Densho Digital Archive - Kan Yagi Interview

Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Kan Yagi Interview
Narrator: Kan Yagi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: July 24, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-ykan-01

<Begin Segment 1>

RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. This afternoon we're talking with Kan Yagi and our interview is taking place at the Marriott Residence Inn in Portland near the airport. The date of our interview is July 24, 2010. The interviewer is Richard Potashin and the videographer is Mark Hatchmann. And our interview will be archived in the Park's library. Kan, do I have permission to go ahead and conduct our interview?

KY: Uh-huh.

RP: Thank you very much for coming down here today and sharing some of your experiences before, during, and after the war. First of all, can you give us your date of birth and where you were born?

KY: July 31, 1926.

RP: And where were you born?

KY: I was born in Kelton, Utah. And it's a place that's no longer on the map.

RP: What happened to it?

KY: The railroad came through there and they made a cut off that went across the Great Salt Lake and that bypassed that area and during the war they took up the railroad tracks to reuse the rails for war. But that's why that railroad was taken up. Dad was working on that practically since he came over.

RP: From Japan?

KY: Yeah.

RP: What was your given name at birth?

KY: That's it.

RP: That it?

KY: Yeah, seven letters.

RP: Can you spell it for us?

KY: K-A-N, that's first name, Yagi, Y-A-G-I.

RP: You mentioned your father, where in Japan did he come from?

KY: Okayama, Japan.

RP: And what was his first name?

KY: T-O-K-U-T-A-R-O, Tokutaro Yagi.

RP: And what brought him from Japan to the United States.

KY: Well, he always told us that when he got to be near eighteen years old that he just wanted to come to America and he says, he told us several times that when he left he knew he would never go back. I don't know what... he never did tell us why he left, new adventure or what I don't know. But he was eighteen years old.

RP: When he came to America?

KY: Yeah.

RP: Was he the oldest son in his family or do you know anything else about him in Japan?

KY: No, I think he was the oldest. He had a brother but I don't know whether he was younger or older.

RP: Did any other members of his family come to the United States?

KY: No.

RP: Just him?

KY: Just him.

RP: And when he came here he originally settled in Kelton?

KY: He was... yeah, I guess that's where they settled after they were married, yeah.

<Begin Segment 2>

RP: Your mother, her first and last name, maiden name?

KY: Her first name is Riyo, R-I-Y-O and her last name is Mizote, M-I-Z-O-T-E.

RP: And she's also from Wakayama?

KY: Okayama.

RP: Okayama, sorry. And do you know if your father went back to Japan, well, he didn't go back to Japan, you just said he never went back.

KY: Yeah, he never, not even to visit. He wouldn't go back.

RP: So your mother came here, was she a "picture bride," do you know?

KY: I don't know that, never said anything about it. I don't think it was a kind of a thing where it was... it must have been somehow arranged, whether he knew her before they got married I don't know. He was ten years older than she was though.

RP: And where did he work on the railroad before he got married?

KY: There were several locations east of Reno and I can't remember the names of the towns now but Lovelock...

RP: Winnemucca?

KY: Winnemucca.

RP: Battle Mountain?

KY: Battle Mountain, right. He used to talk about them and I used to know quite a few of them but I forgot 'em now.

RP: Did he work as a section hand or do you know what he did on the railroad?

KY: I guess he must have started as a section hand but as far as I knew he was always a foreman. But he must have started as a section hand.

RP: Can you tell us a little bit about your dad, his personality, what type of a man that you saw him as?

KY: Oh, gosh, I don't know, he's pretty liberal person. He didn't ride us very much about parental control, no, there wasn't much of that. We lived out in the sticks. There's only no more than seven or eight families there at any one time. I think they were all employed by the railroad. Anyway, he liked to go fishing up in the mountains and at that time, well, in my recall it was kind of a depression, 1930s. And so he did about anything he could to get food. And that was one of the things he did fishing and he didn't do any hunting to speak of. He had some friends who had come hunting but he didn't do that too much. He always had a big garden and I don't know, we just kind of grew up ourselves.

RP: How about your mother?

KY: She was just a housekeeper, housewife and she was really a good cook. And that's about all she did but she was a very frugal person, in fact my dad was too. I think us kids took after that, we're the only ones that picked fish bones and chicken bones clean. [Laughs] And we all did that. But out there in the country we just, I think everybody (living there) was pretty conservative, especially with the Depression.

RP: Tell us about your other siblings. You had two older brothers and two older sisters?

KY: Yes.

RP: Who was the oldest?

KY: They alternated. The boy, the oldest brother was a boy and then the next one was a girl, next one was a boy, and the next one was a girl and then it was my turn.

RP: Can you give us the names of your siblings?

KY: The oldest brother was named Taro, T-A-R-O. And the sister's name was Kazue, K-A-Z-U-E, we called her Kathy. The next one was Jiro, J-I-R-O, we called him Jeet. And the next one was Fumiko, F-U-M-I-K-O, she's the one that's in California and she's still alive. But the three older ones are not, they're dead now.

RP: How much older is Fumiko than you?

