Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Tommy T. Kushi Interview
Narrator: Tommy T. Kushi
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Sacramento, California
Date: October 18, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-ktommy-01-0001

<Begin Segment 1>

RP: This is an oral history for the Manzanar National Historic Site. This afternoon we're talking with Tom Kushi. The interview is taking place at the Japanese United Methodist Church on 6929 Franklin Boulevard in the city of Sacramento, California. Our interviewer is Richard Potashin, and our videographer is Kirk Peterson. Date of our interview is October 18, 2008, and we'll be discussing Tom's life today with particular emphasis on his time at Tule Lake Relocation Center and eventually relocation to Chicago, Illinois. Tom, do I have permission to continue our interview?

TK: Yes, you do.

RP: Thank you. I'd like to get a little bit of a picture of your early childhood and also talk a little bit about your parents. Let's start by asking you, first of all, what your birthdate was.

TK: February 1, 1924.

RP: And you were born in...

TK: Born in Florin by Stockton Boulevard and Gerber Road.

RP: And you weren't delivered at a hospital, a midwife came?

TK: Yeah, I think it's a midwife.

RP: Did the midwife deliver all the kids in the...

TK: I'm pretty sure, at that time. In Florin, we had a couple of midwives.

RP: Did you have a Japanese name at birth?

TK: Yes, it's Tameo, T-A-M-E-O.

RP: And you told us that you were given the name Tommy possibly by a teacher?

TK: Yeah, a teacher. She couldn't pronounce "Tameo" when I was in first grade, so she said, "From now on, you're Tommy."

RP: And that's what we'll refer to you during the interview, Tommy. Tommy, let's go back a little bit in looking at your father. And share with us his name.

TK: Oh, Shonosuke, S-H-O-N-O-S-U-K-E.

RP: And what part of Japan did he hail from?

TK: He was from Hiroshima.

RP: Share with us what you remember about his life in Japan. What was his family involved with?

TK: As far as I know, must have been farmers or something. And they were getting poorer and poorer, so they decided, he decided, anyway, might as well come to the United States and make a living. So he left -- I think he originally went to Hawaii to work in the sugar cane fields. And I don't know how long he stayed there, but then he came to San Francisco in (1906), right at the time when they had that San Francisco earthquake. So he said they had to land in Oakland. And as far as my mother, she came later on.

RP: What was her name?

TK: Masa, Masa Ishimoto. M-A-S-A, Ishimoto is I-S-H-I-M-O-T-O.

RP: And she also came from the same area, the village?

TK: Yeah, Hiroshima. I think she was a "picture bride," as far as I know, "picture bride."

RP: There was about, about eleven years' difference between your mother and your father?

TK: Yeah, age-wise, yeah.

RP: Do you know if your father had plans to make money here in the United States?

TK: [Laughs] I guess they all did.

RP: And then return?

TK: Yeah, and then return to Japan, I guess. 'Cause when we visited Japan, they had a big, what do you call that, funeral... what do you call those?

RP: Like a crypt?

TK: Yeah, crypt or something, our family crypt. We saw it there. But, I guess, later on, I guess they couldn't afford to go back. [Laughs]

RP: Especially when they started having you guys.

TK: Yeah.

RP: Tell us about your siblings.

TK: Oh. Way before I was born, I had two sisters, I think they died at birth. Then I had another brother, he was, I don't know, about ten years old when he died. He was a blue baby, one of those people with heart problem. And he died before I was born. Then there was three sisters after him, Bertha and Lily and Misu, and then I was born. Between my closest sister, we're about seven years apart.

RP: I guess your dad was probably hoping for a son.

TK: Yeah, that's why I think there's a joke going. I think when my next sister was born, he says, well, he missed it again, that's why he called her Misu. [Laughs] That's the joke that's going around, anyway. And finally I was born seven years later.

RP: Finally, yeah.

<End Segment 1> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.