<Begin Segment 9>

LD: What do you remember about your time in the combat unit, in terms of what are the key things that you remember about that time? Both things that you remember or would like not to remember, as well as the things that you're glad happened?

EU: Boy, that... when I think in terms of trying to remember what were some of the good things and what were some of the bad things, that's a difficult question. Because I don't think combat leaves many fond memories, if any at all. The loss of certain people, certain friends, are sad memories. I think in terms of Ted Fujioka, who enlisted from Heart Mountain, when he enlisted, he was, according to Hana and others of us who knew the Fujioka family, Ted I think was the student body president there at the high school in Heart Mountain. A brilliant young man, and he was good-looking. He was, to me, kind of my role model, kind of guy I wish I could be. I always pictured myself somewhat as a loser, he was a winner. I think when I saw his body at the battalion aid station there in, outside of Bruyeres in the Vosges Mountains, it was one time I went to Chaplain Higuchi and asked him, "How come? A guy like this who had such a brilliant future has to die," in place of someone like me who really didn't have that much of a future. And Chaplain said, "Ernie, God works in strange and mysterious ways. You never know what He wants of us, except that, you think about it and make the best of your life in order that Ted's life was not given in vain." Well, that was pretty powerful, but that I remember very distinctly. And I've always thanked the chaplain for that.

LD: You said that being in World War II affected you very much, had a big effect on your life.

EU: Last night, I did it in jest, but there's a lot of truth to, sometimes, in humor there's a lot of truth. We had our 442 Veterans Club dance class, Christmas party, and I was the emcee. At the beginning of the party, I asked everyone to grab a glass with their beer or punch or whatever and I said, "Okay, let's all raise our glasses and three banzais, and we had three big banzais. And I said, "You know what that was for?" And they all looked quizzically and I said, "Today is December 7th, and we are saluting our banzai, are saluting the Japanese." I said, "Because if it wasn't for the bombing of Pearl Harbor, we would none of us be here together." [Laughs] The irony of it all. And that really brought down the house. And, see, that changed our lives. And I've always thought that had it not been for the war, whether I would have ever been able to pursue what I wanted, to become a doctor or whatever else, and what my life would have ever been like. Certainly I might have ended up like so many of the others had ended up, with college degrees in their back pocket, working in fruit stands and on the farm, because that's about as far as we could go, being Nihonjin, Japanese. But instead, I think having been in the army, of course, we opened up a lot of opportunities, but I was always -- and I still am -- quite conscious and proud of the fact that I was with the 442. In fact, it's a point of vanity, and I admit to my vanity, I made sure people know I was one of the original 442, not a replacement. That's a big thing. Because being an original meant that we had to voluntarily enlist. We put our lives on the line, we didn't have to be drafted. That's my whole outlook on life changed because...

LD: Why?

EU: Well, I know I'm not haole, I'm not Caucasian. You can't take away the slant eyes and yellow skin. But I'm aware of what I am, and I've aspired in spite of that. And from time to time, because of that, have probably been denied opportunities. And that's one of the reasons why I'm here in Hawaii instead of somewhere in California or the mainland. Because the limitation of job opportunities, being Japanese.

LD: You had that happen to you?

EU: Oh, no question. A beautiful example: I had completed studies to go into the YMCA. I graduated Whittier College, marvelous school, by the way, in spite of its reputation with a particular lawyer. And I went for an interview, and went before a personnel committee of the YMCA, the Young Men's Christian Association. And this question was posed to me: all things being equal, if you were competing for this job as a youth work secretary with a Caucasian young man, would you be willing to take the job at a lesser pay? Hey, I didn't need more than that. That was enough to tell me color still makes a difference.

LD: This is after the war.

EU: This is in 1950. And that's always... that was burned indelibly in my mind, this is the way people react or will act.

LD: And later that happened again.

EU: And then in later years, and this... I expressed this when they did the filming on Guilty by Reason of Race. At another time, I was in San Diego as a branch executive of an interracial YMCA, interracial meaning it was predominately black. There was an assessment, an evaluation of my work over the past five, ten years, and as a result of it, one of our regional directors came down to counsel me.

LD: When was this?

EU: This was in 1960... latter part of '62. And I was, I wanted this particular evaluation done because I had felt that at that particular time in my career in the YMCA, about the twelfth year, I didn't... I felt like I was getting pigeonholed as a, quote, "interracial specialist." I wanted to get out of that particular mode, and wanted to venture into something that was more meaningful to me as a, in terms of a career ladder. And in counseling me, the regional director said, "Well, as far as your skills, and your administrative skills and all, you rate number one. There was no question you are capable. However," he says, "unfortunately, there are no YMCAs that I know of here within the region where you would be accepted at the level of an administrator that you want, unfortunately, because you're Nisei." That was really a discouraging news, so then, soon after that, things seemed to work in cycles. Soon after that, a dear friend of mine who happened to be black, whom I had gotten to know, was an executive with the Pasadena YMCA, who had took a job here in Honolulu as the executive of the branch here. And he wrote to me saying that he was looking for a program director, knew the pickle I was in, wondered if I'd be interested in coming to Hawaii. And I wrote back to him and said, "You don't have to ask me twice, my bags are packed." Because I felt there was no career future for me on the mainland. I thought if I came to Hawaii, at least I could make it on my own, irrespective of my being Japanese or not. But it took a black man to give me that opportunity.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 1985 The Center for Educational Telecommunications and Densho. All Rights Reserved.