Densho Digital Archive - Helen Mori Interview (denshovh-mhelen

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RP: There was an interesting story you shared with me a while ago about your father.

HM: My...

RP: Had his identity stolen.

HM: Oh yeah.

RP: Tell us about that.

HM: Well, my, I remember my mother said about a month or a week or two before they got married he mentioned that someone had broken... he stayed at the Olympic Hotel in Little Tokyo, downtown, in the Japantown in L.A. And he told her that somebody broke in and took all his IDs, you know, passport, diplomas, I don't know if he drove, I don't... anyway, important documents. They, somebody took 'em. And then we went to a funeral two, three years ago and my cousin was at this funeral too 'cause it was a real good friend of theirs. And the reverend wanted to talk to us.

Off Camera: You gotta talk about the FBI first.

HM: Oh, oh, when I was in high school the FBI came, two guys. And they, they told my mother, "I understand your husband is still alive." And she was shocked. She says, "No, he isn't. He died when she was a baby." And they said, "No, there's a Teiji Koide running around and, and he must be your husband." And she said, she said no. Anyway we convinced them he died. And this guy was a fake. And, at... did we read that book before that funeral?

Off Camera: No, afterwards.

HM: After. Anyway, we, we read a book after this funeral. Well, what the, the reverend wanted to meet us 'cause my cousin told him, "Her father died when she was a baby and this person is using his ID." So then the reverend was so shocked, he wanted to come to meet us and talk to my mother and all that. But once he came to our house he came to our house to talk to my father, the ID being stolen and all that, then he found out she won the, her poem was picked in the imperial contest, every January. So then most of the time he's asking her about getting picked for the, the asazora poem. But he did... so my cousin set him straight. And he said that his stuff was stolen before the war and this guy is just using his ID. And after that we read a book, Ten Most Unusual Japanese Americans. And the last person in that book was Teiji Koide. And this guy was a triple agent, U.S. spy, Russian spy, and Japan spy. He was a triple agent. He trained in Moscow for the Russian part of it I guess. And he went by my father's name and he said he went to college and did all this and that. And we were so... we just, "Oh my god." That's, he's using my father's name. And then it made us mad 'cause he was a Communist. He wrote Communist literature and everything. So we were angry that this all came about, in the open now. Which we didn't even know about either. And...

RP: So this all surfaced after the war?

HM: Oh, yes. Yes. After the war.

RP: And did, did anybody investigate this guy or, was he questioned about it?

HM: I don't know the particulars about that part. But they must have 'cause the guy wrote a book. This guy wrote a book on the Japanese Americans, Ten Most Unusual Japanese Americans, something like that. I sent that book to his brother in Minnesota 'cause he wanted to read about that. And I never, it's probably out of print, you know. We tried to get a copy but you can't get a copy.

RP: Didn't, didn't this gentleman also use your name and...

HM: Oh yes, he named, this guy, I forgot his last name now, he used, he named his son George which is my kid brother's American name, English name. And he named his daughter Yasuko, which is my Japanese name, which we thought was sort of strange. Of all the names, he picks our names. And another thing that was small world is when my kid brother went to junior high school, it was Foshay Junior High, he took instruments. He took all the woodwinds, clarinet, saxophone, all that. And so did that guy's son, George Koide. And this guy used to pick up my kid brother to go to these, they would all perform at different schools and stuff. He would come and pick up my brother, with his son, and take 'em and bring 'em home. But we didn't know who the guy was at that time, that, about his background. Isn't that something? He probably did that purposely because it sort of connected. And I understand my brother, I talked to him I think last year, he said, I said, "Whatever happened to George Koide anyway?" And he says, "Oh, he, he's an attorney in L.A." He changed his name back to his father's real name. He didn't want his family to have that stigma I guess.

RP: And what was his father's real name?

HM: I can't remember. And since you're... no, don't. They're taping it. You don't want to say in case it's wrong you don't want to say. I think I know what it is but I don't know. Since you're taping, I don't want to say in case it's wrong. But isn't that extraordinary?

RP: Is this, is this gentleman still alive?

HM: No, he passed away about three years ago maybe.

RP: Hmm, what a story.

HM: [Laughs] So that was a early stolen identity case. Before the war. 1930s, it would be in the 1930s. 'Cause I was born in '33.

RP: There's another interesting story. You mentioned about your mother running into a gentleman who worked at the same Mutual Trading Company?

HM: Oh.

RP: He was, he was a poor man. He had just lost his...

HM: Well my stepfather worked for Mutual Trading Company too. But my natural birth father also worked for Mutual Trading Company. And when my mother heard about this poor guy who lost his son with pneumonia at one year and after that he lost his wife to cancer or such -- she must have been very young -- and both times he was in Japan. 'Cause he was in import/export. My stepfather was in import/export. And both times he was in Japan when it happened. So, you know, my mother had heard about him. She didn't know who he was or anything.

RP: And then she ends up marrying him in Manzanar.

HM: Yeah. She married him. Fujinos, you know I told you about the Fujinos? They were baishakunin which is the go-between.

Off Camera: Matchmaker.

HM: He got...

RP: They were the ones that got them...

HM: He got my mother and, and my stepfather together. Yeah. And that's in Manzanar. So it would be in '43, 1943.