KY: She's four years. All of the kids were born between May 6th and June the 2nd and that was the last one that was born (June 2) and I was born in July. I'm the only one that's born out of that span. Oh, the youngest one was, her name is Chieko, C-H-I-E K-O.

RP: You mentioned that your father had never... had no intention of returning back to Japan. Did he eventually learn to speak English?

KY: When he and my mother were married, I don't know, the way they were they said when in America, be American. And so they learned to speak English real soon. Of course Father had to learn it as foreman of the crew because they were all Caucasians and anyway they... even speaking to us children, they used English. Primarily English, Dad rarely spoke Japanese and in fact later on when he came to meet more Japanese people, he had a heck of time talking to them. And in fact he couldn't (write it), had to sit down and use the dictionary to write home to tell everybody that Mother died. I remember him sitting at a table with a dictionary trying to write to people in Japan.

<Begin Segment 3>

RP: So tell us a little bit about growing up in a town like -- what was the name of the town again -- Kelton?

KY: Kelton.

RP: Yeah, was it a pretty sparsely populated area?

KY: It was just bunched around the railroad tracks, three or four houses on one side and three or four on the other. And there was a stock yard there, they used to drive the cattle and sheep there for... from the hills, the ranches out west of town of Kelton, place called Park Valley, it's still there, a lot of ranches there. It would be those people who brought sheep and cattle there who got to know us, especially dad and he being very conservative, he brought all the railroad ties that they took out the old ones and the half rotten, broken whatnot, he'd bring all those into Kelton and saved them and gave them to the workers to use for wood. And then the people who wanted some for building of some kind or fence post or whatever, he got to know them by them coming in and getting ties. And one of the ranchers used to give him mutton, that's an old ewe that's fattened up. And that was always welcome, we liked that. You know, he hung that on the side of the house in wintertime.

RP: So were you the only Japanese American family in Kelton?

KY: No there weren't (any others), they were all Caucasian. The only families were like the schoolteacher, him and his wife. The railroad agent, the guy that owned the store, and then the rest were workers on the railroad and that's all that lived there.

RP: Was your house railroad property?

KY: Yes, it was railroad furnished house for us there, yeah. And let's see, on (First) Transcontinental Railroad every fifty miles or so there was a water station, steam engines needed water and that's why that Kelton was there, 'cause it was about fifty miles from another place. And water was available for the steam engine.

RP: Where did you get your water from in the town?

KY: It was... there was a spring up in the mountain about four or five miles away and the water was piped down. We had running water in the house, cold water and that was all. The neighbors, I think they had a couple of spigots on the other side of the railroad track and one or two in another house on our side of the railroad track. But that's about all, they didn't have running water in the house. They used buckets and dippers.

RP: What about your heat? What did you use to heat with?

KY: The railroad furnished coal, that's the main thing, coal and... oh for lights we had kerosene lamps. And that's it. The only running water we had in the house was the kitchen sink had water in it.

RP: Did you have an outhouse to go to?

KY: Yeah, we had outhouses, everybody had outhouses. And the surrounding area was all what they call greasewood, really hardy bush kind of a thing that grew, and some of it was sage brush. But that was almost like right out your back door, pretty primitive area.

RP: So the area that you grew up in was predominantly Caucasian and predominantly Mormon too?

KY: All Caucasian but they held church in the schoolhouse and I think they were... a couple of them were, they may have been Mormon but I remember seeing them smoke. But the nearby community where all the ranchers lived, about fifteen miles away, there were quite a few Mormons there. Ranchers are scattered two or three miles apart over there and there must have been maybe a dozen ranchers in the whole upper north part of Utah.

RP: Did your parents have a religious affiliation at that time?

KY: We didn't have one around there.

RP: Were they Buddhist originally?

KY: Pardon?

RP: Were your parents Buddhist originally?

KY: No, they never talked much about church. And I guess they accepted whatever other people would talk about but it was not about church. I can't remember them saying much about it. It was only they would only get together in the community there for things like Christmas and New Year's and whatnot, Thanksgiving maybe, but there wasn't any much about church.

<Begin Segment 4>

RP: And so the school in Kelton was right there in the middle of the town?

KY: Yeah, the school was on our side of the track and it was, actually it was held up by a couple of telephone poles and it was so old and it began to tip and Dad got the crew to put telephone poles up against it to hold it up. But it was a really old thing, the largest class of kids there from first grade to tenth grade, largest one ever was eighteen students. And there were two... three or four students I guess came from the ranch about two miles out. They were kind of an isolated ranching family and they rode horses down from that ranch to go to school.

RP: So what do you remember about going to school there?

KY: Gee, I can remember having class in the teacher's kitchen around a kitchen table and she would be making bread and when the bread was ready we got to eat some of it. [Laughs] But there were only four students in grades one to five. And then the rest of them went in the (schoolhouse) from sixth on up to grade ten were in the main classroom. But there were only about, oh, usually twelve, ten, twelve students in the whole school so it was pretty small.

RP: What did you do for fun?

