Densho Digital Archive - Chester Tanaka Interview (denshovh-tchester-01-0008)

<Begin Segment 8>

I: What was this Nisei soldier like? Describe the personality of, first, maybe the mainland Nisei. Of course, we always know them as being quiet and very humble. What other characteristics, and describe that.

CT: Well, I don't know. When you're in a group, I guess you're not humble or anything. You're with your own, but you're a majority because you're with your own ethnic group. It was very interesting in this sense, that... well, let me describe it from the way I approached it and the way I saw it. The Hawaiians were the real different subculture from our subculture they had a, sort of a pidgin English that they spoke, and generally they were a little bit shorter than the mainlanders, I guess it was nutrition, I don't know. This is not true absolutely. I was, for example, along the larger of the Nisei or the Japanese American soldiers in the 442nd. I was 5 feet 6 inches, and I weighed 145 pounds. Now, the average Japanese American, mostly the ones from the islands were about 5'4" or less, and they weighed about 120 pounds. And then they had this pidgin English that they spoke, which was an amalgam of Japanese, English, Portuguese, Hawaiian, and who knows what else was thrown in there? And they could only understand it among themselves, at least I couldn't understand at the beginning. And since I couldn't understand it, and being defensive, I assumed that it was inferior, and that their intelligence also had to be inferior. And this was soon put to... it was dispelled soon because I was asked to send her some letters from the Hawaiian soldiers. And I got to know some of the guys that spoke the pidgin English, and when I sent the letters, the letters were in perfect English, grammatically correct. The predicate, the verb, everything, there was nothing wrong. And so I learned quickly that the language sort of appeared distinction or differentiation, and so I began to try to pick it up.

[Interruption]

I: Could you further describe the graciousness of the Nisei?

CT: I'm not quite clear on what you mean by graciousness, but there is a certain behavior that they undergo. They're quite different, I think, in this respect, than I am, or I found out that I had shared some of it. But I'm also considered a maverick because I didn't have enough of it, I guess. And that's, they have something that's called enryo, E-N-R-Y-O. Now, the very fact that I'm talking here and making a speech, that's not very good enryo. In other words, you're not being very subdued or quiet. Now, that doesn't mean that you should shut up and not say anything ever, but generally, I guess it comes from being an island group -- not Hawaiian island, but way back to the Japanese as such. Where if you live on an island, you're in a confined area, and you have to develop a way of accommodating with one another because you're all confined in a small area. This is all conjecture, but this is the way I understood it. And so that you don't go around making waves and you don't go around making a lot of noise. And many of the Japanese, as I understand it, they enryo... I can't even pronounce it properly. Is that you don't go around bragging or making loud noises about yourself. You just don't do this, because it's in bad form or bad taste. And particularly now when you go around, and say you're hitting to the major culture, to the Caucasian community, you find that many of the Japanese Americans are quiet and unassuming. They really, what they're doing, is they're practicing enryo. And they said the real subconscious or quiet concern is that they will be discovered to be worthy in a meritorious sense. In other words, their work or their service will be recognized and rewarded as such, but they don't have to go around saying, "Hey, guys, look at me. I'm really hot stuff, I'm great." They think that's very bad manners. The only way they can say that is by doing what they're supposed to be doing and doing it well. That's the way you say, "Hey, guys, I'm hot stuff." And this is an enryo approach. It may be my own definition, but it's something. It's probably bastardized, but it's the best I can do.

I: One could... when a group of Nisei are together, they're probably one way, and when they are with mixed, with Caucasians, can you describe the difference?

CT: No, it's not true. Even among the Nisei, the enryo or this holding back, it's supposed to prevail. I know because when I got in with the group, I didn't practice this enryo or whatnot because I had come from the major culture and had been conditioned in the major culture. And I'm used to, I don't know, if not a braggart, at least being vociferous and loudmouth, and articulate to the point where people sometimes can't stand me. Because if I don't like it, I say I don't like it, and if I do like it, I don't know, this is, I guess, from the culture you come from. But if you were within the Japanese group, Japanese Americans for that matter, they themselves, among themselves, will be restrained. This is not the thing they practiced one with the Caucasian and one with themselves, it's a general practice. It's nothing different from any other practice.

I: In doing these interviews and working on the book, I've learned a lot. I've learned, for instance, that the average Nisei does not want to be over quoted, does not want to be quoted in the book. They didn't want to say, "I did this much." And so he must be practicing enryo, and therefore it's been very difficult as an interviewer trying to extract information for the book, that one person would be afraid that he would be construed as a braggart and a loudmouth and saying, "How I won the war." So we have that problem, and maybe you could discuss that and the difficulty in that.

CT: Yes, that very thing that you mentioned I think is absolutely true. Because many of the GIs, Japanese American GIs, sometimes, for whatever reason, they just don't want to get up and say what they did. It comes from the enryo thing. But it's a two-way sword, really a sword. And it really worked beautifully the other way.

[Interruption]

I: There's been talk that this sense of enryo reflected itself in the decorations. There was an extreme amount of decorations for heroism, Bronze Stars, Silver Stars, Distinguished Service Crosses, but proportionally, very few Medal of Honor winners, or recipients. And perhaps when the orders were written, this sense of not wanting to be singled out for any honor outside the group, the sense of community service reflected itself in the lack of very high decorations that under other circumstances would have normally been awarded. These strong friendships that formed would be the, perhaps, most tightly-knit veterans organizations in the country. Would that account for it, too, the carry-over from the war?

CT: I think you have touched on the point, yes. The Japanese American veterans associations are very strong. I don't know if they're any stronger than the other groups, but they are strong, and they get together. And there is this, I guess among all veterans, and I know definitely among the Nisei, the Japanese American veterans, they have a real comradeship that, I don't know, it's all unspoken. And if you speak, they all know, because they all speak the same language. It's a difficult thing to say, but veterans all seem to speak the same language. You don't have to be Japanese American, but Japanese Americans do get together and they do have strong reunions.