<Begin Segment 8>

KL: What did your, what did your siblings think about being back in Japan? What was their response to the air raids and to, I know they went to school there, can you tell me a little bit about your older brother and sisters' experience in school?

MY: My brother George and Amy had -- of course, they were ten years old, eleven and ten when first we got there. Although they spoke a little bit of Japanese, because parents spoke Japanese, right, they kind of pushed around back and forth at first, got in fourth grade and then the teacher decided maybe we should put them in the fifth grade and this and that, so back and forth. And then they had so much problem. And George especially, he was a very, very smart man; he was able to, he was able to get into a prestigious high school. That's old, olden system, Japanese school system's high school, equivalent to university now. And I know that a lot of people that went to that school either became schoolteachers and higher professions, but those days, with the war, supporting the war was the main thing, not going to school to study things. Well, they're going to school to kind of assist Japanese Imperial Army. That's what my brother was kind of irritated about. He wanted to study, but didn't have enough time or amount to do that. Instead, we're doing, digging holes, or if he wasn't digging holes he was going somewhere and assist the, translate the English to Japanese, things like that. And commuting from the house to the school was quite a distance, and the only way to get there is by walking or bicycle, and he has so much problem with going to the school because the rain all the time, and rainy days it's pretty hard to get on a bike and go to school on time. Then if he didn't make it in time, he'd get punished by teachers, and he just had so much problem. And the, my sister, Amy, attended the local agricultural school, to study housekeeping mostly. You know, the girls, I guess...

KL: Home economics here.

MY: Yeah, home economic, things like that. So that was, it was okay for her, but not the same case with my brother George.

KL: Do you think the army knew he was a U.S. citizen when he was doing these translations and stuff?

MY: It was a dual citizen. There's a long story on those things.

KL: 'Cause of his dad, yeah okay.

MY: Because...

KL: But they weren't suspicious of his, that he would give them the wrong translation or anything?

MY: Well, you know, I don't know about that. Maybe they didn't care because they needed someone to translate the English, and then they'd have him do, he happened to be able to do that. So maybe they didn't, maybe they closed their eyes and let him do that. Who knows? But those days, the American citizens, or any other citizens other than Japanese, couldn't go to school there. They wouldn't let, they wouldn't even accept the kids to go to school there, unless they're Japanese citizens. So, well, I'm an American citizen, Bob and everybody, so we had to change our name to Ono, not Yamaguchi. Yamaguchi's a name that was from here. That's a U.S. citizen name, Minoru Yamaguchi, or Amy Yamaguchi or George or Bob Yamaguchi. That's a name that was named here. And then Japanese school system won't accept (American born students), so my dad had to change our last name to Ono, my mother's maiden name, and then register as a Japanese citizen. So all of a sudden we're dual citizens, American citizen...

KL: With one name.

MY: And one name, then Japanese citizen with same first name but then different last name, which is my mother's maiden name. And we, I tell you, we really had to keep our identity very secret. We'll never, we never told any other people, even the villagers, my schoolmates or school friends, never, ever told that we were -- as far as I'm concerned, I don't know about my other brothers -- told my friends that I was born in USA. We had to keep our name secret. I mean, not name, but identity, that is. Because, especially after, right after the war, with the sort of, some of those Japanese, other people had, felt animosity about Americans, so my dad warned me not to say anything about you're from, you were born in the U.S. That was right after we made a trip to Yokohama to renew our visa, 'cause we carried the visa. And after five years -- it was ten years? I don't even remember, that was either five years or ten years. All I remember is they made a twenty-four hour train trip from Kagoshima to Yokohama to visit American consulate, and then to extend, to make extension on the visa.

KL: Were you about eight years old, do you think?

MY: Yeah. But it was fun.

KL: The trip?

MY: The trip was fun, just, just a lot of passengers with a big basket carrying all the food, the... after the war, there was such a food shortage. I mean, those city people didn't have enough food to eat, so they would hop on the train to go countryside or out of town to see if they could get some food to take home. And those trains were loaded with those people that was carrying the big basket loaded with food, such as potatoes, onions. But as a kid, the train ride, twenty-four hours, it was a lot of fun.

KL: Yeah. You and your dad and your brother, you said, right?

MY: Uh-huh.

KL: Yeah.

MY: But, of course, we're taking twenty-four hours, so once we get there and then visit American consulate, get all the paperwork done, then we go to the hotel -- it's called, Japanese style hotel called ryokan. It's called ryokan. It's not fancy hotel or anything, just spend the night, and the following day we will hop on, back on the train to go back. At the hotel, I remember my dad told us, "You never say anything of this trip to your friends or anybody." I couldn't understand why. I was so eager to tell my experience to my friends here, how fun it was to make such a trip to go big city like Yokohama. But...

KL: Did you keep it a secret?

MY: Oh yeah.

KL: You did.

MY: Yeah, 'cause I had to. He was very, very strict about that, said, "Don't say anything about it."

KL: Did, what was your story, if people had asked where you had been for the first year and a half of your life, or if someone asked your older siblings where they had moved from when they came back to the village? What did they say? Do you know? When you were little, I don't, your friends just grew up with you, so they didn't know you hadn't --

MY: I don't know, I don't know what was my dad's excuse. I don't know. I never heard, or I never, later years, I never heard any villagers asking us, "Why you guys born in America?" I never, I never knew.

KL: But as far as you knew, you were unique. You were the only Niseis in your, in your village?

MY: As far, yeah, because my mom and dad always talked about the time that they spent here. And then their, they spoke mainly Japanese, right? Japanese language.

KL: Did they learn any English, or just a little?

MY: Well, that's what I'm gonna get into. They, their conversation, between my mom and dad's conversation, was mixed in with English vocabulary, just a vocabulary here and there, and then some of those were bad words. I didn't know at the time, but I could tell the expression of my dad's calling my mom, you know, because he would, he was using some bad word, but I didn't know exactly what it meant, but, until after I came back. And some of those words are pretty bad words. So their conversation was pretty much scattered with English vocabulary words, so I was kind of familiar with those, especially the, especially names. Or he would say, he would say the, every time it rained, he wanted to cover something and he would call my mom, "Where's canvas?" You know canvas, the canvas? He used to say canvas. Some of those words are pretty familiar words to me, even though I speak any English at the time, but then I kind of knew. And then the name of vegetables, he would call cabbage. Never, those Japanese villagers, they never used, called, cabbage, they used Japanese word, right? And bell peppers, "Oh, I got nice bell peppers, bell pepper." Things like that. So I was pretty much familiar with some of those English words, yeah, when I was growing up.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.