Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

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MH: Before we get to that part, did your parents, were they ever able to contact your two siblings that were in Japan after the war started?

GN: Yes. There were some letters through the Red Cross and through indirect means we were able to get to my grandparents as well as my two siblings, my brother and my sister in Japan, not often, but rather long intervals in between, but we learned that they were well. They were going to school, and I don't know whether there were a lot of strict limitations and restrictions. We knew that my sister ended up working in an airplane factory. We knew that my brother ended up being drafted into the Japanese army. I was of course later drafted in the U.S. Army. But toward the end of the war, he became, if you will, a nitohei, a buck private in the Japanese army. So we learned some of these things through intermediaries, through the Red Cross, but at least my parents had the comfort and assurance that my brother and sister were well and my grandfather and grandmother were well. And I remember immediately following the war, we sent many, many packages to Japan because as we all recognized, it was a country that was devastated, and all their resources were used for the war, and so everyday items, pieces of clothing, everyday utensils, tools, whatever, pens, pencils, they did not have. And so many days, we would package things up. And even then, I remember taking a grocery bag, disassembling it, reversing it so the name doesn't show, and using that to wrap up the boxes and how to tie them together so that it will be safe, how to cushion fragile things. And maybe they can be called care packages, but in our case, they were just things that our family needed, and so we sent things to them on a very regular basis until my sister and brother were able to come back and rejoin us in the mid-1950s.

MH: How old were they when they were sent to Japan?

GN: Oh, gosh. They were in their teens, and so they went there. They continued Nihon gakkou. They of course became very, very fluent in Japanese. My brother was old enough that he retained some of his English. Fortunately when he came back, he had already, some things were quite familiar to him. But both of them went through high school in Okayama. And then of course because of the hazards of war, some of their careers of course were pretty well dictated by a national dictum in necessity. They were into their twenties when they finally got back here.

MH: Many families after the war started, the FBI visited their homes. Did that ever occur in your family?

GN: I don't recall the FBI visiting our home. I know a number of friends, the Matsushimas as one example, where the FBI visited. I really couldn't understand why that was later as I started to try to logically and objectively analyze this. My father had two businesses and in relative terms was quite successful, and he owned cars, you know, and had lifetime possessions, and yet Yosuke Nakata, his partner, was one of the people interviewed and taken away to Heart Mountain and others to Texas in Crystal Springs and other besides the ten standard, if you will, relocation internment camps. So as I reflect back on that, yes, a number of our friends were visited by FBI people. I don't recall the FBI coming to our hotel. I don't think there was a real evaluation or assessment or clear ranking of who should be taken before the general populous of the Japanese and Japanese American community, and the reason I say that is that a number of important people I don't think were taken away early. They ended up in camp along with us, and other people that may not have been key community leaders were taken away. So I think the fear that Japanese are loyal to the emperor, loyal to Japan, they must, the leaders must be taken away. They're still dangerous to the United States of America. All the barbwire and the machine gun, all those, that fear that was raging in 1941, early 1942, the selection of who the FBI should interview and then make the decision of who should be taken away early and separated from their families, basically men by the way. I don't remember any women being taken away, be it from Gresham or Milwaukie or Hillsboro, Hood River, or Portland. As I reflect on it, I don't think that there was a systematic, a real clear picture of what they were doing.