Densho Digital Archive - Janice Sakamoto - Beth Shironaka Interview

Densho Digital Archive
Steven Okazaki Collection
Title: Janice Sakamoto - Beth Shironaka Interview
Narrators: Janice Sakamoto, Beth Shironaka
Location: San Francisco, California
Date: December 2, 1983
Densho ID: denshovh-sjanice_g-01

<Begin Segment 1>

Q: Janice, can you tell me about the photo?

JS: Well, this photo of my obaachan is actually the only photo that we have of her. She's my mother's mother, and when I see the photo it makes me very sad because she had died at Tanforan, which was the assembly center that many Japanese had first relocated to during the war. She had... two weeks prior to the evacuation, she gave birth to my Auntie Sachi, and she had not gotten over the physical and emotional trauma and the evacuation orders came down. The whole family had to, within, you know, a few hours, just pick up and leave, and at the assembly center, she became very ill. And they took her away, the authorities took her away to a hospital and my mother was refused, was not allowed to see her and she passed away. And the authorities told her that she had died of cancer and to this day, my mom has never believed that but she's never said so. Obaachan was very healthy, you know, before the evacuation, and with the movement for redress and reparations, it's given her a lot more strength to really speak up and to say really what she thought about what happened and to really understand how the U.S. government was responsible for the death of her own mom.

Q: Beth, are you interested in the camps, I mean, how did you become interested?

BS: Well, I've known about the camps for a long time, mainly from my mother who has photos of Arkansas where she was, she and her family were interned. I think, though, that the anger really didn't start until the redress hearings began to get up in its... I'm not saying that clearly. [Laughs] In any event, what happened during the hearings is my parents had written their testimonies of what had happened to them prior to the evacuation. And at that time, my father, who was evacuated with his brothers and his parents, told his story, and I had never known about his story until during the hearings, which was in '81, so I was twenty-six. And so basically, that's when my anger started to grow because I had never known and he had never told me. Nor had I asked, because I realize there is a heavy emotional thing involved thing involved with that.

<Begin Segment 2>

Q: Janice, can you tell Jane how you sort of perceive this issue in terms of people starting to be comfortable with it?

JS: Well, I know for myself, I first learned about the camps when I was in high school. I had to, my history class, my teacher asked us all to do a paper and in particular, he asked me to do one on Japanese American history, which I knew nothing about. And so I went to the library and did intensive research, and in one book, I came across this one small paragraph on the concentration camps. I was shocked; I had not heard anything about the camps. My mom had prior to that time said nothing, and I was shocked and I was hurt and angry, and I remember going home and confronting my mom. And she kind of, at that time, she kind of tried to ignore the discussion and say, "Well, it was no big thing, I was very young, actually. I had a lot of fun because I was a kid." But it really bothered me because even though I didn't know that much about the camps, I knew that it was wrong. I knew that the Japanese were not disloyal like the article was saying. So I did more research and I pulled together a report and prepared to give my report in my history class. I did all this planning, and that day, I went in front of the class and I just broke down and cried. I couldn't even talk about it. That was the first time that that really provoked a lot of interest for me in my family and the experiences that they went through as well as other Japanese Americans.

I went to school at San Francisco State and seized on the opportunity of taking a lot of Asian Studies courses that were taught at that time, in the early '70s and I began to learn more about Japanese history and the experience of the camps. And I would continue to talk to my mom and other Niseis about it, and there was still a lot of very mixed feelings. People didn't want to talk about it and I remember for myself as a Sansei, at first, I became very impatient, you know, I said, "Well, this thing was wrong, we should do something about it." You know, there was, the government hadn't even made any kind of apology or restitution to the Japanese people. And I think what hurt me most is that I could still see the bitterness and the feeling of guilt and shame with these Niseis and my parents. But later, I grew to understand that that feeling was so ingrained that people just wanted to forget about it. So... but for Sanseis, because we didn't, we weren't directly in the camps, though we felt a lot of the effects, the impact that it had on our parents, affected how we were brought up. You know, feeling, not knowing our history, our culture and feeling that we had to be ashamed of it. And so many of us felt that we needed to really seek out what our Asian identity is and to learn about our culture and our history, at the same time to continue to talk to our parents and stuff.

