Densho Digital Archive - Nelson Takeo Akagi Interview (denshovh-anelson-01-0025)

<Begin Segment 25>

TI: So Nelson, we're kind of running out of time. So I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to bring you back to Salt Lake City. And let's pick it up in terms of your activities in Salt Lake City.

NA: Oh, that's right, we forgot that. [Laughs]

TI: Yeah, so we're, let's talk about, so in particular, I want to go in terms of leading up to your marriage.

NA: Okay.

TI: So let's go to, like, mid-1960s, and when you decided to join the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints.

NA: Okay.

TI: So let's talk about that.

NA: Okay. In 1960, after still being discriminated because I bought my home in 1962, I had to get permission from the family living in front of me, back of me, and both side of me that it's alright for me to buy that house. So discrimination was still in the state of Utah.

TI: So you had to get actual permission, written permission from these families?

NA: I had to...

TI: Or they wouldn't sell you the house? I mean, that's the way it worked?

NA: And the real estate man wouldn't sell it to me if any one of them objected me buying the house.

TI: And so how did that make you feel, that you had to do that?

NA: Oh, I thought that guy that, first Japanese 442nd person that I saw dead that I described, I thought, "Wow, maybe he did die in vain." But now that we got our constitutional rights back and all that kind of stuff, I know he didn't die in vain because what service we did had a hidden blessing: we got all our rights back. Okay, so now, but now we'll fast-forward to 1960. In 1960, I said, "Wow, I been working on the farm all this time and I've got to... and that wasn't a good way to make money. So I got a job with Hercules making missiles, and it was just about an impossibility because of being Japanese American. And so I had my attorney friend write a flowery letter stating that I was a veteran of the 442nd, one with the most, most decoration for its size and length of service, and the one with the most casualty.

So I finally got a job over there, and making pretty good money. But I said, "Gee, I'm still single." And up to now, I didn't think too much about getting married. And so I started looking for a Japanese girl that were attending BYU. And one day, after, well, after the Caucasian missionaries tried to convert me into a Mormon, I said, "Nothing doing. I don't want to join your church." Well, when I started dating these girls from BYU, they said, "Oh, there's a Japanese LDS church in Salt Lake City," and they said to go over there. And so I went over there, and whereas I used to attend the LDS ward in Draper where I lived, but they weren't friendly to me even if they knew me, they wouldn't say, "Hi," or anything. But when I went to the Dai Ichi branch, it was called a branch then -- "branch" is a small group of people in the LDS church. Well, when I went there, from the first day, they came over and shook hands with me and made me feel right at home, and I says, "Wow, these guys are friendly," so I said, "Okay, I'll join the church," and so I was baptized into the church. And made a member of the church, and maybe a year or two later, I was married. I married a girl from Japan, she was a student at the Hawaii LDS church, and she was over here. She was working already and attending the church. So I married her, but then she passed away after giving me two children, so I lost her in 1974.