<Begin Segment 9>

MR: And what years were your children born?

YD: Keiko was born in 1940 and Robert was born in 1941 and Sho was born in 1944. Keiko was born just before the war, so I was able to take her to Kobe and register her as an American citizen. And because of the other two boys being after the war, of course, the consulate, the embassies were all closed down, so they were not able to be registered. And so after they came back here, they both served in the army, and then they had to become naturalized.

MR: So they couldn't be registered later?

YD: No.

MR: After the war, what did your husband do? Did he continue teaching?

YD: After the war when MacArthur came, he had revised so many of the different aspects of rules and regulations that my husband was one of the first to become purged. And many of the people don't understand the word purge, but that actually means to be kicked out of office, and it was because he was considered a loyalist. And that's one of the, also one of the tragedies of war. And if you're loyal to your government, you, yourself are loyal to yourself and to what you believe in. And because he believed in helping his own country, he was purged. And so there was a time when I had to become the breadwinner of the family. And because of my background, I was asked to work for the military government. And we lived out in the country, and I had actually no clothes to wear to work in the military government. So I remember that I got out a pair of my husband's trousers, had to sew up the pockets, and I remember I wore those pants and went to work. But because of my background, I was considered number one. And there were many other Japanese who had better education than I. But because of the conversation part, they were not able to speak in the English, American English that the people, the military people needed. I had the best position. And at that time because of the yen being 360 yen to the dollar, actually I was getting more money than the governor of Okayama. And so I had to be very careful of what I did and what I said because of the fact that a woman getting so much money and being known that I was a Japanese American at that time; of course, they didn't know before. It was very hard for me. And my husband being the person that he was, he didn't actually say it, but I think he was very resentful of the fact that he had lost his job and that I was the breadwinner at that time, so I was very careful of what I did and what I said. But because people who knew him gave him a job as a director of a wood shipping company in Kurashiki, and he would tell us stories about the ship was being built for the Russian people, and there were two Russian officers who were there at the company every day, and he said that they never trusted each other. So every place they went, there were always the two of them together, and he was a director of that company. So he was working there, but he never did like business. Business was something that he disliked very much.

MR: How did you get this job? Was it advertised or did someone know about you? Just how did you come, to come upon this job?

YD: We had family friends who were friends of my parents here, and they lived in Okayama City, and they had heard about the military government and needing people to work there, so they suggested I try for the job. And of course, I got it right away, and I was very privileged. But during that time, I lived with the Kurosaki family in Okayama City because we were out in the countryside. And I saw very many things that I don't like to talk about, but there was a lot of black market. And I hate to say things about the army, but they were not, there were many, many army personnel who were not very nice people. There's a lot of black marketing going around, and of course, you couldn't say anything. But during that time, I worked with a wonderful woman whose name was Artis Todd, and she was a Red Cross worker, and she had gone over there as a DAC, DAC, Department of American Civilian, and she and I worked as a great team. And we would... and I don't know if you knew that or not, but in Japan, the women, Japanese were not, Japanese women were not able to vote. And so during that time, she and I would travel all over the prefecture talking about democracy. And I learned how to use speed writing because she would make different speeches. And while she was making different speeches, I would write and translate. So when she finished her speech, she would know what was being said, and we really made a wonderful team. And after she had gone and there was another woman who took her place, Margaret Anderson, she wanted me to get a job as a DAC, and I would have received a lot more money. But I didn't know anything about what had happened in America, and I only knew that my father and second sister and her family lived in Minidoka, and we didn't know too much about what had happened in America. And so later, I found out the only reason why I was not able to get the DAC job was because the major, Major Robertson, who was in charge of the company at that time, said that they had gone through my past record and gone through my family history over here and found that my father had gone to Tule Lake, and I didn't know anything about where he had gone. And we found out that in Tule Lake, there was an uprising of the so-called pro-Japanese people. But he was not there for long because he didn't like the atmosphere, and he had moved on to Minidoka. But it shows you how very thorough the CIC people are in going through a person's background because he told me, he said, "The only reason why you couldn't get the job was because of your father." And of course, I didn't even know what he was talking about until later on.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.