Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Alfred "Al" Miyagishima Interview
Narrator: Alfred "Al" Miyagishima
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: May 13, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-malfred-01-0019

<Begin Segment 19>

TI: So let's... so you're in Gila River, and from there, you actually left Gila River to return back to Nebraska. So let's talk about that in terms of, why did you go back to Nebraska?

AM: I, I had an invitation, I guess, during correspondence, my mother said that these people in Scottsbluff said that if I wanted to finish school in Scottsbluff and then go on to college or something, now would be a good time to come back. And they had also said that I could work for my board in room, working in the cafe, the same Eagle Cafe. And so it was my decision if I wanted to go there or not. I don't think that it was imminent that the camps would be closing in any short time. Nobody knew that at that time. Still, I decided, yeah, I don't want to stay here, I want to go out and see what it's like back home. But when I got to Scottsbluff, then it really hit me that a lot of my friends that I knew were in the army or navy already.

TI: Because how hold were you? Weren't you really just like seventeen?

AM: Yeah, seventeen, turning on to eighteen.

TI: And already your, sort of, your friends who were about the same age were already in the service?

AM: Yeah. Some of those kids lied about their age or got their parents' okay. Maybe some were just a few months older than I was. I was born in December, so I had to wait a whole year before I went to school. But then half the kids were and the other half weren't, you know. Some were seventeen, some were eighteen. Yeah, lot of my friends had already enlisted, and I don't know what feelings they had at that time. And, but I do know that this one boy, he was in the one year older class, and he had been in the service and got wounded, came home, and he was in one of my classes. But he turned out to be one of the nicest fellows. I knew him from before, but because he was an older person, I really didn't know him all that well or anything, but I knew of him. And Roger walked with a limp from his wounds, but turned out he was, he was a really decent fellow.

TI: Did you ever have any problems in Nebraska with being Japanese?

AM: Just this one kid that I knew that mentioned something about being at war. And I don't know whether he said he's gonna kick my butt or what, but in those days, I wasn't exactly a, a pantywaist, you know. When I was a kid, I used to fight in the neighborhood, boxing gloves and things like that. And there's, one friends, they used to have a cousin that used to fight in the Golden Gloves, and I always used to have the, I was always chosen to be his sparring mate 'til I decked him one time. And the kid got mad, and so I wouldn't fight him no more. But I wasn't trained for that, but they always kind of threw me in the mix. [Laughs]

TI: And so going back to this, in Nebraska when this classmate of yours said these comments to you, what happened?

AM: Nothing. I just shrugged it off, and the funny part of it is that afterwards, we became pretty good friends. Matter of fact, he lives in Denver, and we talk every once in a while. And last year we buried him, he passed away and I went to his funeral. His wife was happy to see any of his classmates, former classmates come to the funeral.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.