<Begin Segment 12>

AL: So what was it like to arrive in Mississippi?

AN: Well, we knew that was a desolate place.

AL: Could you describe it? I mean, what made it desolate? What did it look like around there?

AN: Well, because we're not used to the humid, that humid weather. And the camp wasn't that beautiful, we had to still fix some of our quarters. For me, I wasn't too pleased with the place, but I had to accept, well, this is the army, so we're in the wilderness someplace. But later on, we got to know some of the people in town, and they were real nice to us.

AL: Did you have any sort of an escort when you went on the train, you know, in terms of any other soldiers, or was it just you guys on the train? Or did you have any sort of escort?

AN: As far as I know, we were the only ones. Not like the evacuees that were evacuated, they had the soldiers guarding them. Not us, no.

AL: So you didn't do any training in Hawaii then, everything started at Camp Shelby, your training?

AN: What was that, in Hawaii?

AL: Did you do any training in Hawaii or you just went straight to Shelby?

AN: No.

AL: So what is it like as a Nisei to arrive in a place like Mississippi which had some racial tension at that time, probably still does. How did people respond to you Nisei there?

AN: I think that people responded to us real well, the Southern people. I can't recall any racial... of course, we didn't go in town much, very... we didn't have time. So I can't... as far as I know, the people were nice to us. I didn't see any real hatred or prejudice. The only prejudice we saw was our own people in training, the American soldiers that trained with us and the different units that trained in Camp Shelby. That's the only one.

AL: Could you tell us about that?

AN: Well, once in a while, typical Americans, without really direct or any sort of... they'll call us "Japs." Of course, we didn't like that word "Jap," so we had a lot of fighting over there. If someone said "Jap," well, they found a [inaudible] in their mouth. [Laughs] But anyway, that's about all that really happened among ourselves, among the soldiers.

AL: So it was among Caucasian soldiers?

AN: Yeah, mostly they were Caucasian soldiers. The Caucasians were calling us "Jap" and things like that.

AL: So did they ever call you "Jap" a second time, or they learned their lesson?

AN: No, no. Then they started to learn not to call us that.

AL: Did you make friendships with any of them?

AN: Yeah, we had some friends, yes, we did. But sometimes we misunderstand them also, because they used the word "Jap" not in the slang way, but they don't know the word's a dirty word with us. They mean Japanese American. So we told them, "Never use that kind of word again, that's a fighting word." [Laughs]

AL: And did they respect that?

AN: Yeah, yeah, they respected that.

AL: Were there any African American soldiers there, or did you see...

AN: Yes, I saw 'em.

AL: What was the relationship like, or the interactions?

AN: Well, we didn't have much to do with them, but we know there were black soldiers there. But what surprised us was that when we go in town, there were lots of seat in the back seat, they couldn't mix there. So I thought, gee, this is, we're in the South, they don't like the colored people. That sort of, you know, surprised me, I didn't know that there was such prejudice down south. So if the back seat was filled, they had no room for them. But they accepted that's the way their life was.

AL: So where, in these segregated places, I've heard some Nisei say they didn't know where they were supposed to go. Because they're being chased out of California because people were saying, "You're not white," you go to Mississippi and they say... I mean, were you confused at all about where you were supposed to be in the segregated society?

AN: No, I wasn't confused. I think one of the first things they talk about orientation when we were there, way down south, there's such a thing as black and white. So they said, "You folks are considered white, so wherever there's white go, you go white." Plain as that. So we were told that, so there was no confusion in my mind.

KL: You were told that in army orientation? Did the military, the army told you, when you see black, white, you go "white"?

AN: Yeah. They told us that, "You're considered white." Whenever it says go to the white bathroom, white places.

AL: So who were, who was doing your training, who were your officers?

AN: Oh, the officers were regular... we had white officers and we had our local university commissioned officers that were a little older than us. So we had a mixture of white and Japanese American officers.

AL: At the time when you were there, was the 100th already in combat?

AN: No. The 100th were in training in Wisconsin. Then after they got through with their training, they came down to join us in Mississippi.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.