Densho Digital Archive - Grace Kubota Ybarra Interview

<Begin Segment 1>

GY: [Reading] Even in an emergency like this, the anti-Japanese movements, like the land problems in the State of Colorado, take place. We cannot enjoy any of the privileges guaranteed by law. Stand up, Nisei, fight for the claim of the true right. Our future is remote. We have to march on as free American citizens. But we haven't much power, intellectually or economically. We hope the Issei will help us.

<Begin Segment 2>

FC: Did your dad write English? Did he know English?

GY: He learned while he was in prison. And my recollection was that we would occasionally get letters from him, from the prison, with drawings and artwork. And it was something that was a real treat for us. And it would make my mother laugh, and it would make my, members of my family laugh, because his English was so absolutely poor. I think he learned what he learned while he was in prison. The broken English, but he conveyed a lot of the sentiment and feeling that he had for us. And the letters are something that we still cherish, even to this day.

[Interruption]

GY: The letters we received from my father in prison had the artwork as well as a broken letter written in English. And I was told that Frank Emi was the one who taught my dad how to write that rather poor English. There's one absolutely memorable letter that we received, that was a picture of my dad as he looked then, and he told us later that he and Frank Emi shared a cell together, and that Frank Emi drew that picture. Something that's real important for us.

<Begin Segment 3>

FC: What's it like to be a three- or four-year-old kid in camp? What happens? What do you do?

GY: You know, we were all the same. We all had the same color hair, we all had the same eyes, and we were all in the same position. So life as a three- or four-year-old kid was great fun. I didn't know that there was anybody different from us. The, one of the big treats was to go for the oyatsu. You used to go and get an orange or apple, and that was the snack for the day that we looked forward to. There was a, there was a certain amount of things that we did together. You know, you went to the Buddhist temple and they let you play little games and win prizes.

The one thing that was the real limitation was that we were always told, Mother always told us never to cross the barbed wire fence. And she used to point to the guard up there and said, "You know, he has a rifle and he's going to shoot you if you cross the barbed wire fence." I remember she put enough fear in us that we never went near the barbed wire fence, because she said, "You know, there was a little old man who was collecting some rocks and he crossed the barbed wire and was shot and killed." Maybe everyone grows up with certain limitations of, caveats and warnings that a parent puts on, but the barbed wire fence and the guard in the tower is still in my mind's eye after fifty years.

FC: Did it bother you in camp or after camp, being the daughter of a jailbird?

GY: I didn't know that there was anything... all I know is that my dad was gone. And after camp, he comes out. And for a long time I thought he was a different person. He was much thinner, he was, there was a different person. And as a child, I remember him as kind of a robust, happy soul, and he came back a much more subdued individual. And for a long time I thought it wasn't the same person. In camp, there was never the stigma of what my father did and, or if there was I didn't know it. It was afterwards that it became more apparent that what he did was not what everyone in the Japanese community accepted as the proper course of action. So I learned later that he was different. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 4>

FC: Now that you know what your dad did, what it meant, what the effect was on the community, you still like being your dad's daughter?

FY: I've never felt prouder of being his daughter. And it was, all this growing-up period, we used to always talk about the evacuation, his experiences while he was in Leavenworth. Frank Emi was an integral part of our conversation in our lives for many years. And it's something that, while I learned later that it was an unusual situation, I grew up being very proud of what he did. And both of my parents -- my mother talked about it as though it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to our family, and my dad repeated it. And so both my brother and I grew up with a very profound sense that what he had done -- right or wrong, whether he won or lost, or the period of the sixteen months that he spent in prison -- all those things faded when you really considered the importance -- as we felt -- of what he had done. And to this day, we're very proud of what he has done. I try to tell my nieces and my nephew, whenever they'll take time to listen, of what their grandfather, our father had done -- has done. And I'm very proud of him.

<Begin Segment 5>

FC: Your dad in jail. Boss Pendergast. Tell us about that.

GY: Oh, this was a wonderful story that he repeated so often. And it was... my dad was a very serious diabetic. And he was throughout his life, and it eventually was the thing, the disease that really took his life. But during the time that, the sixteen months that he was in the Leavenworth penitentiary, he was housed in the hospital unit of the prison. And Boss Pendergast, Mr. Pendergast, was his bedmate in the prison. And apparently they became pretty close, and became good friends. And Mr. Pendergast knew that my dad was an expert in judo. And he used to tell my dad -- and my dad, of course, would repeat it -- oh, many stories over the years. He'd say, "Kubota, when this is all over, you come to Kansas City and I'll give you a job as my bodyguard." And I don't know that my father ever seriously considered going to Kansas City to be anybody's bodyguard, but his story would continue. And he said, you know, what happened was that the day President Roosevelt died, Mr. Pendergast came up to him and said, "Kubota, I'll be leaving here in a few days." And I think my dad was rather politically unsophisticated, because he didn't know what that really meant. But a few days later, President Truman became the president of the country. And Dad said, "I remember looking up from the hospital ward down into the yard of the prison, and a huge black limousine came up with two women in furs, And Mr. Pendergast left soon thereafter." And my dad said, "I guess it was, one of the ladies was his wife and the other one was his daughter." And he, at that point, the story he wanted to tell us, and the point he wanted to make was the political power that people had in this country. Because I think that it amazed him. That someone, within a matter of days after the death of a president, and the ascension of another person as president, would be released from a federal prison. Of course, my dad never went to Kansas City. Mr. Pendergast died soon after. So we never know, we'll never know what really happened, what would have happened.