KY: Gosh, I can't remember. Going out chasing jackrabbits with the wooden spokes out of the car wheels and the older cars had wooden spokes, they didn't have metal. And we'd throw them at the rabbits as we chased them through the brush, we did that. We would take buckets of water out to the greasewood and sagebrush and pour water down the holes, squirrel holes and they'd come out and we'd chase 'em around. I don't think we ever killed any of 'em, just chased them around tried to catch 'em. We'd take a hike out to what we called Table Rock, was a place about three miles west of town. And all the kids would get together and walk to Table Rock and back. We had a sandbox that I played in I remember.

RP: Did you have any encounters with rattlesnakes growing up?

KY: No we didn't, I guess there just weren't any around there, maybe it was too dry, I don't know. Actually I guess even rattlesnakes have to have water but anyway it was really dry. There was a little pond that collected some water when it rained and ran down the trail from Park Valley into and made a little pond. And the rabbits would come around that pond and drink at night and they just lined the bank and our house was maybe half a block from the pond and you could hear 'em at the house when they drank. And occasionally a coyote would come down and chase the rabbits.

RP: So there was a store in town too?

KY: Yeah, there was a store. I can't remember what it sold but there was a store, a general store.

RP: Did you have a car to drive to a larger town?

KY: Yeah, yeah, Dad had a 1928 Essex and we would drive that, he would drive that over the, in those days just all dirt roads to Brigham City which was oh, some fifty, sixty miles away and we'd go there. Ogden was another town, city, the first big city and we'd go as far as Ogden and get whatever things they needed. Mother didn't need much, she made all our clothes I think, she didn't need a pattern but she could make a shirt no problem at all.

RP: How were you accepted by the rest of the families in Kelton? Were you just part of the larger family as a Japanese American family?

KY: We didn't notice any difference. We didn't know there was any difference. Whether or not they felt that way I don't know. They always seemed to respect Dad. Anytime they... I remember they occasionally would come and consult him about something or they would ask for help with something. Everybody was helpful to each other, I don't know that they ever treated Dad any different.

RP: In 1933 you moved? And where did you move to?

KY: We moved to Corinne which was, during those early days was a real hub when the transcontinental railroad was first completed, Corinne was a boom town that had brothels and everything else. [Laughs] It was supposed to (have been some) kind of a terminal for a branch that was going to go into Montana but that didn't materialize and Corinne eventually closed down. That was after the war anyway.

RP: And do you remember your first job, Kan?

KY: My job?

RP: Your first job you worked?

KY: I started working for farmers when I was about nine years old, picking beans and peas and taking care of row crops out on their farms.

RP: Was this in Corinne?

KY: Yeah, but it was just more because that's what I could do, whenever the one farmer would call for some help and us kids said, sure. We had these sons and daughters of the other workers that dad had and there we had a Hispanic family and then an Italian family and three Caucasian (families). There was another old Italian guy, a single guy, but that was... we formed a little nucleus there on the edge of town and this is a railroad, again all connected to the railroad. The housing was furnished by the railroad.

RP: Did your father have a free pass to ride the train?

KY: Ride the train?

RP: Yeah, did he have a free pass? Did the family --

KY: Oh, yeah, yeah.

RP: Did you ride the train as kids?

KY: Yeah, we used to go from Kelton to Corinne and back just for the ride and that was about it. It wasn't used much for transportation.

RP: You said your dad during the Depression went out to fish, to catch some food for the family. Did you also learn how to fish during that time?

KY: Yeah, all us kids learned how to fish, I didn't do too much because I was pretty young at the time. Yeah, my older brothers learned to fish and we would always go to the mountain with Dad and the whole family and spend a Saturday or Sunday up in the mountains.

<Begin Segment 5>

RP: What do you remember about December 7, 1941?

KY: Well, we had moved in '33 and this was about seven or eight months... seven or eight years later but I remember we were...my two brothers and I went out duck hunting and we came home and they said, "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor." I didn't even know where Pearl Harbor was. [Laughs] But anyway they said that they think the President is going to call, declare a war and of course that's when we heard about it but I thought, "Holy cow what does that mean?" I didn't think much more about it being a spoiled teenager. I didn't think too much about it. In fact, when I think back on it, I thought why should I worry, I'm an American. Like the rest of the neighbor kids around there, I thought I was just like 'em.

RP: Did you have any concerns about what... how you'd be treated at school the next day?

KY: Not really, I didn't think too much about it. I kind of was thinking that well, yeah, wonder how the riding the bus because there were not many friends who rode this same bus. I usually got on and sat in the front seat and that was it. And the others got in on the bus back a ways but nobody said anything that I recall, I didn't hear anybody say anything at all.

RP: And where did you attend high school?

KY: In Brigham City which is next... just about seven, eight miles from Corinne. I attended elementary school in Corinne. Corinne at that time was, oh, maybe five or six hundred people, I don't know, very small town.

RP: So in the months that followed, did your life change very much, January, February 1942? How about your father's job, was --

KY: Yeah, it did, with the war it was I think about the first or second or something around there of February -- excuse me -- the FBI came out and went out to the work site. Dad was working on some... maybe you heard of Promontory Point? That's where the railroads met. Out near that spot, they went out there and brought him in, somebody said it was at gunpoint. I don't know. Anyway, they brought him in and I was in school so when I came home it was about four o'clock. Then Monday morning they said, "Pa's got to go to leave the house at five o'clock," and he was getting ready to go and I remember them saying that he's going to Claude Gilbert's place. Claude was a friend of his and Claude had heard somehow about having to leave and said he could stay at his place.

