<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So I remembered the question I was gonna ask earlier. When you talk about all the picnics that you went to, so it sounds like your family was well-liked or well-connected in the community. And how did that come about? What was your father or mother doing to be so well-connected with everyone?

RT: I think it's because my father had a little bit more time. He had Big Boy to do a lot of his farm work and that he could, he didn't have to be there all the time during the day, so he was more able to go, when the Buddhist church wanted to raise some funds my father was able to -- nobody had telephones in those days, so you had to go and visit the people, so he was constantly going and getting donations for all these different causes.

TI: And so did your father, like, head up lots of committees and things like that then, the fundraising? How would you --

RT: I don't know if he was in a committee or not, but he was always, I know in 1938 or '39 or so, the Japanese Salvation Army was going to establish a, what do you call it, a facility in San Francisco because the "picture brides," in those days, there were some very tragic situations and then some became ill, tuberculosis or whatever, and so the Salvation, Japanese Salvation Army needed to raise funds to start this building. And my father, of course, wasn't, was a Buddhist, he wasn't Christian, but he was going around collecting a lot of donations to start that Salvation Army building. Andmy father at that time donated, he himself donated five hundred dollars, which was quite a bit of money in those days, and for that he was thanked by the Japanese government, I think. And he was given this big box of letters that was written to a Japanese, the general, Nogi, who was a national war hero in Japan in the Meiji era. He was supposedly the Japanese general that made it possible for Japan to win the war against Russia in the 1900s or whatever. And this, all these letters that had, that people had written to General Nogi was compiled and put in a big box, lot of postcards and letters, and this was given to my father in appreciation, so that used to be our family treasure. After my mother died I, we didn't know what to do with it. We thought about selling it, but we decided to donate it to the Japanese National Library, which I did several years ago.

TI: And so these letters, I want to make sure I understand, so it was a box of letters, but letters written to the general?

RT: To the general.

TI: But then they were given to your father. I don't quite understand why they were given to your father.

RT: It was a, some family's treasure. I think it was, because they, from what I understand, that person donated to the Japanese Salvation Army official so that they can use it for getting donations.

TI: Oh, and that was then, because, in appreciation for your father's work, given to your father?

RT: Uh-huh.

TI: I see. So your father was very community-minded, so the Buddhist temple, the Japanese Salvation Army, were there other organizations that he was involved in?

RT: Yeah. In 1937, when the, when Japan started the war with China, and in those days I'm told that the Japanese men had to register, I think through the consulate, U.S. consulate, Japanese consulate in San Francisco, they would have to register every year because they were draft eligible age, and so when the war started with China they were, in Japan they were labeled draft dodgers and also kimin, meaning Japanese citizens that had abandoned their own country and gone overseas to live or work. And so because of this, too, labeling and humiliating, they decided to form a club and help Japan, so they sent care packages to the war front in China, which was very much appreciated because the Japanese, the ones from the States included boxes of Hershey Kisses and cans of pineapple, which the Japanese care packages didn't have.

SF: Do you think this feeling of, about having abandoned Japan and been, quote, "draft dodgers," was that common among the Issei, that feeling, or how did people see that?

RT: Yes, yes. They were, immigrants were looked down on, especially men, because maybe they were draft dodgers, I don't know. But in Japan, if you're able bodied at twenty years old you had to go into the army for two years or something like that.

TI: And where would that feeling come from? Was it, like from the relatives in Japan, or how would the men in the United States have this sense of, of shame about this?

RT: I don't... all I know is that they were called "heieki nogare" meaning draft dodgers. And kimin, meaning, it wasn't a very nice word. But, so they were always, I think the immigrants had this complex toward Japan.

SF: And so, you think that it's likely that this care package process to send to the Japanese soldiers on the front was in a way to compensate for that feeling? Do you get that feeling?

RT: Uh-huh, yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.