<Begin Segment 17>

RP: What was life like for you growing up without a father in a place like Minidoka?

MH: I missed my dad a lot. I don't know how to explain it. I did have some mentors so to speak. Mr. Yoshizawa especially was very kind to me, knowing that I didn't have a father. And he was a neighbor also in Milwakie. Yeah, it was hard. You know, everybody talked about their dad but I, but I didn't have a dad to talk about. I think that, you know when you accomplish something you want to tell somebody but there's not that right person to tell who, who would be dad or mom. So I had to rely on my mom a lot to be a dad also. Yeah, 'cause my older brother wasn't a father figure at all to me because he had a disability of a kind and so he just was not a father image at all. Yeah.

RP: Is that the same older brother that left to, left camp to work on the Anderson Dam Project?

MH: Yes, yes. Oh, my mother was just oh... you know she was worried for him. But he was old enough to go and, and he went to work up at the dam as soon as he was able to leave. And they needed workers up there so he just went ahead and, and he was not eligible to join the army at all because of his disability. Right.

RP: And which brother was that again?

MH: This was my oldest brother, Ben.

RP: Ben.

MH: Uh-huh.

RP: Okay. Well, speaking of Ben.

MH: Yes.

RP: There's another Ben that showed up at Minidoka who's... a Sergeant Ben...

MH: Uh-huh.

RP: ... Kuroki?

MH: Yes.

RP: And his, his experience was much different. He never went to a camp. He was a very decorated, celebrated gunner in World War, earlier part of World War II and he was sort of trotted around the camps to, as sort of a recruitment poster...

MH: Right.

RP: For other Niseis to encourage them to volunteer and be drafted and you actually remember him...

MH: I did.

RP: ...coming into Minidoka?

MH: I remember hearing him. All I, all I could see was his uniform. You know and he talked very, very well. And he talked about his experience being on the B-24 bombers from, from England. And you know, my recollection is that I think he was there to recruit because they were taking volunteers by then. And I think that they did get quite a few volunteers from Minidoka.

RP: Minidoka was considered to be a very, quote, loyal camp.

MH: Yes.

RP: A lot of patriotism and reflections of that in the honor roll. Do you remember that honor roll in the front of the camp?

MH: Yes, I remember the honor roll. And I remember going to see that first group of guys take off and, and the flag was raised and all. We all said the Pledge of Allegiance and, you know, in retrospect, I think about, I wonder what they were really thinking about, the guys who volunteered, knowing that they're leaving their family here behind barbed wire. That there are soldiers like them who are guarding them. I think it's a real Japanese thing is to show your loyalty. We're going to make it work and that regardless of what other people think of us is we're gonna be loyal to the U.S. right. And that was the only way they could show it.

RP: Reciting those words of the Pledge of Allegiance, did those words seem a little hollow to you?

MH: It does now, okay. But at the time, you know, I think we all learned it by rote and so we just said it automatically. Yeah, since we were in first grade. So, too young to put...

RP: Too young to put, to get into the political implications.

MH: ...to put thoughts into it. But yes, now it does sound very hollow.

RP: Ironically, your uncle ended up in the Kooskia...

MH: Kooskia, right.

RP: ... Kooskia camp, which is in Idaho as well.

MH: Yes.

RP: And he was eventually released from that camp?

MH: Yeah, he was released under the sponsorship of an old friend of ours who had moved to the Ontario area in the mid-30s, 1930s. And they just happened to be also from the same ken as my mother came from, prefecture. So, they were able to sponsor him to leave Kooskia. And as a result he felt that my mother should come out and so my mother decided just to take a seasonal leave with all of us and not a permanent leave. And we went and worked. It was hard work. It was, you know, we all worked in the field, even my younger brothers and sisters and, you know it was bucking potatoes again, weeding which is hard, stemming, cutting onions, that kind of work. And it's all backbreaking work and my mother was out there with us every single day, yeah. And they would come and pick us up because none of us had a car. So Mr. Saito would come and pick us up and we'd go to the farm and they had two different farms out there. Right, so, but, but they were a godsend for us and for my mom and, and she hadn't seen Mrs. Saito in what, twelve years since she left in 1936, around there. So it was a good reunion and Mrs. Saito happened to be one of those Japanese women who bowed and bowed and bowed almost down to her knees, down to her legs. Just a very, very humble person. Mr. Saito was different. He was blunt, a go-getter. And they had three sons and one of 'em was already in the service before the war. And there were two other sons. One son stayed on the farm and then Paul, the youngest, left later to serve in the service. So they, they just remained good old friends that we would see up to this date.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.