Densho Digital Archive - Fumie I. Shimada Interview (denshovh-sfumie-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

RP: Can you talk a little bit about the Kaneko case and other efforts that sort of preceded your...

FS: Uh-huh. Mrs. Kaneko had, her husband had filed a lawsuit against the government, and I think they had filed two lawsuits, if I'm not correct. There's an attorney in Los Angeles that was representing him, and he said that he presented Andy Russell's papers during that trial, but they were refused, and they lost the case. When I had my papers in, they told me they weren't going to make a ruling until after the Kaneko case. Because if the Kaneko case won, they wouldn't have to rule on it. But when Mrs. Kaneko lost her case, they then acted on my paperwork.

RP: Why do you think she lost the case?

FS: You know, it's tough to try to beat the government in a court of law, because you're in a government court, a U.S. court, fighting the U.S. Government. And it's a tough, tough case. There were many Latin American Peruvians who settled in the Mochizuki case for five thousand dollars. There were some Peruvians who backed out of the case because they felt it was a slap in the face, that they were being treated second-class. They wanted the full twenty thousand or nothing. And I asked one lady why she accepted the five thousand instead of fighting for the twenty thousand, because her brothers are fighting for the twenty thousand. And she says, "You know, Fumie, it's hard to beat the government. You can't beat the government." So there is a clause in the Mochizuki case that if anybody gets the twenty thousand, they will all get it. So with her two brothers, Art Shibayama, fighting for the reparations, there's a chance that she will still get the full twenty thousand. But she settled for the five thousand. They settled on the five thousand because the people in Japan are all dying off, and they felt they had to get them something, and five thousand was better than nothing. And hopefully they can get the twenty thousand later. But we're still fighting for that, too.

RP: That's what you received?

FS: We received the full twenty thousand.

RP: Was there any type of an apology letter?

FS: Yes, we did get a letter of apology, signed. I've got it framed in my family room.

RP: Similar wording as...

FS: The same wording as my husband's, yes. And, in fact, my uncle was in very poor condition, he was very ill on his deathbed, and they did give me a special letter for him before he died. Of course, he had already gotten his reparations because he had been sent to camp, but I wanted to get a letter of apology for his firing, and they did handle that for me.

RP: Your uncle was the one who went to Tule Lake?

FS: Yes, uh-huh. So he got his letter and his reparations for internment, but they did give him a letter for the firing, an apology for the firing.

RP: Okay, so that's the same uncle who was fired...

FS: From the railroad, right.

RP: But he was allowed to go to camp.

FS: He went to camp, and in fact, I have pictures of the railroad bosses coming to Tule Lake and asking him to come to work when he got out of camp.

RP: Is that what happened?

FS: Uh-huh. So I have pictures of the railroad bosses asking him to return. And I think there were a few other workers there in camp. So we had the picture of that.

KP: Can I ask why your uncle went to camp?

FS: He was living in Sacramento at the time. He moved from Reno to Sacramento, he was working for the railroad.

RP: So did you, did the rest of the family consider doing the same? You said that you asked the government to put you in a camp, did you consider the possibility of relocating into the exclusion area?

FS: Yes, because when you have five children, four children or five children, it's very hard to try to make a living when the father doesn't have a job. And at that time, with the wartime hysteria, not too many people were willing to hire him. And if it was, it was a minimum type of job with minimum pay. So the only chance he had was to go into business on his own.