Anyway, when I came home from school anyway they said we had to be out of here, our house, by five o'clock tomorrow. And I thought holy cow, five o'clock tomorrow. We got a household of furniture, two feet of snow on the ground and where we going to move to? And they said, oh, there's a house that Audrey Johnson has on the other side of town, it's vacant so that's where we're going to go. And you know, we don't have a truck or anything and they said that there was a Japanese farmer who we knew and they volunteered, they had a couple older sons, same age as my older brothers. They were going to bring their truck and the next day and (have) our stuff up to that house and they said, oh, they were out there clearing the road to the house. The road to the house was about couple of blocks (from the street). It went down a swale and up on the side hill and some of the drifts they said were almost waist deep on the road. But they had to use shovels to shovel it. So they must have spent all that day on that Monday getting to the house. Anyway, I said, gee maybe I'd better stay home from school. I was fifteen years old. And at that time I had not missed a day of school in the three years that I had attended already. And they said, oh, we want you to get perfect attendance so you got to go to school. So I went to school. [Laughs] And they moved everything the next day they said when you come home, just head for the Johnson's house. That's what I did.

RP: So who told you that you had to move? Was it the FBI?

KY: Well, it was an (FBI) agent there who watched my dad like a hawk I guess. They said he was there and I saw him and there was also FBI agents at the depot which was a kind of the center for communications on the railroad. And they'd call (about) trains and stuff like that. But with only one track going in, but anyway there was an FBI agent there and I don't know where some of the others were. But they said there was a couple car loads. I didn't see them but they said it must be a couple car loads out there someplace. All I remember they said, ah, we can't be on the railroad property at all after five o'clock and I thought well, gee whiz, I might have to go across, in fact somebody had to go across the railroad tracks from Johnson's place to get to the post office to get our mail. But I guess they weren't so strict about walking across the railroad tracks.

RP: They just didn't want you loitering around there.

KY: Yeah, they said, "Don't loiter around the railroad tracks. Don't, you know, hang around the railroad tracks." We couldn't go to the stock yard where we used to play down there. Couldn't go see my neighbors who were friends of mine, the two Mexican boys I played with all the time. They were right there (near) the railroad tracks.

RP: So everything changed very dramatically and suddenly?

KY: Yeah, it was pretty... mainly because of the FBI. Other people around there said, "Why can't you come and play?" Why can't you do this? Or why can't you do that?

RP: Was your father the only Japanese working on the railroad in the town at that time?

KY: Yeah, he knew some of, all of the farmers around there, yeah, he and mother knew them but they knew them, friends and visited with them. Mother wanted somebody to talk to, she hadn't used Japanese for so long. But anyway, yeah, they became friends with Japanese around there. But it was kind of a... we were (in a) way outcasts among the Japanese because we had a reputation of being snot nosed. [Laughs] [Referring to wife] She knows about that, she's (from) a neighboring town and her family and other farmers around there. In fact, there was an incident when we were in Kelton, I don't think I wrote about that. But anyway, the incident in (which) we moved, mother and kids moved to Honeyville, a nearby town by Brigham City for the (older) kids to get ready to go to school and this was during the summer time. While we were there, my sister came into the bedroom to get my slipper and she came into the bedroom and she let out a blood curdling scream and I wondered what the hell is going on? And I jumped out of bed and ran down the hall and Mother was pulling the washing machine away from door and we were all going to leave the house and run to the neighbors. We were being invaded by somebody, right? I don't know who they were but I don't think anybody ever found out who they were. But anyway, they scared the dickens out of us and we went back and a couple of nights later they had put screens, oh, my sister says that the guy was under my bed. And I can't imagine how he was under my bed but anyway, as I turned the corner to go around to the kitchen door, a shovel came down the hallway and I remember jumping up and the shovel went right under my legs. Otherwise I could have had my legs cut by that flying shovel. But went to the neighbors place and you could see guys milling around in the main hall way, big dining area there. This was... we lived in the church. And anyway there were some guys milling around in there and when we went back they had dumped the silverware onto the floor and that's all I remember, what else they did I don't know.

But anyway, a few nights later, they had already put screens on the windows and about three nights later they cut the screen, scared the heck out of us. A couple nights later we had a friend came over and brought a shotgun and was sleeping over and in the middle of the night Mother heard something and yelled for him to get up and he slept right through it. [Laughs] But anyway after that we moved back to Kelton. And that's where shortly thereafter, that's when we moved to Corinne. But anyway we thought somebody's trying to run us out of the house or something. But whether that was discrimination I don't know but it could've been, we kind of figured years later that maybe it was, they didn't want any more Japanese living in this town where there were already a number of farmers there.

<Begin Segment 6>

RP: So you had 'til five o'clock the next day to move to this other house. And this other house was much smaller than the one that you lived in.

KY: Oh, yeah, the one that we lived in, the railroad house, it was a two story house and some eight to ten rooms or so. And this one only had four rooms and I don't think it was much bigger than what you got here.

