Densho Digital Archive - Sachiye Okamoto - Miho Shiroishi Interview (denshovh-osachiye

<Begin Segment 18>

KL: Do you have any memory of, there was this questionnaire that was distributed a couple months after the Manzanar riot, asking two questions especially about joining the military or renouncing loyalty to the Japanese emperor?

SO: No. I believe that's what they used to interrogate our father. I remember him saying that... well he was pretty old to be trying to join the military while he was at the prison there. And I remember him talking about that and then trying to send him back to Japan. He would say, "No, sir, my children are American citizens," so he was not about to go back to Japan. And maybe that's why he stayed longer, I'm not sure. But I do recall him talking about that.

KL: What else did he tell you about his experiences in Bismarck?

SO: He said they would interrogate them from morning 'til night every day, and then I think he had a cousin or something that he wouldn't join the military, he was an American citizen, but he was a Kibei, I believe. So that's why he was in the prison, too. If he agreed to go back to Japan or join the military, then he would have been okay.

KL: But he stayed in the prison? He didn't do either?

SO: He didn't want to go into the military.

KL: Did he go back to Japan?

SO: I'm trying to think of his name. No, he did not.

KL: Did your father stay with those other people from Terminal Island? Did he have friends or acquaintances in Bismarck with him?

SO: He never talked about that, I don't know. Do you know if he had friends in Bismarck?

MS: Oh, Bismarck? I'm sure he did. Because I think all the Terminal Island men went to the same place.

SO: Yeah, but they also ended up in Block 9.

MS: And after they were gone, there were all women and children at Terminal Island.

SO: Oh, yeah, we read an article, that's what it said.

KL: You remember your dad saying that he was questioned all day.

SO: Yes, every day. And then it seems, I think, I remember him saying that he did end up in New Mexico, and then he got to come home to us in Manzanar.

KL: Did he say anything else that you remember about being in Bismarck? Do you know what his accommodations were there?

MS: No. He really didn't complain. I think a lot of the men and he did, too, made beautiful vases and things from wood, you know, like maybe tree bark or things like that. But I don't recall him complaining.

SO: No, but you had a picture, there was a picture of him that he sent us, he's wearing a big old peacoat, and it's a blizzard, and he's walking. But there was, seems to me, barracks, a picture of a barrack, so I would think they lived in the barracks, too, like us.

KL: What's your impression of how those interactions went with the interrogators? Were they polite, were they disrespectful, were they threatening? Did you have any sense for that?

MS: I don't think... all I know is when they were searching a room, I mean, they were really throwing things around.

KL: On Terminal Island?

SO: Yeah. But as far as in Bismarck, I think they just said the same, asked the same thing every day over and over, hoping maybe you'd change your mind and go back to Japan or join the military.

KL: So he felt like they wanted him to make a decision between those two?

SO: Uh-huh.

KL: What did he say about Santa, about being in New Mexico?

SO: Well, I think he had to go there before he could come back, come to Manzanar. I don't think you could come from Bismarck to Manzanar, I think he got sent to another camp.

[Interruption]

KL: We're back at tape three of a continuing interview here. And we were talking before we cut off tape number two about your father's experiences in Bismarck and in Santa Fe, and you said you thought maybe Santa Fe was kind of a pass over place before you came back to Manzanar. How long was he in Santa Fe?

SO: Oh, I don't know about Santa Fe, but he was gone for, what, two and half years before he joined us in Manzanar.

KL: And when was that that he joined you in Manzanar?

MS: Where?

KL: Someone wrote down January 1944, does that sound about...

SO: '44, yeah, that sounds right. '44? Did Papa come back to Manzanar in...

MS: What did the license say?

KL: License says '45.

SO: Well, that, the license is right, yeah, that's right before we left.

KL: Did you know that he was coming back? Did you anticipate his return?

SO: Uh-uh.

MS: I think he just appeared.

SO: I think so, too. We didn't prepare for him to come. I don't recall being excited about him coming. I think one day he just showed up.

KL: Where were you, do you recall?

SO: No, I don't know.

KL: Did you walk into the mess hall or were you at home in your barracks?

SO: It was like, "Oh, my god."

MS: I don't even recall that. It just seemed like he was...

SO: He was there.

MS: Next thing he was there.

SO: He was there, yes.

KL: What did he say to you then in Manzanar about where he had been and what had happened the last two years?

SO: No, he didn't want, he didn't talk about it.

MS: Yeah, it's the same story. You know, we're not, or they weren't, so we at that time weren't that emotional type, you know. We didn't do a lot of hugging and all the kissing and all this kind of thing, right?

SO: Right.

MS: We didn't grow up like that. I mean, you more or less felt their love, but, you know, not like how it is with us (and with) each other and (the) grandchildren, things like that.

SO: I think they showed more love after the war, after what he, our father had been through, and you would see them sitting on the sofa holding hands, which I never saw that before, right? He was really nice to our mother.

KL: Your father was nice to your mother?

SO: Really nice after the war, yeah. Probably for what she went through.

KL: What else was different about him?

SO: Well, as a fisherman, they used to drink a lot, too, when they came ashore. I remember many of his friends, men friends, sitting in our house and drinking. And then he quit drinking, I mean, didn't drink, right?

KL: Was he different with you guys? Did it change him as a father?

SO: He was pretty strict. And our mother was just, she never got mad at us, and I think because of her childhood and all that, she never spanked us or anything, she just said, "Please don't..."

MS: But he didn't either.

SO: He didn't either, no, but he'd just yell maybe. [Laughs] I remember singing at the dinner table and he'd call my name, "Sachi." "Yeah?" "Sachi." And I'd go, "Yeah?" And he'd keep saying it until I said, "Hai," you know, like, "Hai." [Laughs] I do remember that. I mean, he was just...

MS: Stand at attention.

SO: Yeah. And they adapted to our American ways, didn't they?

KL: Yeah, as your kids get older, you kind of, it works both ways, right?

SO: Uh-huh.

KL: What was it like for you to have him back at Manzanar?

MS: It was great. Oh, yeah, that was the first time in a long time that all of us were together again since Terminal Island.

SO: But we don't know what he did as far as... I don't know if he went to work. Did he work after he came back? I don't recall what he did.

KL: Did your mother work at Manzanar? Did she have a job?

SO: She did. She sent her. [Referring to MS]

KL: You were probably very different to your father, I mean, as you were seven or eight when he left and five when was taken?

SO: He was like a stranger, uh-huh.

KL: I mean, if you looked different after a month-long fishing trip, two and a half years, to come back and have the baby be just a toddler.

MS: But it doesn't take long, you know. It just seemed like he'd always been there after a while. So it wasn't like seeing a stranger coming into our home. It was great.