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

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KL: When did your father come to the United States?

GM: Originally the first time, 1906. He was a lot older than my mother.

KL: Do you know what drew him to this country?

GM: I'm sure like most people, you know, whether they came from Europe or the U.S., the young guys wanted to, for a better life and all that. I think so.

KL: Do you know where he came when he came in?

GM: Well, I just know that when he brought my mom, I understand he took her first to Seattle, but she complained about the weather. And he told her, "Well, there's a place much warmer," and then he brought her down to Los Angeles. Well, he apparently had traveled all along the coast, because he was here quite a while.

KL: When did he bring your mom?

GM: 1924. But they already had two children by that time.

KL: So was he traveling back and forth some?

GM: Yeah. My understanding is when he finally rushed back, I'm sure he was not the only guy that probably knew that they were clamping down here. But when he went back to pick up his family, my oldest brother who died when he was about fifteen, but he was not healthy as a child. And my mother was telling me that the older people said, "You can't take Hiroshi" -- his name was Hiroshi, my oldest brother. "You can't take him, he'll never make it." So not that my mother told me, but I used to tell my friends, I said, "Come on. Immigrants are more loyal Americans than naturally born people here. We take things for granted." And I said, I'm sure that my mom and dad must have thought the U.S. would probably allow them to bring them later on, but I said, it never happened. But anyway --

KL: Who did Hiroshi stay with in Japan?

GM: He and my sister went across to, I think, lived in my mother's home -- it was right across the road -- until a certain age maybe. Because my father built this home in 1924. There was only one road through the Miyano, it's along the riverbank, side of the river. And the Kooro home was on the hillside. And then my father built his home toward the river. And I think my sister and brother might have been living there as soon as they got old enough.

KL: In the meantime, did they have adults who were living with them?

GM: No, I don't think so. Because I do know that when I went to Japan in the army, I was the... yeah, I feel like I was kind of the only one of the siblings that grew up here, born and raised here, that saw my sister as an adult, even though I was only twenty. But I remember when I first saw her and we went to the place to have lunch, and she was all excited, and she said, "How was it to grow up with your sisters and all that?" And I said, "Think fast, George," and I said, "Oh, it was terrible. We fought all the time." And she goes, "Oh, urayamashi," meaning she envied us. I go, "Oh, my god," you know. And then she was showing a picture of her grammar school kids. And at that time, some of the family still were not able to afford a uniform. You know, the Japanese kids all wear uniform, and she was wearing a kimono. I go, "Oh, Neesan, that's a beautiful kimono." She goes, "I didn't want to wear a kimono, but I can't ask my uncle and aunt." And even fighting, she said, "I couldn't fight with my cousin," because they were, she felt obligated like that. I thought, "Oh, my god." I remember that.

KL: What was her name, your sister?

GM: Aiko, A-I-K-O. And she wanted to come here so bad.

KL: Did she have contact with your parents in person ever? Were they able to...

GM: No. Well, my dad went back, and yeah, that was another thing. My mother took us... let's see, Jean, Tosh, Susie and me, and then my mother was pregnant at that time with my youngest sister, this was in 1934. And she took all of us to Japan, and I met my grandmother, her mother. And my oldest sister was there, so we were there for almost a year I understand, then we came back home in '35. And my younger sister was born in '35 and she was probably about five months old or something like that, I was told.

KL: Was she born in Japan?

GM: Yeah. [Laughs]

KL: I wondered.

GM: Yeah. And Reiko, as she got older, she would always remember me. And when the Japanese, in 1942 -- and I was one of the dumb kids, I was ten years old, and I guess I was reading the paper and I said, "Mom," I used to pester her, "we have to go register to go to camp." Now, I mean, I had no idea. So I still remember one day we go down there in the afternoon, and there was two lines, one for aliens and one for citizens. And my two older sisters and I, and my youngest sister Reiko, who was about six years old, and I still remember we told her, "You can't be in line with us, you're not a citizen. We didn't know she was. She didn't know until she was a senior in high school. Reiko told me that when she was going to school, she transferred a lot, and all the different schools, and she would put "place of birth" Los Angeles. And then when she finally was a senior and transferred to Roosevelt High School in Boyle Heights, she thought, "What the heck?" and so she wrote "Hiroshima." And the principal called her in, and she got so scared, and he said, "No, no, no, I'm just curious because you had Los Angeles all this time, and now all of a sudden you put Hiroshima." So she says she rushed down to the hall of records to see about becoming a citizen, and that's when she found out, "Well, you are a citizen. Your mother was pregnant in the U.S."

KL: So she was a U.S. citizen by birth?

GM: She was a natural-born, yeah. Because my mother was pregnant before she went to Japan. And we didn't know this. But Reiko...

KL: The WRA didn't know either. They had her down as alien in the records.

GM: No, I don't know if that was on the record or not. But I just remember, and my sister died, Reiko died, he brought that up. And I said, "Reiko," she said, "Yeah, you're the one that told." I said, "Reiko, I was only ten years old, and there was Susie and Tosh." I'm sure Tosh was probably the one that was just trying to be funny. And I remember poor little Reiko, she was so frightened, and we said, "No, you got to go over there." But years later, she blamed me. [Laughs] That was funny.