Densho Digital Archive - Margaret Stanicci Interview (denshovh-smargaret-01-0021)

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RP: And so, tell us a little bit about what happened when you got into Chicago.

MS: Uh-huh, yeah. Yes, I was in the Quaker hostel and I remember they said, "We would really like you to find a job and find an apartment within a week, so that we can get someone else in." Which made sense. But to find a job and to find an apartment within a week, meant a lot of work. And, I did. I found a... oh, and my brother came out. So, I wonder if that was, I wonder if I went in with him initially.

RP: That was your brother Paul?

MS: Yes. Paul. Did he leave... I know he went out in the beet fields.

RP: He left May 14, 1943.

MS: So he... yeah, I know he left...

RP: Four days after you did.

MS: So, it was a little bit after I did. He went somewhere else first then. Anyway, I found an apartment... oh yes, and I found a job in that, when I applied on a Sunday, the owner hired me as a floral designer because I had done designing at home. And then I came to work on Monday, as he requested. But he met me at the door and he said he was so sorry, but that when he told his employees that he had hired me, they said that they would all quit if he did. And I was shocked. I was really, really shocked because, I said, well, they've never even seen me, you know, and why would they... so I finally said, "Well, I think I could work for you for a week or something like that without pay and then if they still don't want to work with me, that's fine." You know, that I could accept because if you don't to work with a person, you don't want to work. But, sight unseen, I really felt was... so, but I left and I had to find another job, which I did, in another florist. Everybody needed workers, I think, at that time. But the second florist was way out in one of the suburbs. And it took me two hours to get there and two hours to get back, which was, four hours a day was just too much. So, I thought, well... I don't know how long I worked there, not very long, maybe a couple of months. And then I said I think I'm going to New York.

Oh, and incidentally, George was working in Milwaukee at the time. And, so I told him, "You know, I think I'm gonna go to New York." [Laughs] And he said, well he thinks he would like to go to New York too, 'cause that would be a more appropriate place for him, for his architectural background, than in Milwaukee. He was working in the pottery plant. And, but he had taken pottery at USC under Glen Lukins. And Glen Lukins had done some beautiful work, Japanese influence there. And so George had done some very nice pottery work, I mean, ceramics work, really. [Laughs] So we both went to New York, not at the same time, but I think he went first and found a place. And I think we decided to get married there. And interestingly enough, Helen Ealy had gone to New York, and she married Robert Brill. So we contacted them, of course, and I think they were the only people at our wedding. We had a little wedding. Yes. And New York was, I found, was very different than Chicago in terms of attitudes towards the Japanese, Japanese Americans. And there was, I found no prejudice. But I found a lot of prejudice against the Jewish people. And that I found, I could sympathize with that. So, yeah.

RP: Did you... how long did you live in New York?

MS: Let's see. This was 1940... '43, '44... we must have, we must have been in New York in '44. Yeah, because we were there in '45, you know... and I left in fifty... let's see, when did I go to Pennsylvania? Was '54 I think it was. Yeah, I went to Pennsylvania in '54, uh-huh. So...

RP: Now you had two, two brothers, Philip and Frank, that were in the military at this time. They both fought in Europe?

MS: Yes.

RP: 44nd.

MS: Yes, yes.

RP: And your father was still at Manzanar?

MS: Yes, yes. My father and her sister and her husband. Her husband developed emphysema or something. He had a lung problem. So he was in the hospital at the end of the time. So she was...

RP: This was the sister who originally had lived in New York?

MS: Yes. The two that had lived in, yeah, my sister that lived in New York.

RP: So she, she was living in camp and you were living in New York?

MS: Yes, and then I was in New York. [Laughs] Yeah.

RP: I was just wondering, was there any effort on behalf of her and her husband, to try to, you said they were kind of trapped in, you know, in Los Angeles when the evacuation orders went out, but...

MS: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

RP: Did they make any effort whatsoever to try to say, you know, we're just here because of a funeral or that type of thing to get, to get permission to go back to New York and not have to go to camp?

MS: I don't know. I don't think so, partly because he would be an alien, you know. And, it might have been even more complicated if... he might have been sent to a different camp. But I don't know. Yes. And then later, when he got the emphysema, he was in the hospital, so, uh-huh.

RP: What did you hear about the 442nd and...

MS: Yes.

RP: What did you think of your two brothers fighting?

MS: You know, I, I didn't hear too much in terms of... except that later... one thing kind of did shock me when I got back to Los Angeles and then I talked to my older brother. And neither of them talked very much about, but I asked him because I had heard that some of the, that some of the soldiers had been, Japanese American soldiers had been, in a sense, locked in a barrack or something while, when President Roosevelt came through, or something. And I didn't believe that. Because I thought, well, if they were soldiers and they had to, already had fought and everything, well you know, or were going to, I guess they hadn't. But he confirmed it. He said, yeah, they were guarded, were not allowed out. And I still can't, I cannot see that. They're part of the U.S. Army and then they're, and then they're imprisoned, actually, for a time.

KP: So these two brothers joined the army before...

MS: Before the war.

RP: You were, you left in May of '43. Do you remember anything about another event that took place here, roughly around February of '43, when the government circulated a questionnaire?

MS: Oh. Yeah, that questionnaire. Oh, that was, that was a very difficult time. Because, yes, people had... and I think it was partly the wording, probably, too. But, and the fact that it was like a double bind for many people. You know, you really couldn't, you couldn't answer either "yes" or "no" or. That was a very difficult time for people. And I guess, yeah...

RP: You had to answer that questionnaire too?

MS: Yes, well, I must have answered in the affirmative, "yes-yes."

RP: 'Cause you got out.

MS: 'Cause I got, yes, I was out, yeah.

RP: Did you have any, did you have to pontificate on it a little bit or did you have any strong feelings... some, some people, you know, wanted to register a protest or were very emotional about what had been done to them, and you know.

MS: Yeah, I don't, I didn't have feelings. But at that time, you know, in a sense I was really very shocked. And I didn't... I wasn't that outspoken or... I think could with individuals, but not in a public sense. Yes. But, yeah, I think, I think it was, my feelings were more with them, but I just didn't actively, yeah.