Densho Digital Archive - Shiuko Sakai Interview (denshovh-sshiuko-01-0021)

<Begin Segment 21>

KL: And then you came back to Oregon, or the Pacific Northwest, to Oregon, in 2002?

SS: 2002.

KL: What drew you to Oregon?

SS: Huh?

KL: What drew you to Oregon?

SS: My sister. Well, see, what happened was, they lived in New York, New York City. New York City was getting not as nice as it used to be, it was getting bad slowly. My brother-in-law was born in Portland, went to school in Portland, and he liked, he loved New York. I thought he was going to stay in New York forever, but he finally decided, no, he wants to come back. But his friend was going to a place called... I don't think it's important, but down in California where there's a retirement place, right outside a valley, I don't know what the name of that place is. He wanted to go there. And his daughter said, "You don't want to go there, it's hot there." There was a Hunt High School reunion in Seattle, so my sister and I came to that.

KL: For Minidoka? Was it a Minidoka high school reunion?

SS: Yes, in Seattle, Washington. Hunt High School reunion. So we went to that, and then we drove down to Portland. And my brother-in-law, (Kozo), wants to golf, so he (went) golfing. He said, "You two look around for a place." So my sister and I, his brother took us around to different places to look at. We decided we liked the one where we're (now) staying, in Vancouver, Fairway Village. We told him we liked the place there, so he went along with us and told me to sign up for it. They were still in the process of building, so we had to select a lot, and select what kind of house we wanted, which we did. That's how we got back here. So as soon as the house was ready, they drove all the way (across). And I was in Virginia, and they said, "Well, you're getting older, you'd better start coming back where family (is)," that's (why) I came back, too.

KL: You've seen a lot of the country and a lot of the world.

SS: Oh, I was able to travel a lot. That's another thing that was... can't say that's a good thing because of evacuation, but, you know, it got me out to the East Coast, and from there, I had opportunities to travel, and went to many, many countries.

KL: That was actually one of the questions I wanted to ask you was whether you thought that you had gained anything from being forced away from Seattle.

SS: I have to say yes. Because if I went back to Seattle, I might just still be stuck in Seattle and not be doing the things I have been doing. Maybe I was liberated in a way.

KL: What do you feel like you lost?

SS: Pardon?

KL: Because of being forced out of Seattle?

SS: Not much. Is that the wrong thing to say? [Laughs] I didn't have much to start with, and then I didn't have anything to go back to. At least when I went to New York, I had a job and I had a place to stay. That's important.

KL: Yeah. Have you... have there been other times in your life when political events or big world news, anything has reminded you of the time in 1942 of Japanese Americans being forced to leave their homes and put into camps? Do you see any... have you seen similar times in your life?

SS: No. But I've seen times when being Japanese was not a good thing, prejudice. In New York, right after the war in Europe, you know, guys came back, and there were two of us girls and I think my brother was there and his other friend was there in uniform. We were going down to Times Square on the train, a couple of sailors got on, and they were ready to start a fight with our, (...) the guys that were with us. Fortunately, some black men were there, and they kind of held them back and said, "Get out." So they helped us.

KL: And your brother was in his military uniform?

SS: My brother (was, and) the other person, yeah.

KL: The other guy (was).

SS: He was wounded badly over there, too, in fact. He's 100 percent disability. That really hurt, you know. We were scared.

KL: Do you remember what the other men said, the black men who were involved? Did they just...

SS: No, I don't, I don't remember. All I know is we just hurried out.

KL: Yeah, that would be very hurtful.

SS: There were other times when I would come across some kind of prejudice. At a train station, because we were not white, they would kind of shove us around.

KL: Also in New York?

SS: This was in New York, yeah.

KL: Do you think that the experience at Minidoka and with the assembly center, do you think it changed the way that you thought about other groups?

SS: Maybe. Like for example, the Arabs, what happened, actually it didn't happen, but they're talking about putting them in camps.

KL: What did you think about that?

SS: Shouldn't happen. It goes in the same thing we did, which is not right. Shouldn't happen to anybody.

KL: Did it change your thinking about other Japanese American people?

SS: [Shakes head].

KL: Did your experience make you think any differently about your heritage or other Japanese American people?

SS: No.