<Begin Segment 29>

KL: I can't think of a better way to wrap up this conversation then what you just said. Are there things that you wanted to share that you expected to talk about or still would like to talk about, stuff I've left out?

MS: I don't think you left out anything. [Laughs]

KL: What did I leave out, do you think I left out anything? Because as I'm watching, I think of questions that I want to hear.

WP: I have a couple of questions if you don't mind.

MS: Okay, no, I don't mind at all.

WP: Okay. Did your parents ever become citizens?

MS: No, no. By that time, I guess they were not interested in it because it wasn't a big handicap to them, I suppose, not being a citizen. Because everything else, I guess for the kids and everything else was okay. And I guess it didn't really bother them that much that they weren't a citizen by that time. I suppose it would have been different if they were younger.

WP: What was the ethnicity generally of the people that you worked with when you were in Japan in the military?

MS: In the military?

WP: Yeah.

MS: Ethnicity meaning... oh, funny thing is that, okay, I was a Japanese American, right, but I look like an ordinary Japanese. And I'm working, most of my activities were in the base. However, in Japan, in the bases, they hired other regular Japanese to work on the base, right? So the ordinary American soldiers would many times look at me, and in our fatigue clothes, we looked just like the regular Japanese who were hired to work in the base. And they think, they would assume me to be one of the "gooks." Have you heard that term, "gooks"? [Laughs] So that was kind of funny in a way that they would do that. But during... that's the feeling they had, Japanese were still "gooks" to them, so therefore anybody who looked like them were "gooks." So they just assume I was one of them right in the base, although I was a soldier, American soldier. So that used to be... that was if anything like that is what you meant by what the ethnicity in the base was.

WP: Did you work with other Japanese Americans?

KL: Did you work with other Japanese Americans?

MS: In the base? There weren't that many, but I wouldn't have had any problem with others if they were on the base. I don't quite get the question.

WP: I was just wondering if any of the other people that you worked with were Japanese Americans and if they had similar experiences like you were just talking about.

MS: There were just very few where I was who were Japanese Americans. Yeah, that's funny, I didn't even think about that. Oh, I had, when I was in the first base near Osaka, Itami Air Base, I had a real good buddy who was a Kibei himself who had returned to the U.S. and joined the army air corps, and he became a good buddy, he and I became good buddies. And if that is an example, there weren't any other problems, any kind of friction or other Japanese Americans with true Japanese American or many Japanese Americans in the same base, at least I didn't think so.

WP: Did you use your Japanese a lot while you were there?

MS: Not too much. Because by that time, I'd lost quite a bit of my fluency in Japanese. And as I was pointing out, that when I get together with other Japanese Americans who were in Terminal Island, we all spoke a certain dialect. And when I start speaking with them, somehow, everything starts coming back. But with other Japanese people or people speaking Japanese to me, I cannot communicate too well with them in Japanese. I don't know why that happens, but it's that way. So right now, I have trouble in aikido with communicating with Japanese instructors in Japanese, because all the training in this country in aikido is in English, so I've been teaching in English. Occasionally I would throw in Japanese words because the names of the techniques are in Japanese, things like that.

WP: I have one more question for you.

MS: Sure. No, I don't mind.

WP: I think you mentioned that you had done judo when you were in Japan?

MS: Little bit, just a little bit.

WP: Can you tell me about that and where you did that?

MS: Okay, that was in the first base I was in. They used to instruct Japanese judo instructors into the base to conduct the side activities for the soldiers. And one was a judo class, so I attended a few of those classes, that's it. I didn't get too far in my training because it was such a short period.

Off camera: I guess, well, the one that that -- I'm not sure why it's come up, but the one person that you had in your barracks, a guy from New York, the one who had an interesting interpretation of your name?

MS: She wanted to hear about a guy in your barracks from New York who had an interesting interpretation of your name? Was this in the Air Force?

Off camera: I don't know if it was in Japan or if it was in, where it was, but there was the guy from New York who called you "Menorah Shabbat?"

KL: Oh, he called you -- I got the second half of it. Someone called you "Menorah Shabbat?" I have a guess as to his religious or cultural background.

Off camera: New Yorker.

MS: I think it was, yeah, my first base, this guy, yeah. He was living with his wife, who was with him, off the base. And he invited me to dinner one time at his place, and he remarked about my name being a nice Jewish name. [Laughs] "Menorah Shabbat." So I have a perfect Jewish name. Yeah, that was funny.

KL: My dad's retired from the Air Force, and that is one of the, you know, they're kind of cultural experience was being together with these people from all over the United States and all different backgrounds, and I think they valued that. I think that was kind of a neat exchange of traditions and places.

MS: You know, actually I found -- and probably your parents would say the same thing, that the army, the military was surprisingly equal opportunity. If you want to do something, they're not like the general impression that you just obey the shouted order or things like that. They always have their own way. They consider, okay, what do you want to do and try to help you get there. So I think most people have the wrong impression about military life. During the wartime it's going to be different when you have to enter a battle. I mean, you better do what the commander says or else you could die yourself.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.