RP: You also had quite a few animals and chickens to take care of.

KY: Yeah, we had chickens and some livestock, cows and young calves. We always had, that is when we moved from Kelton to Corinne, we got into milking a few cows and sending milk to the dairy. Kind of what we call half-assed farmers. [Laughs]

RP: So you moved up to this other house, the Johnson house, did you call it?

KY: Yeah, we moved into that and then I think I worked with my brother, they rented the land from where the house was on. And some pieces up just a ways away, he rented, the oldest brother did that. The second brother had already started a job in Hill Field, that's the air force base, he had already started a job before the war.

RP: What was he doing there?

KY: He was a machinist and anyway, when Dad lost his job and I can't remember exactly when it was that Brother was brought home from Hill Field, in fact I guess it was before Dad was taken off the railroad. They brought Brother home and he was madder than hell.

RP: And who brought him home?

KY: The FBI... well, no, the FBI didn't, the FBI escorted him to the gate and he had to catch a bus home from Ogden which was about forty miles away.

RP: And in either case, in each case with your dad and your brother was there any reason given at all for these actions? Did you ever get a reason why your brother had been led away or your dad?

KY: Well, I don't know... the reason I guess was just simply that the government wants you off of here.

RP: Didn't trust him?

KY: Out of here, yeah. In fact I remember my mother was questioning them about, the FBI agents about why, why, why and they essentially said, "Shut up or we'll throw you in jail." They really treated her rough and she got madder than heck again. But dad told her to take... we can't do anything about it, they're the law. I don't know that there was any reason given but I guess it had to do with the railroad being declared a... what do they call it?

RP: A strategic resource especially, yeah, during the war.

KY: Yeah, right.

[Interruption]

RP: This is a continuation of an oral history with Kan Yagi and this is tape two and Kan, how long had your father been working for the railroad when he was removed from his position?

KY: I guess he completed thirty-five years.

RP: Thirty-five years.

KY: Yeah, he thought it was kind of like a joke. He says, "I've been working here thirty-five years." But anyway he was resigned to it and when they came and got him.

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: So you moved to the Johnson house and you lived there for how long?

KY: Actually about two, it must have been about two years. I remember being drafted from there. And I went to the service when they were still there. I quit working, my two brothers had started running land, started farming, renting land and farming. And essentially told Dad, you're retired. But he did whatever he could do. 'Course, he never drove a tractor or anything in his life and we used horses those days just about every farmer had horses. They used those but anyway I went to the service.

RP: Did somebody move into your old house that you left?

KY: That I don't know, I don't know if they did or not. It was still there but a year or two later, but that I don't know, the old house.

RP: And what were your brothers farming?

KY: They rented some land just a couple miles from the Johnson place, actually about, it's about four miles from the Johnson place. And they kept farm a couple of years at the Johnson place and they started looking for another place, they wanted more, they needed more land.

RP: You mentioned that your father, when he was first removed from the railroad was watched by an FBI man, how about the time after that? Was your family under surveillance during the time you lived at the Johnson house? Was somebody watching your movements or your dad's movements?

KY: No, nobody was watching as far as we knew. They did come to the house, I can't remember when it was but it was after we moved to the Johnson house and confiscated all of our shotguns, .22s and cameras, shortwave radios, we didn't have one of those but cameras whatever else they asked for. But they took all our guns away from us. I was ticked off because I wanted to go duck hunting. [Laughs]

RP: So was that the FBI or the county sheriff who came to confiscate the guns?

KY: Yeah, the FBI came and oh, they were pretty nasty to my brother 'cause he was objecting about, he started asking them about why was he kicked off his job in Hill Field and they essentially said it's none of our business. We're not here for that. And they threatened to put him in jail too just like my mother.

RP: Along with your mom.

KY: But anyway they came and we gave them our guns. Dad says, "This is what they have to do, this is they have to do, resign to do it."

RP: Were there any other restrictions placed on your family other than don't go down to the railroad tracks?

KY: We were concerned about it. I was in the orchestra and of course the restriction was not to go on a military base. Well, the orchestra was going to play at Bushnell General Hospital, the army hospital.

RP: Where was that?

KY: In Brigham City, nearby the high school and they were going to put on... the orchestra was going to play for the troops. I didn't know whether I should go or not. And the teacher says, "Oh, let's just go and see what happens." Well, we went and nothing happened. Just the teacher and I talked about that, I didn't let anybody else know that I was concerned about it. But personally I couldn't see why not. So those are the kind of things that just kept you on a little bit of an edge, whether or not we could go near the hospital.

RP: Were you under any travel restrictions? You can only travel a certain distance away from the community?

KY: Gosh, I can't remember.

Off camera: Yes, they had restrictions. They could only go about forty miles from home. And they had those booklets, you know, I remember my parents with the booklets and they could only go forty miles from home.

RP: Was that restriction on your parents' travel or the whole family?

Off camera: I think it was the whole family.

RP: This booklet that you spoke of was kind of regulations?

Off camera: I think so.

RP: Specific for the wartime.

KY: I don't know, I was so naive I figured that, hell I'm an American. [Laughs]

RP: What's wrong with that?

