Densho Digital Archive - George Nakata Interview (denshovh-ngeorge

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MH: I'm going to take you back again. You talked about your brother and your sister, older brother and sister being in Japan during the war, do they ever talk about it? Did you get any sense of how they felt while they were back there?

GN: My brother Kikuo and my sister Michiko were really unfortunate victims of circumstances, having gone to principally visit their grandparents, learn some Japanese, learn from culture and really to come back to America, but tensions grew and the outbreak of World War II, suddenly it's 1941, and they can't come back. And so they grow up, go to Japanese school, learn the language and culture. My sister May ends up working at an airplane factory after high school. My brother Kikuo Kay toward the end got drafted into the Japanese army. The war thereafter ended soon thereafter. He I guess had kind of a private entrepreneurship also in him like my father, and he started a doughnut shop of all things which is western food basically, but if you will, he started a doughnut snack shop in Okayama. And because he was in the army, he could not return to the United States as early as my sister Michiko. She came back first, and he came back about a year or so later. But their days were not easy. Sure, at times they wondered why is it that I'm over here and Mary and George, Sumiko and Yoshio, are back with the parents. Why is it that we can't return? Even after the war, several years go by, and they can't come back. So I'm sure that weighed heavily on them. But I sensed no feeling of bitterness. They were very close to the grandparents, Kitano Nakata and Okayama and cousins. And when Keiko and I went to visit, meeting our cousin there in Okayama, they asked about how's Kikuo, how's Michiko. And we had some pictures and letters from them eventually, but I feel that they were not easy times for them, for anyone that is not with their mother and father during such formidable years such important years. But they did well in school. I understand May did, Michiko did very well. And they came back, and I must say, really adjusted, learning the language, the culture, gaining friends here, being active quite well. They did not ever belabor or dwell on difficult days during the war. But no doubt when a small country like Japan country of island, size of Montana, California, is bombed that heavily, it's got to have its toll, and certainly they knew people that passed away from the war itself in action or from bombs or other tragic situations. But yes, they mentioned some big things, you know. Yes, they finished school. Yes, they worked in factories. Yes, he was drafted, but nothing in really finite detail. And probably like some others, it's not really a pleasant chapter in their life and not something that gives them pleasure to talk about. It's probably part of the past and maybe left best that way. But some essential things they certainly shared with us. And as I mentioned, Michiko passed away a year or two ago and Kikuo Kay is still, two fine children living up in the Gateway area of Portland, so he's doing fine.