Densho Digital Archive - Ben Kuroki - Shige Kuroki Interview (denshovh-kben

<Begin Segment 7>

FA: Ben, tell me, where are you from?

BK: Where am I from? [Laughs] Well, I was born and raised in Nebraska. What more did you...

FA: You proud of that?

BK: Oh, sure. I'm a Nebraskan from way back and a cornhusker graduate of the University of Nebraska and follow the football team religiously.

FA: Why are you so proud of being a Nebraskan?

BK: Well, that's where I was born and brought up and raised in Nebraska and I think it's going to school there, and all my friends and everything. Nebraska gave me a real solid foundation for patriotism. During the war, I think it was, really played a very important part in my life. Like I said before, I can remember back in school, in the second grade we started saying the Pledge of Allegiance, and all those things seemed to have had a profound effect on me in the crucial years of the war. So I'm always proud that I was born and raised in the state of Nebraska.

FA: Did you encounter much bigotry before the war in Nebraska?

BK: No, I don't think so. We knew we were different as kids, you know. Of course, my parents all spoke Japanese and when they got together with the few Japanese, other Japanese in the community, why, they would always speak in Japanese and bow and all that stuff and of course, you realized that you were different when your Caucasian friends would see them doing that.

FA: How many Japanese American families were there in Nebraska?

BK: Well, right in our area I think there were only about four or five families. Maybe in, maybe 50-mile radius, probably a dozen more. But we didn't see much of each other. It was entirely different than those on the West Coast.

FA: Growing up, what, your friends, growing up, your friends, what race were they?

BK: Well, they were, you mean Caucasians, they were all Caucasians, of course. And we used to go hunting with my best friend Gordy Jorgensen. We used to play hooky from school and go pheasant hunting; whenever the pheasant season opened we'd play hooky all day. [Laughs] And we used to go duck hunting together. Played basketball on a team. Gordy was president of our class and I was vice president and that sort of thing.