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

<Begin Segment 34>

KL: What happened after your time in the army?

GM: Let's see, I got married in '56, it was two years after I came out. I struggled...

KL: Who was your wife?

GM: Sets, S-E-T-S, and her maiden name was Gushi, G-U-S-H-I. She was one of the people that were brought here from Peru for exchange with American prisoners, and you know that story.

KL: I do, but I'd like to hear her family's story. What was her family's background?

GM: Well, they were from Okinawa, and the father, he was a terrific businessman, because I think he went to Peru, he was called by his older brother, started off as a barber, he went out and cut hair. But the time they were brought here, he was, had a plantation, banana plantation. In fact, his mother, his wife told him, said, "George, I know this sounds crazy, but if we didn't, if we weren't brought up here, I don't think Papa would live very long." Because he used to be traveling to Brazil and gambling and just, he had a lot of money. But I understand that once they identified him as one of the guys, he went into hiding for about two months. Finally, he would come at night and sneak out in the morning and all that, and finally he turned himself in. And then when he found that he was not being tortured and all that in this country, he wrote to his wife. And I found out that he wrote in Japanese words, Chinese words, but using Okinawa language so that people couldn't understand. But anyway, he told his wife and kids, "Bring your kids." So my wife was the oldest at that time, she had two older brothers that were sent back to Okinawa for education, that was before the war, and so they got stuck there. And then she came, she had two younger sisters and a younger brother when they came her in July '44. And they were in Texas, was it Crystal City? And you know the story, when the war ended, we still had some Peruvian and our government said... and the Peruvian government said, "We'll take these citizens." Like the U.S., they didn't allow immigrants, Japanese immigrants at that time to be naturalized. So I understand from what I read, my wife's sister loaned me a book sometime. And some of the Japanese families went back to Japan with their kids.

KL: Most.

GM: Yeah, some of them who had adult children, they split, the adults went back to Peru. And then there was a couple of hundred that were still here, and I understand that lawyer from San Francisco, I can't think of his name, he failed in his effort to try to prevent us from being put into camp. Got the government to agree with his suggestion, and the remaining Peruvian Japanese, I think it was about February of '47, I mean, that's over a year after the war, they were allowed to stay here if they had friends or something like that.

KL: Did your wife's family, did Setsu's family work with a lawyer then? Did she talk about ever...

GM: Oh, you mean how they got out? No.

KL: How they were able to stay in the U.S.

GM: No, I understand that's how they did it, just this attorney, from what I've read, this... I forgot his name.

KL: It's Wayne Collins.

GM: Oh, okay. He supposedly made that suggestion. "Why don't you give them the choice, option to stay if they can?" And then I understand that our government said, "If you have any friends," or something like that, so, of course.

KL: How did you and Setsu meet?

GM: Well, when I came out of the army and I went to a dance, my friend Tootsie, born in Needles, and I saw I never met her before. She got real mad at me much later. One of my friends was such a gentleman, I know that he's going to get all kinds of information from her. So I called him over and he told me, "Don't say she sounds like she's from Hawaii, man, she'll get mad." So then I knew all about her, I cheated. [Laughs] I said, "I detect an accent," and she jumped all over me, said, "What? Hawaii? Who said that?" Said, "It's Latin." It sounded Mexican, but I said, "It's further south than Mexico, much further." I got all the way down to the land of the Incas and I said, "Lima." She said, "Oh, that really impressed me." Then later when we became friends, I had to tell her.

KL: Were they actually from Lima?

GM: Yeah, they were from Lima. In fact, they still have relatives there.

KL: When did you guys compare stories about your World War II experiences?

GM: You know, I don't remember. I don't know if we talked too much about that. I know that she was... oh, she was a little younger, she was, well, three years younger than me. But she had the impression... well, they lost a lot, I know that. Then she had no idea about our situation, and she just thought, oh, you had it made, and all that. She used to feel so bad. And this is crazy, when I came back from Korea, I mean, the United States looked so clean, you know what I mean, there's nothing wrong with it except it was not artistic like the old buildings and stuff like that. But I remember they used to have a hotel on Seventh and San Julian, that's at the edge of Skid Row, now it is part of Skid Row. There was a Ford dealership right across the street. And I remember telling her, of course, she's not going to listen to that, I said, "You know what? I would suggest you walk around the block, stop at every hotel, knock on the doors, any guy that come out, ask him to give you five minutes of their life." And by the time you come home, you're going to feel like, oh, man, you got no complaints. [Laughs] Because you know, they're winos and has-beens, whatever you want to call it back then.