Densho Digital Archive - John Wakamatsu Interview (denshovh-wjohn-01-0005)

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JT: And also, I want to also mention that I found out by helping out the soldiers, we put new headstones when they got these Medal of Honor upgrades from President Clinton in 2000. And I found out that most of the cemeteries were also segregated. You could not live, you could not be buried in a cemetery if you weren't Caucasian, especially before World War II. And Kazu Masuda was a soldier killed in my father's company, he was a 4th Platoon mortar squad sergeant. And he was killed in Italy, in Florence, Italy, and when they brought his body back from Italy he couldn't be buried near their home in Westminster Cemetery because he was not Caucasian. General Stillwell came down there and was upset because they didn't want the Masuda family living back in their old house, they had a twenty- acre farm. And then Captain Ronald Reagan made a speech saying that all the blood in the sand's the same color and they buried Kazu Masuda in the cemetery in Westminster because that was a big thing that General Stillwell said, "How could you not bury a soldier killed in wartime near his house?" And that changed things. But that was in 1948. So that sentiment was very strong back in those days. So, you know, what else can we say? Most Japanese people said, shigata ga nai, means it cannot be helped. So, what else can they do? I mean I've, it's unfortunate. I've seen some discrimination, but nothing like my father saw. And, it's, what do you do? It's just institutionalized.

KP: What do you think the role of the 442nd, or the record of the 442nd/100th Battalion did for changing that discrimination?

JW: Well, it's kind of interesting. My father actually, they were in Italy, just outside of Pisa. They have a famous photograph of the noncoms from F Company. It was wartime. Kazu Masuda that was buried in Westminster was still alive, and my father, they were talking about it. Because all these men were from, or parents were all in internment camps. Because original cadre of Fox Company were from the United, mainland United States. And Abraham Ohamu who was killed in, in Bruyeres, just outside of Bruyeres, France, he said that,well, if they do well then maybe that will have an impact on the people that are in these camps. And I believe that the reason why it helped is 'cause my father could work for McDonnell Douglas after the war, but he couldn't work for McDonnell Douglas before the war. My brother Peter Wakamatsu has actually unearthed documentation and stating that even, I think from General Marshall, that you can't hold these people in camp while these people are fighting so valiantly for the United States. So they actually allowed people to be released if they had places to go to. They just couldn't stay in California, Oregon, or Washington. So I think the 442nd and 100th Battalion had a large impact because you could get jobs and you could be released. And so I think it made a big difference. In fact, Kazu Masuda is, has a middle school named after him in, in Fountain Valley. Kazu Masuda middle school. And so I think that if the people who died in wartime could see this, they couldn't believe the changes. It's pretty amazing. That's why my father wrote a book called Silent Warriors, to document things so when people asked what happened there is something that can be written down and people could see that. 'Cause he's one of the very few people that's written a firsthand account of anybody from World War II. The veterans that I talked to, they don't want to say anything and they don't want to write anything because it's just too painful, and so my father documented this. And I think it is something worth reading because it's not in Nazi Germany, it's not in fascist Italy, it's not in Communist Russia or China, it's in the United States. It's something that we all have to understand. It's kind of a dark part of our history. So I believe there's, I believe that they did have a large impact.