KY: Yeah, I didn't pay much attention to it.

RP: You said that, you know, you lived in this town for a while and you felt pretty integrated, and did the community show you any support at all other than kind of wondering why this was happening to you?

KY: We did get some questions from people. "How come you had to move?" And we just told them why and they said, "Well, what's wrong with that? Why did they have to move you?" And dad was okay. Anyway, I really didn't hear myself but my brothers said that they heard it from people in town. It's strange and they heard people being called the J-word and all I can recall is hearing one boy about ten year old referring to me one time about that, using that word. And that's the only person I ever heard say that word where I heard it. It was this... I was like everybody else, I felt like that. You know, it's funny you get so used to living in that kind of environment where you don't distinguish between the other workers on the railroad, the Mexican families, the Italian guy. These are my friends, I didn't notice any difference, I didn't feel any different.

RP: What happened to your brother who got removed from his job at the air force base? What did he do?

KY: Well, he was working with my brother and when I came home from the service, this was in the fall, September, and by the next spring, he and I bought a farm together. Anyway, it was about... up the road a little way from my oldest brother's farm. And we bought that farm and we started farming that.

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Let's talk a little bit about your military experience. You said you were drafted?

KY: Yeah.

RP: 1943, '44?

KY: Yeah, it was in '44. I was put into what they call the ERC, Enlisted Reserve Corps, and I didn't do anything, they said, you're a reserve corps, just, we'll draft you when we need you. So I anyway waited until February '45, that's when I went into the service. And when I went to service we were, all Japanese guys were lumped together. Frankly, I felt a little out of place in a way being with all Japanese guys but you know, you soon get used to it. But anyway we were sworn in at Fort Douglas and we were put on a troop train and went to Texas. Texas was, Camp Wolters, Texas, was an infantry replacement training center. And for some reason they sent about, there was only me and about five or six other Japanese guys, were put into this one company. The rest were all white people, all Caucasians. I remember since we became friends as being together, Japanese guys, we went to the PX to play pool stuff like that. Then the next thing we knew, the two of us was sent to another company and we were the only Japanese guys in that whole platoon. The next door company had, I think there were three or four and I don't know what the rest of the platoons up at barracks had but there were more than a couple of them in each barracks. At the same time the battalion next to us was virtually all Japanese. And I didn't know that until we went to the PX down the street and here all these guys were, that we were drafted with in Fort Douglas. I don't know why that was but there we thought, well, maybe they're trying to integrate us, I don't know. But it didn't bother me that much because I'd been around white guys all my life. Then when we completed training they took all of us. Oh, during that training is when Germany surrendered, of course they surrendered in, what was it, in May? We completed training in July and went to Maryland. And when we went to Maryland, here we were all Japanese guys together and then when we went overseas, there was a whole six hundred and something troops going over, all Japanese. Of course, we had no explanation, we talked to each other about it but couldn't figure out why here we were trained, you know, all Caucasians and yet we were putting us back together again.

Anyway, when we got to France... England, we went from England to France to what is called the infantry replacement depot. And then they took about twenty-five of us were put into one camp and then the other five hundred and something were taken to another camp. Why, I don't know. One day we were called out to... it was about two or three weeks we sat around doing nothing. Oh, while we were in England, in fact, that's when Japan surrendered, August. Anyway when we got to France they put us in this one depot, about twenty-five of us and yes, the rest of them were in another camp. And we thought, why in the heck they separate us, we didn't know. Called us out one day and told us we were shipping out and we sat out there for, oh, must have been three or four hours, didn't do anything. Finally an officer came out and says, "You might as well go back to your billets," so we went, unpacked our stuff and then one of the lieutenants came and says, you guys were lucky. And we said why are we so lucky? He said, you guys were slated to go to CBI, China Burma India and the plan was to send troops around through Burma to attack Japan from the south. And we thought, us guys, CBI? And we started talking to each other and we found out that we were all expert riflemen. Now whether it was a coincidence or what but... and whether it was true or not, I don't know. But we said, hey, that's maybe it. And that lieutenant that told us about you're going to be trained as snipers and come through the... from the south. So you guys are lucky that's was about all he said. Anyway from there we went to... a few of us again, just four of us went to a quartermaster company, no only three of us went to our quartermaster company. It was all Caucasian guys and a lot of 'em had been there through the war and so they were preparing to move the company to another place. We went to Berlin and then we went to... from Berlin we went to Munich. And that's where we stayed down there. And we were a refrigeration outfit. We ended up in Munich hauling meat, eggs and apples and whatnot from one quarter master distribution to another center, other places. We distributed that kind of stuff around.

RP: When did you get back to the States?

KY: I spent a year over there and I got back to the States in September of '46. I think we left I think somewhere around the end of August or something. And I came back in September '46.

RP: To back home?

KY: Once again it was nearly all Japanese on the boat. [Laughs]

<Begin Segment 9>

RP: So when you got back home, what was the situation like with your father? Was he able to return to his railroad work? Or did he stay retired?