FC: Tell us young folks who've never, who don't know who Boss Pendergast is, who was Boss Pendergast?

GY: Well, as I understand it, Boss Pendergast was the man that brought Harry Truman through the Kansas City machine, into political power and prominence. And he, Mr. Pendergast, was put in prison for some form of income tax invasion. And it probably some political ploy that was played out in those days. But it was very, very clear that once Harry Truman became President of the United States, that he would release from prison his benefactor, his mentor, and part of the machine.

<Begin Segment 6>

FA: Grace, you're an attorney. Do you think that... why do you think... do you think you became an attorney because of anything having to do with your father?

GY: Oh yes, very much so. My dad was a lawyer in Japan. He graduated and became a lawyer -- never practiced law, but was a lawyer. So we had a background of either teachers or lawyers in our family. But there was a lot of indoctrination on the part of my father, I think. And one of the things that we always talked about was the Constitution of the United States, and what it meant to be an American. He said -- he used to tell me -- he said, "You know, I'm a Japanese national and I will die a Japanese national. I will never change my citizenship. But you and your brother are American citizens, and you have the Constitution, which is the most wonderful document that has ever been made, and you have to live with it and uphold it." And my legal career started out -- I did many things in the '70s with regard to a lot of the civil rights issues that were taking place in those days. It's a long time ago, but I have always felt that the deprivation of one human person's rights, civil rights, whether they be Japanese, black, gay, is the deprivation of anybody's rights. And I think that that is a prevailing theme in my philosophy of life, as well as my -- and my legal career is influenced by that very, very strong belief that I have.

<Begin Segment 7>

FA: Going back to the camp, you were a few years old and got these letters from your father. Do you recall, as a child, receiving the letters from your father?

[Interruption]

GY: Yes. They were one of the real highlights of any, any mail that we got, because he would always have these cartoons and pictures drawn. Some of the pictures were of my brother as he perceived my brother to be as he was growing up, there were others that were cartoon pictures. And I thought my dad was a great artist. He probably would qualify for the Walt Disney studios. And then there was one picture that was drawn of him that I later found out was drawn by Frank Emi. He and Frank Emi were cell-mates, and they must have had an inordinate amount of time to do this, because the pictures were always in color, and it was done with a great deal of care.

FA: When you received them, how did you feel?

GY: I felt a lot closer to him. I didn't read the letters, because I couldn't read. But I always looked forward to the cartoons and the pictures. Because your memory, as a child, of your father, at least of him, sometimes tends to fade. And that was the one highlight -- to know that he was still somewhere, and that he was still communicating with us. So it was real, it was a real treat to get something from him.

FA: And can you describe the kinds of cartoons he would draw?

GY: Well, there was a cartoon that he sent for my brother's birthday, that was done in real vibrant colors of a swashbuckling cartoon character. And I -- that's absolutely my absolute favorite picture. And then there are others of cartoon animals, much like the Looney Tunes or the Walt Disney types. And whether he copied them or traced them or whatever, I don't know. But it was always in pencil, always in color, and it was always written, drawn, next to a letter that he had written to my mother. And because I couldn't read, the pictures were, were something that I really looked forward to.

FA: And can you read that letter that you just read to me just now? That begins "too busy in prison"?

[Interruption]

GY: My father was absolutely monolingual for his entire life. And for him to speak English was difficult. To write English was an impossibility. And, but during the prison years, he does, he wrote to my mother and to me in English. And that was because the documents were censored, somebody had to read them. I understand Frank Emi was the person who taught him his English, and either Father wasn't a very good student or Frank wasn't a very good teacher, because here are one of the letters: "Dear Gloria and Makiko, I am very sorry to Makiko. Last time I was send to picture for Hidemaru." That's my brother, Gordon. "I know Maki want, too. But I was very busy to draw picture." It's occurred to me since then how anybody could be "very busy" in prison, but he perceived himself to be real busy.

FA: Years, years after prison, what would happen when your mother served oatmeal?

GY: During the years after, when we were out -- as you know, we used to talk about the evacuation, and we talked about the Fair Play Committee, and we talked about my dad's prison life with a great deal of regularity. But one of the things that would absolutely spark a conversation about his prison life would be when Mother would occasionally serve oatmeal. And he would say, "You know," and we would mimic him because we knew exactly what he would say. He would say, "That's what we would serve," that he would be served in prison. Oatmeal. And he hated oatmeal. And it would go in, he would go into this discussion of prison life, and then he'd always end with his prison number which was 61428. I mean, it was ingrained in his memory. But the oatmeal for breakfast in the morning would always just get him going on that part of his life.