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KL: This is Kristen Luetkemeier speaking. Today is December 5, 2013, I'm here in the Monterey Park home of Willie Ito for an oral history interview for the Manzanar Oral History project. Whitney Peterson is operating the camera. And the first question, Willie, is an important one. Do we have your permission to record this interview and make it available?

WI: Oh, of course, yes.

KL: Okay, thank you. I was really excited that you agreed to an interview because you've had an involvement with Manzanar and a really interesting career. And we'll be talking about that and your time also in Topaz and Tanforan and your childhood in San Francisco. But before that, I kind of wanted to start off talking some about your parents, and maybe we could just start with your father. And if you'd give us his name and I'll ask you a few more questions about his background.

WI: Okay, yeah. My dad is Will Katsuichi Ito, Sr. He was born in Hawaii, July 31, 1903 or '5. [Laughs]

KL: There's some discrepancy there.

WI: Exactly, yeah. And so he was basically living in Hilo, Hawaii, until, I guess, just before his teens. And then he went back to Hiroshima, the family, and finished his schooling, and then he migrated to the mainland.

KL: What took his family to Hilo initially? What were their lives like there?

WI: Well, I think back then, with the big migration of the Japanese seeking a new life, maybe the economic situation for a lot of the Japanese working on farms and whatever weren't there. And with that big migration at the turn of the century of the Japanese and the Koreans and the Chinese, at one point Hawaii became like one of the largest settlement for Japanese immigrants. And so I'm sure that was one of the reasons. And why they chose to go back to Hiroshima, I'm not really sure of. But my dad came to the mainland, settled in Oakland, California.

KL: Did he ever talk about sort of his parents' employment or what his friendships or his cultural experience in Hilo?

WI: You know what's very unfortunate for me is I left home at age nineteen. And up until that point, I was a student, and I was growing up in San Francisco's Japantown. I was in the Boy Scouts and our local club called the Barons which was a basketball and athletic club, and eventually the interest in girls and whatever. So it's unfortunate that my dad and I never actually sat down and just talked. Talked about family or whatever, it was just kind of taken for granted that I'll learn things by osmosis, I guess, and figuring I was going to be living at home for a long time, I'll have plenty of opportunity to go to a local pub and talk. So unfortunately, because of that, I don't really know too much about my dad. I know a little bit more of my mother's side.

KL: But your dad did finish, or have some schooling in Hiroshima, you said?

WI: Yes, he completed his schooling in Hiroshima and then decided to come to the mainland to seek his fame and fortune.

KL: Did his folks remain in Japan?

WI: Yes, they did.

KL: When did he come to the mainland?

WI: Well, he came... again, I'm not really too sure. Probably in the late '20s. And he was a musician by trade, so he led the local YBA, Young Buddhist Association orchestra, the Oakland branch of the Buddhist church. And then he also, with a group from the band, formed a jazz club, and they played American jazz.

KL: What did your dad play? Was he a composer?

WI: He led the orchestra at the YBA orchestra, but he was basically a reed, you know, clarinet and saxophone, and you know, tenor and tenor sax and whatever. I don't really know my instruments. [Laughs]

KL: When he came back to the, or when he came to the mainland, was he anywhere before he was in the San Francisco area or did he come straight?

WI: Well, he eventually moved to San Francisco from Oakland.

KL: Okay. When he came over, do you have any idea what port he came in at to the West Coast of the U.S.? We have a ranger friend at Angel Island, and I'm always curious if there's a connection to that site or any other immigration station.

WI: Yeah, I'm really not too sure, unfortunately. One interesting story was he was courting my mother, and the invitation from Japan, they heard of an all-Japanese American group playing American jazz. And so I guess in Japan they thought, oh, that would be an interesting group to see, so they invited that group to go to Japan and tour. And so with the gang, it was in agreement that they were gonna take the gig. So, of course, my dad went to my mother-to-be and says, "I have this opportunity to tour Japan." And she says, "You have to make a choice as to either me or the jazz group." [Laughs] So my dad decided, well, he'll stay and marry my mother. So the group went over, and then, of course, things started to get hot in Asia. The Japanese was invading Manchuria and all, this and that was beginning to happen. And so all passports were frozen. And so the group that went over there couldn't come back. And so they were stuck in Japan all during the war. And, of course, my dad was here, but the irony of it is he still ended up going to a concentration camp. But I guess basically, if that hadn't happened, I wouldn't be here, I guess.

KL: Yeah, a different life.

WI: And so... well, unfortunately, I guess my dad felt, being a musician, traveling around is not really a good life for a married man and whatever. So he opened up a little, what he called Willie's Sweet Shop on Post Street, right in the heart of San Francisco's Japantown, sold hamburger and made the greatest ice cream sundae and banana split. And every night when he would come home for work, he would put a roll of Tootsie Roll in his pocket or Lifesavers. And the next morning I would go and rustle in his pocket, get my little Tootsie Roll and Lifesavers. That's my memory.

KL: That's a great job for a dad to have, I mean, there are some benefits.

WI: Oh, yes, yeah, it was.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.