KY: No, he was so close to retirement, they offered him a position but he says he would retire, he was so close. It was either he could retire or take this job. And he says, since the family had bought the farms, and he was kind of enjoying that retirement anyway, he says he would retire. Fortunately, he became friends with a lawyer during the war and the lawyer arranged for him to get his retirement. Since it was thirty-five years, he was able to get full retirement. The lawyer I think was able to arrange that somehow.

RP: So Southern Pacific wasn't going to give him a retirement originally and he had to go seek legal help?

KY: Yeah, they kind of offered retirement or that job since he had thirty-five years. They said you can retire with that.

RP: Did he ever get compensated for the, you know, for being basically fired from his job for the time that he was off until he officially retired?

KY: No, there was no compensation for that.

RP: Did he or the family pursue legal action to sort of reinstate him? You know, the fact that you never really knew why he was removed?

KY: No, I think dad was one of these, "Why agitate it?"

RP: He didn't want to force the issue.

KY: Yeah, he got his retirement.

RP: And he was happy.

KY: Yeah, he was satisfied. In fact he said he enjoyed being a farmer, a retired farmer.

RP: How about now your other brother who was removed from his job, you told me that he was very angry? What did he do with that anger?

KY: He didn't... I guess he worked for a while with my brother then he went to work at the coat factory. But when I came home he was working on the farm and that's when we decided we would buy a farm together. I had through my black market deals in Europe I was able to save a little bit of money and that made the down payment on the farm. When they started it, the redress thing, somehow he received some paperwork about his job, being fired from his job, and there was compensation like the redress for being dismissed from his job. Saito would know who he corresponded with somebody in Los Angeles and anyway he got his redress before the rest of us got any redress.

RP: Do you know how much he received?

KY: 20,000.

RP: 20,000.

KY: Yeah, he got that much but he was still ticked off because he didn't have a job. And he kind of wanted to continue as a machinist. But he couldn't get into a trade school. I don't know that he tried but he was just mad because he lost his job.

RP: Did the rest of your family receive any compensation for having to move away from your original home? You were basically relocated.

KY: Yes, well, my sister that lives in Southern California had friend that's in Los Angeles and they started talking about getting... doing something for the railroad people. And so this gal from Los Angeles started saying we need to put together information to support the redress issue. And so I went to the public library and got congressional records to prove that the railroads were considered a defense industry and therefore they kicked us off of the railroad and that's what it essentially said that in the congressional record, that the railroads were defense industry and to remove all "enemy aliens," that's what they called them. All "enemy aliens" were to be removed. And it's kind of the proof there. And so I sent these congressional records, photo copies to these people in Los Angeles and they said it was very helpful to get the law, the proof that the railroads were taken over because they said that the railroads were not taken over. It was because of the Southern Pacific, that's what everybody, the FBI or somebody was saying. But it was because of the government order.

RP: So your research helped the case.

KY: Support that. I guess, I don't know. But anyway, this gal in Los Angeles says, yeah, that was very helpful to get that information. Anybody could have got it I think but they just had to know where to look. Anyway I farmed with my brother for several years, seven years, decided one day I was going to go to school and so I did, I ended up at the University of Utah. I saw that the amount of acreage we had was not enough, may not be enough to support him and me. Maybe as single people we would but I expected to get married, I didn't know about him. But anyway I told him that since you have been running the farm being older than me, he'd been running the farm, "Why don't you continue running it?" I'm going to go to school if I need help, I'll yell help. And he says, "Okay," so I went to school and he continued farming. And that was in 1953, I started college, ten years after I graduated from high school.

<Begin Segment 10>

RP: What did you take in college?

KY: What did I major in? I majored in psychology. Yeah, I got a bachelor's in '57, a master's in '58 and then I went to work in Monterey for five years. Well, actually she put me through. She was working at Hill Field at the time, she worked there and put me through. We went to Monterey and worked for five years and then one day I said I'm going to go back for the doctorate.

RP: To the University of Utah?

KY: So we went back and I got my doctorate in 1960.

RP: So how did you two meet?

KY: Well, actually I'd known her through when we used to play basketball when I was on the farm. Basketball and so forth and in fact in her sister was my classmate, older sister. Anyway I knew who she was and then when we went to Salt Lake to go to school, called her up one day asked for a date and that was it.

RP: You also lived in Corinne?

Off camera: No, I lived in a town called Honeyville, just a few miles from Corinne.

KY: Farm community.

RP: Oh, okay.

Off camera: It's still there.

RP: Is it? So your father was a farmer?

Off camera: He had land there and he was farming there.

RP: So how was your family treated during the war?

Off camera: I think as I remember my father said that they never, people didn't look down on him or nothing. They were just always friendly, you know, the Mormons are if you get to know them, they were all Mormons around where we lived so we had no problems.

KY: In small towns... well, like Brigham City, is ninety-nine percent Mormon. Brigham City has population... had at our time was about 3,000 people, 4,000 and when your Mormon they had six wards in Brigham to serve all the Mormon people. So church is a big thing.

RP: Were you frequently visited by church missionaries?

Off camera: I think they knew that we wouldn't be interested in their religion.