I would say during the early... well, beginning, at the end of I guess the '70s, I think more of the Sansei, I mean, the Nisei began to speak out. I think the Japanese community felt stronger, and began to organize different activities and events and to be able to discuss about people's experiences. And for myself, just learning and just being able to hear about those stories, really helped me understand the tragedy and the trauma of that whole episode in the lives of our parents. And now, for my... with the movement for redress and reparations, my mom has become much more vocal about saying what, you know, what really happened. She's no longer saying, yeah, it was funny because I was a kid. But she's now saying the U.S. government is responsible for her family losing all their possessions, for her not being able to continue her education, she lost her mother, you know. The hardships of having to grow up without a mother... and for my father, he lost all his land and as well as his possessions. He, had to discontinue his education and was drafted into the army.

<Begin Segment 3>

JS: So I think after decades of being suppressed, the Japanese community is now vocalizing what it really feels, and the current movement for redress and reparations has really brought together Issei, Nisei and Sansei, and restored a lot of sense of pride and dignity in the Japanese community, and placed the real guilt of the incarceration on the on the American government and off the shoulders of our parents.

BS: I guess while Janice was talking, I was thinking of how different my experience has been in my awareness and how it has grown and developed over the past few years. My parents, or my mother, has always been really vocal about the camps. She's always explained that they went to camp and she even has photos of rural Arkansas which is the farthest east, farthest east that the camps were. But as I... growing up and looking at these photos, I never got the sense that this was something wrong. It shows, the photos that she has shows them playing in the snow, throwing snowballs and you know, just having a good time . So it was much later and reading bits and pieces about the history that was developing at that time, that I learned that there was something really wrong and unjust about the camps. And that, then that growing awareness made me realize that I needed to find out things for myself as far as my understanding. So I started questioning, not only my mother, but my -- well, not my father directly, 'cause I always, he never offered or volunteered information. So I kind of questioned around him, you know, when there were people, when there were Nisei in the, in the room, I would ask them, "Well, why didn't you fight?" or, "How could you go through this?" And they would explain to me. So my awareness was not, in comparison to Janice, was not quite the same because I didn't have the opportunity to go to Asian American Studies courses. Because the Japanese community in San Diego is almost nonexistent and very dispersed, so there wasn't the same kind of need or demand as there was up here in the Bay Area, so I was more, I had to go out and find out what exactly the camps were all about.

JS: What did your, the Nisei friends tell you about what they were experiencing, or how did they view the camps?

BS: Well, when I asked them exactly why didn't they resist, they said that it happened so fast that there just wasn't time to really think about it. And so I guess, for myself, at that time, just understanding something that could happen that quickly where you couldn't think about, just kind of boggled my mind. And with that, a growing awareness and an understanding started to grow.

<Begin Segment 4>

BS: What is inferior? I feel inferior because... I wouldn't describe it as inferior. I would say I'm comfortable knowing that there's something different about you, yet you are American and you're American born, but your culture is not what whites experience, for example. Having gone to college and having a college experience and being exposed to other families, you kind of, I think for myself, that's when I realized my family was real different. And I think that's when you realize that that, it's not good enough, what you grew up with and what for all your life had been most comfortable, was not what was acceptable by a majority of people. You're looked at or your culture is seen to be strange. And you don't want, you don't want to be perceived as that, because everybody wants to be acceptable.

JS: I don't feel inferior, but I know growing up, I definitely did. When I was in, going through grammar school and high school in a predominantly white school, kids would make remarks about me being a "Nip" or a "Jap." And then during the time that the U.S. was involved in Vietnam, it changed to being a "Gook." My folks, one of the impact, I think, that the camps had on Sanseis was Niseis knew that they were interned because they were Japanese. They did not want this to happen to their kids, so they brought us up to be as American as apple pie. We didn't know our language, we didn't know anything about our history or our culture. And so we thought we were Americans, but then we weren't accepted as Americans. People looked at us and saw Orientals, and treated us, I was never treated as one of the guys, and always felt different and never accepted as an equal. I think that the, that's true for a lot of Sanseis and that, that sense of feeling inferior made a lot of Sanseis question their past, and it gave rise to Asian American Studies where people began to understand that the educational system didn't teach people about the realities, about the concentration camps or the discrimination that Japanese or Asian people faced. And there was a need to teach ourselves and the broader public as to, you know, the realities of our history. And that was the beginning, I think, of the Asian American movement and the search on the part of Sanseis to regain their sense of identity and pride of being Japanese and Asian American.

BS: But I think it's still a continuing struggle. I don't think it's something that we will ever resolve; it's a continual process of being. And even now, I mean, at least there's some awareness with, between Janice and I, I would say, but it's a continuing process.