Densho Digital Archive - George H. Morishita Interview (denshovh-mgeorge

<Begin Segment 27>

KL: Do you have memories in Manzanar of the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" that was distributed in 1943?

GM: I just heard the older people, little bit about talking about it. I know my mom, if she had her way, we would have ended up in Tule Lake. I think she put "no-no," that she would not, you know, whatever the questions were, bear arms against Japan or to protect the government. And my father definitely didn't go along with that.

KL: Did they discuss it and share...

GM: I don't remember that.

KL: ...answers?

GM: I guess I was too young for them to... I just knew a little bit about it, but I didn't understand that, what it all meant, 'til years later. Because when I moved to Arizona in '68, my brother-in-law, one of my brother-in-law suggested I subscribe to the Pacific Citizen. Said, "You know, keep in touch and all that." And that's how I, like the Manzanar reunion, like I said, I called the Pacific Citizen and they connected me with this young lady. But no, I didn't know a lot of those things as a kid.

KL: When did your mom, did she ever change her mind about Japan's ability or likelihood of winning the war?

GM: Oh, yeah. She never said that to me, I just remember, after Pearl Harbor, her arguing with one of the customers.

KL: What about by 1943? Do you think she thought Japan was winning or did she follow events?

GM: Yeah, I don't know. As I got older I just thought, okay, that's typical housewife. I mean even here, you look back, and when we were kids, most American women, I don't care if they were white, black, whatever, they stayed home and raised the kids and all that, and they didn't get a chance to meet other people. Because I know when I was a young adult, and I was pretty outspoken, and I knocked on my country, I knocked on my ancestors, Japan. When I was in Japan I used to say, I used to tell my friends years later, I said, "Yeah, it's a good thing it was in 1952, because I used to yell at the cops and all that because I saw how they treated the poor people and all that. I used to tell the Japanese, they talk about the U.S., I said, about the black situation, "You guys could teach the... I tell my friends, non-Japanese friends, you guys could teach them how to discriminate. You guys have been doing it for centuries to your own people," I mean, ethnic, same ethnic. But I'm getting, drifting off, I'm sorry.

KL: No, it's all relevant, to my mind, everything you were saying. Do you guys have questions about Manzanar?

Off camera: Actually, I had a question about your father's work in camp. You said that he was a cook?

GM: He was a cook, yeah.

Off camera: Before camp, was he a cook at camp, too?

GM: Yeah. All my life I just remember him as being a cook until after the war, he and my mom bought an old hotel, little hotel down in Japanese town on the edge of it, on Hewitt Street. Yeah, I remember that. And then, but until then he was a cook.

Off camera: Do you remember him changing in any way after he came to camp? His attitude or his relationship with your mother?

GM: No, no, I never did. Like I say, I think he's been in this country long enough. And I look back, I used to tell people, I say, you know, we talk about when you become an adult you realize your father was pretty smart. I said, "I mean it." I said I was the opposite. I said I was more outspoken than some of you guys. I remember when I was a teenager at the hotel, I'd be living in one of the rooms, and my father would be standing outside in the hallway, we would be yelling, and my mother would come and say, "You guys are embarrassing me." And I would yell back, "Well, tell Papa to go away," you know. Yeah, I was pretty bad. But he never struck me and all that. And then about the religion and other things. And I used to tell people, "You know, when I was a kid, I was pretty bad that way. I used to tell my father, 'Gee, Papa, you should go down to the pool hall and see some of those old guys. They're pretty hip.'" And then by the time I came out of the army I realized, man, he was so much above those guys, he was really, really ahead, pretty progressive and broad minded and all that. He just didn't say much. Yeah, I remember that. I used to really be bad.