KY: Yeah, when we first moved to Corinne, we got visited fairly often by missionaries and Dad told them that when you come to our house, you can visit any time but we don't talk church in our house. That's essentially what he said. And actually it's strange but several of these Mormon missionaries became friends and they'd come visit. Mother would even... at a few of them she served them tea and at that time, the Mormons wouldn't drink tea. And we would jokingly say well, we eat rice and pour tea in it 'cause that's what we like, it's an old fashioned thing. And if we can't drink tea, we can't join the church. [Laughs] Kind of jokingly do that but we became good friends. All the people in Brigham City as I think I wrote in there, Mother became... was invited to join the business and professional women's organization because she was actually a good cook and she also did needlework, all that kind of stuff. And the ladies wanted to see some of her work she did, crocheting, tatting, which is unusual. And even my dad made nets, netting doilies and entered them in the state fair, county and state fairs. Anyway, they wanted to see that kind of stuff and Mother and my sister, they did a lot of that.

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: During the war years and later on when you were in the military and you met other Japanese Americans, did you come in contact with Japanese Americans who had been in some of the camps?

KY: Yes, I was in contact with some, but not for long. The ones that I was in together with for most of my military service, they were... one was from Nevada and the other one was from Washington but he moved away from Washington before the evacuation. So we, three of us didn't experience that kind of removal and camp.

RP: Were you aware of the evacuation and the camps when you were living in Utah? Did you know that were camps like that and people were being excluded off the West Coast because of their ethnicity?

KY: Yes, we became aware of that. In fact, Mother invited a relative in Portland to come to Utah and we would help them find housing and whatnot but they wanted to keep their whole family together so they went to camp. Yeah, we didn't know why but anyway, but Mother made the offer.

RP: Were there families who were relocating to the area that you lived in? Farmers? Out of the camps?

KY: Yeah, a lot of them came to work in the fields and the canneries and whatnot. Kind of like everybody helped win the war. Yeah, there were a lot of students who came and enrolled in the high school, they were from California, a lot of them came from California. I don't know if many came from... yeah, some came from Oregon. Yeah, we had some people who didn't go to camp but they came to the Corinne area to live from Washington.

RP: So they came before the exclusion orders?

KY: Pardon?

Off Camera: They never went to camp?

RP: They never went to camp?

KY: Yeah, they didn't go to camp. Yeah, there were a few of those who somehow had relatives in the area and I guess they helped them move out there. Or they knew people or something.

RP: So you knew about this removal and you heard some of the stories about the camps. What did you think about your situation in relationship to what happened to most Japanese Americans?

KY: When I learned they were going to go to camp, I thought, gee, wonder what they're going to do with so many people together like that in what appeared to be tar paper shacks. I did hear about having to go to horse barns and places like that for assembly centers they called them. I thought, gee whiz that... it must be war. It was harsh treatment but it's like you probably heard the shigata ga nai... can't be helped. I think that attitude was pretty pervasive.

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: Another question about the railroad redress. Were you aware that other railroad workers had been fired from their jobs in Nevada and other parts of Utah when you were beginning to research some of the --

KY: No, I didn't. I didn't know, we didn't know that many Japanese that were working on the railroad at that time. There was a guy in Kelton who replaced Dad when we moved. And he was just mad that they came and got him. But that's about all Dad heard about... he was a single guy so he moved pretty easily and I don't know what happened to him. There was another family whose father (worked on) the Bamberger, the Moris. Mr. Mori was working on that Bamberger railroad but that was a private line. I don't know what happened to them whether he lost his job or what.

Off camera: Oh, I'm sure he lost his job that's why they moved down, you know, into the farming area, they were helping the farmers. They at least had a job, you know, the pay was poor but --

KY: I think it was pretty much similar but he was already living in a house off of the railroad property, him and his family. Dad, Mother knew them but didn't... weren't that close to 'em as friends.

RP: So just a closing question, when you look back on that experience, being removed from your home and being relocated a short distance away, your father loses his job, your brother loses a job, how do you reflect on that experience?

KY: I look back on it and I thought, gee, it was really upsetting but since I was told to go to school, keep my attendance up, I kind of missed out on the misery of it all. And you know, the deep snow, it wouldn't have been so bad if the weather was good. Gosh, I remember walking home from the bus up that road, of course they didn't have it cleaned that well. I wondered, I thought my god, this must have been heck to get the big truck up there and unload all that stuff. And I just couldn't figure out how they did all that in one day. I thought gee whiz, even the cows are there, the chickens were in the makeshift hen house. And they had to move some hay, feed the cows.

RP: Do you have any questions, Mark?

MH: I do. What was the distance from where you were living when you moved to the Johnson house? How far away did you... since you were living in your other house?

KY: Oh, the distance from one house to the other?

MH: Yes.

KY: Oh, I would say only about a mile or so, mile and a half. Yeah, maybe a mile and a half, two miles at most.

MH: And was there ever a reason given why you had to move from your original house to the Johnson house?

KY: Railroad property, get off of the railroad property, that's all they said. We have to be off the railroad property and not to set foot on railroad property.

RP: Kan, thank you so much for sharing your stories, very unique story with us. On behalf of myself and Mark and the National Park Service we're really honored to be able to document your story today.

KY: Okay. Thank you.