Densho Digital Archive - June T. Watanabe Interview (denshovh-wjune-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

KL: What did Richard tell you about his military experience?

JW: Yeah, well, you know, we were married only about January, February, March, he was off to Melbourne, Australia. You need to write always, he'd write all the time. And from Australia, he said when he was in Australia, I think it was, this guy who couldn't swim very well almost drowned, so Richard went out there and helped him, he came by here one day. Then from Australia he went to the Philippines, and later on he learned that his brother was in Japan and had, was living in Japan, was a navy man, an officer on the ship in the outskirts of Philippines. Can you believe that? Fighting each other. Richard talked about... he looked like, I guess he did look a little Filipino, I guess. But he said he always had someone with him, a Filipino, to protect him. Although he was a translator.

KL: Did he have any... what was it like for him to be in the Pacific in the U.S. military with the family members in Japan?

JW: He didn't know about his brother until after the war, after General MacArthur landed, he went over and went to visit his folks in his civilian clothes. That's when he learned that his brother was also out there in the Philippines. So he was shocked, you know, he was really sad to hear about that. But anyway, they both lived through that.

KL: That's lucky.

JW: So it's true, that even in the European war, I understand Germans were, brothers were fighting brothers.

KL: It can happen.

JW: It happens, yeah.

KL: Where were you while he was stationed overseas?

JW: I was over there at the Lees.

KL: Still with the Lees?

JW: And then when the war ended, of course, he came back, the war ended in August, was it? '46. But he came back in '45. And I came back here, because I knew he'd be coming back. I stayed with a family in this little house, this lady had three kids, and this couple had one, two... and here me, I went there, and I thought, oh my gosh, they're all going to stay here. So anyway, I thought, well, I've got to get a job. So I found a job as a housekeeper. And then there was this man, a good friend, who worked for the Powells, the June Allison Powell, and he said, "You know, the Powells want a domestic worker, a housekeeper. You want a job?" And I says, "Oh, I don't know if I can manage that." He said, "She wants an interview with you," so I went, had an interview with June Allison, and got along very well. She said, "You call your husband?" I said, "I call my husband Richard." She says, "I call my husband Richard. And you're June?" I says, "Yeah," and she says, "I'm June, so we got to get this settled, so she called me Teru. She said, "What is your Japanese name?" I said, "Teru." She says, "What is Richard's Japanese name?" I said, "Takashi." "Well, we'll call him Tak." So when Richard got home that night from the service, we went over there, and I introduced her and I said that, "He is going to have to stay with me." She said, "Well, that's perfectly okay," and I said, "Well, he's not gonna work." "That's perfectly okay." So he was going to continue with his education. She said that's okay.

So that's what we did, I lived there and I did a lot of work there, enjoyed it. It was fun working for her, for Mrs. Powell. She'd call from the studio, and she at Metro Golden, and she'd say, "Why don't you come over?" She'd say, "I'm tired of the commissary food, so why don't you bring me some hot..." whatever. So that's what I did. She wanted to stay and wanted to shoot some movies here, pictures, and so that was very fun, too. So I was with her for a couple of years until Richard decided, I mean, he graduated. Not graduated, just went to Santa Monica two years, and he got a job in Tokyo. So I said, "That's far." And he says, "Yeah, but," he says, "I'll only be there several months and call you over." So I said, well, okay, I'll go home. So my folks, in the meantime, they had moved from Louisiana where they relocated, and from Louisiana they moved to Bueno Park.

KL: Shig said that he thought that there may have been a friend of either your stepfather's or your mother's in Louisiana or someone. Do you know anything more about how they decided to go to Louisiana?

JW: You know, I don't know. They were farmers, and I visited them several times when I was working with the Powells. I think it's because... they had several friends there, the Okubos lived there, and another family I can't remember, and another... there were families. Maybe it's because they knew this family and thought, well, maybe that better... go over there. But I think mainly it might have been because it was farmland, and that's the only thing he knew, is how to farm. I visited there and I wondered, because they had this big tank, and I asked my mom, "What in the world is that tank?" She said, "It's our water, our drinking water, our whole thing." I said, "Oh." So it was kind of... you know, you expect a place out there to have running water, all that, but no. I learned quite a bit when I visited them, too, you know, about the segregation and all that bit. I didn't realize it was that bad.

But in a way... have you ever heard of Marrero? That's a place out in Louisiana. We had to take the bus one when we were visiting there, and I noticed the black people, when they got on the bus, they all, of course, had to sit in the back, and hoopaloo, you know, they were noisy. I felt that if they were mixed with us, the rest of us, I don't think they'd carry on like that. Don't you feel that way?

KL: People do act differently depending on who's around.

JW: Well, if they're in a group like, yeah. Because I bet that would be true whether it's Japanese, too, if we were put in a corner there, and all hoopaloo and joking around, and all the other white people were here. I bet if we were mixed in we wouldn't be that, having a gay time and jumping around and loud talking. I bet we wouldn't. That's where I learned how, 'cause I've never dealed with the black people. I don't know, it's just all wrong.