<Begin Segment 18>

Off camera: I'll just ask one more question because I always have a lot of questions. When you returned to the U.S. after the war, and the 442nd had a pretty stellar record fighting, did you find that public opinion had changed? Especially when you went back to California.

TF: Well, I didn't go back to California. It's just that my folks moved to New Jersey where I whatchamacallit, went. I got discharged in New Jersey, and the policy was to fly you to the place that you were, you go into the service. That meant they gave me a hundred and fifty dollars to fly to Salt Lake City where we went in. But it only took five or six dollars to take a bus to Bridgeton, so I made money on that one. But there's a, as far as public attitude was concerned, I hate to tell you, but things didn't change. When I went to Des Moines, I thought it was pretty nice, because everybody was real friendly. We were able to, when I went to Drake, I got a job as a, at the girl's dormitory as a dishwasher's helper, and that wasn't bad because I learned that I could eat two meals there, you know, lunch and supper. And I got in good with the cooks because one of the first things I asked him is that, if I can have five slices of bread with each of my meals, and they thought it was kind of funny that someone was going to ask for so much bread, that they always gave me a little extra of everything, plus the bread. And so these were the kind of things. And didn't lose out anything, because when there's any activity, the other guys will save me seats and stuff. And we had our homecoming for... they don't do these things now, but we had this home bonfire, and we'd go through the motions and all that. And if Drake wins, we'd cut class. Things were more normal than they are nowadays. But as far as public opinion, when I moved to Salt Lake, things were... I think worse than L.A., because more things were hidden. Like when someone would see me, they would say, "Oh, how long have you been here? You speak good English." And I don't want to tell 'em, gee, my English is pretty bad for the amount of time I've been here, because I was born in L.A. But I don't do that, but then they had housing discrimination there, job discrimination. When my wife's folks was offered a farming position in AmericanFork, they took it and left camp. And then the bishop there didn't treat 'em so good, that they decided they wouldn't do that the following year. And so they were going to buy a house, only the land rules so that they can't sell it to Orientals or Indians. And I think Mexicans were listed on there, too, at that time. But it was that kind of stuff. When my wife looked for a job, she went to an insurance place, and at least they were forthright and said, "We don't hire Japanese." Whereas the other ones will give you excuses. When we were getting married and we're looking for a place to live, you look for an ad and it's open, and you go there and they say, "Oh, it's already been rented." Then you go home and talk to 'em again, and they say it's ready to go. So I used a few words I shouldn't be using to let 'em know that I'm sort of wise to them. But there was this kind of stuff.

And they kind of freely used the word "Jap." Like when I was going to the hospital, I'd park, and then you'd hear somebody say, "Who's parking in front there?" And somebody would say, "Oh, that Jap." So you hear this kind of stuff. But it's Martin Luther King. When he came about, everything changed for us also as far as I'm concerned. Because by then, you didn't have to worry about anything like that. And I know there was a few colored people who wanted to join the Japanese church. And then I kind of found some in the Japanese church didn't think they didn't ought to be letting colored people in. And I kind of wonder, you know, this is kind of strange. And it's just like Japanese bowling league, it's for Japanese only. So if you're not Japanese or married to Japanese, technically, you don't get to join. And you hear all of this kind of stuff, but I'm through with all of the politics. I don't bowl. [Laughs]

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.