what would you say, demonstrations or revolt would have done, wouldn't have succeeded.

gky: Do you think that what the MIS...

RK: Huh?

gky: Do you think what the MIS did during the war helped with the redress movement that came about in the '70s and '80s?

RK: Well, I think it had some influence on it as far as American, the white establishment is concerned. I don't know how our Issei parents received the fact that we fought against Japan. Some Isseis, perhaps most Issei parents felt, well, as the Japanese say, "shikata ga nai. Our kids are Americans so they have to fight for America." They might have taken that attitude, or accepted it in that sense, but, and there might have also been parents, I don't know, but I imagine that there might have been a few parents who felt that they shouldn't have fought for America after, in view of the fact that they put all of us Japanese in camp and the fact that they're fighting Japan.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2000 Bridge Media and Densho. All Rights Reserved.