Densho Digital Archive - John Young Interview (denshovh-yjohn-01-0017)

<Begin Segment 17>

RM: Can you tell us about the circumstances... so on the roster it says that you left on your birthday, May 22, 1943. Can you tell us about the circumstances of how your family was released from Manzanar?

JY: Well, just because we had a daughter. Then all of a sudden they said you can go back to where you came from.

RM: They told you it was because of your child?

JY: Yeah, because of the family. So I asked my wife, I said, "I don't know what the hell's going on." She said, "Well, I figured, having a child, I can't go Mata Hari around anymore," so that was her answer to it.

RM: So tell us about leaving. What was that like?

JY: Well, we didn't have any real close friends, just casual friends. And my brother-in-law came in, and my cousin Dick came in with a car and just picked us up and just took us home.

RM: What did your wife think? Because she would have been just a handful of people of Japanese ancestry in what was called the exclusion zone. What was that like for her?

JY: Well, she had her family there, but she couldn't go visit her mother because the father was so against us. He was kind of bitter, my beating him up, and plus, I'm Chinese. So there was really no close relationship her mother and I until the father died in New Jersey. And when they came back out in 1950, that's what got close.

RM: Did her family leave Manzanar with you and Kay and Beverly?

JY: No, no, they left later when the war was over. That's when they went back to New Jersey, because they were offered jobs there by Bird's Eye.

RM: So when you moved back to Los Angeles in May of 1943, where did you live?

JY: I lived with my brother-in-law, my sister. They asked us to move in, they had a bedroom for us, so we just moved into Solano.

RM: What was that like for you? What was wartime Los Angeles like at that point?

JY: I don't know, I was too concerned with my own family and then the war. I knew I was going to get drafted sooner or later. Then I had to report to the draft board, and on my folder, there's a big "Jap" there, so I said, "Well, I'm Chinese." So they had to take that off. And by September I was drafted. In fact, they made a big deal out of it, because I was wondering what the hell they were making a big deal in the barrack, and I happened to sleep where Jimmy Stewart slept.

RM: Oh, when you joined the military?

JY: I didn't join, I got drafted. And I went to Denver, Colorado, and passed the test, and they put me in the cadet program, to become a pilot, navigator, or bombardier. When I finished college, I still had my wartime diploma and all that. They cut the program out and sent us down to Vegas to gunnery school.

RM: Tell us about where you went school. Was that in Oregon?

JY: Yeah, eastern Oregon, La Grande, Oregon. Oregon State education, that's what it was.

KL: Can I ask a question? You said you were concerned, you didn't notice much of what was going on in Los Angeles because you were concerned about your family.

JY: Yeah, my family.

KL: How was it to leave them to go into the military so soon?

JY: I don't know, it was just expected, that's all. One of my brother was in the coast guard, but he was in Catalina all that time as a butcher. He was a butcher. The whole family was a butcher, we couldn't get jobs, so all the boys went into the business on their own.

KL: What did Kiyoko do when you left?

JY: Pardon?

KL: What did Kiyoko do after you got drafted and had to leave?

JY: No, not really.

KL: What did Kiyoko do, where did she stay, how did she react?

JY: Oh, she stayed with my brother-in-law and my sister, with my daughter. Oh, yeah, she stayed there 'til the end of the war, until I came back. Because my wife had to take care of my mother, had to go down to Chinatown every morning and give her a shot. She was diabetic.

KL: Kiyoko sounds kind of feisty, like she kind of always knew what was going on and had ideas about it or opinions. What was her response to your having to --

JY: No, she kind of became part of the family. That's why she had to learn Chinese to communicate with my mother, because they hardly understand any English at all.

RM: Were there --

JY: Pardon?

RM: Go ahead.

JY: Yeah, so that's how she learned Chinese, had to communicate. Had to do shopping for them and all that. She does her thing and then she'd go back home again, back onto Solano.

RM: Were there any other Japanese Americans in that neighborhood during the time that you were in the military and Kiyoko was living on Solano Street?

JY: No, there wasn't.

RM: She was the only one?

JY: Yeah, we were the only ones, yeah. After we moved into El Sereno and bought a duplex with my mother-in-law, that's when her family came back, in 1950. That's when the brother drove them all back, and they all lived with us until they found housing for themselves.