Densho Digital Archive - Kenji Ogawa Interview (denshovh-okenji

<Begin Segment 12>

KL: I'll start by saying this is tape two, we're continuing an interview with Kenji Ogawa, and it is May the 22nd, 2015. And we left off talking about Tule Lake, and I remember you had said that your dad stopped being very much of a leader and he got more quiet in Tule Lake. But your parents ended up leaving Tule Lake for Japan. Do you have questions about Tule Lake?

RM: Yeah. I just wanted to ask you, your little sister died in (Manzanar), and then you had told me before this interview about what your mom did with her ashes. If you could relay that story for the camera.

KO: Oh, the camera? Okay. Well, she took it Japan, you know, that MGM can, coffee can, and came back United States. (...) (When) my father passed away, my mom said, "You got to change to a... more better than coffee can." So we changed it. We still, to this day, pretty butsudan. My mom said no ground, so we carry it to this day, still.

KL: Do you remember Tule Lake at all? Do you have any memories of Tule Lake?

KO: [Shakes head].

KL: What do you know about your parents' trip to, well, yours, too, your trip to Japan from Tule Lake? Do you know how that happened, where they left from?

KO: For me, I was young, I really enjoyed Japan. My parents said nothing to eat, Japan, nothing. So my father never did farming, he had to do farming to grow vegetable, everything. He said it was hard.

KL: Your parents left, it says, or you all left on December 27th of 1945. Do you know where you, where the ship left from, that took you to Japan?

KO: I guess it was San Pedro, isn't it? No, no...

KL: Did they say anything about what the ride was like?

KO: They said that was a navy boat, you know, war, it's not a comfortable boat.

KL: Did your parents renounce their U.S. citizenship? Did they give up their U.S. citizenship?

KO: (No).

[Interruption]

KL: Your dad thought, it sounds like, that Japan might win the war for a long time. When he was going on the ship, when he was finally going back to Japan, did he believe that the U.S. had won, or did he think that Japan had won?

KO: No, U.S. won.

KL: He knew the U.S. had won?

KO: My mom tell my dad, "No, Japan lost."

KL: When they got there, were they surprised by how bad it was?

KO: Yeah.

KL: What did they say about that, their first sight, that first --

KO: Nothing, you don't say nothing. No food, nothing. That's why my parents started doing the farming.

KL: Where did you guys live when you got back to Japan, when they got back to Japan?

KO: I guess on my dad's side, Kamana.

KL: Do you know how you guys got there from the ship to your dad's...

KO: I have no idea. They started doing farming over there. He said it was hard.

KL: Was his family glad to see him, or were they...

KO: No, remember? They were all gone.

KL: They were all gone? He had no relatives at all, no cousins, nobody?

KO: Yeah, so nobody helped my dad, my mom, so they had to do it by, don't know how to plant vegetables.

KL: Did anyone help them?

KO: No, nobody. Maybe a neighbor, I don't know, no idea.