Densho Digital Archive - Isao Kameshige Interview (denshovh-kisao

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AC: So I guess while you were... your parents and your sister were still in Poston?

IK: Uh-huh.

AC: At the end of the war...

IK: Well, before I went in the army, we came, me and my dad came up here and visited some relative of, second cousin of my mother's.

AC: And you were allowed out of camp?

IK: Yeah, because we were going to relocate. If you're going to relocate, then you can get out of camp. And so we came up here and we talked to them and we stayed here a couple nights and then we went back, and my folks decided to come up here.

AC: But when was this?

IK: This was in '44, I think.

AC: But they didn't relocate until after the war?

IK: Yeah.

AC: Why did they wait?

IK: I don't know. I guess they figured they had a home there for a while, and they weren't sure what they were going to do or what they were going to be told to do. So they just waited it out, and then when the camp was over, then they relocated. They said, well, this is it, you can go wherever you want. There's some people that didn't leave for a while, and they didn't have no place to go.

AC: And so when they moved out here, they bought a forty-acre farm?

IK: No, they rented it. And then there was a family, the Tsukamakis, the name was, and they're related to my mother's second cousin. And they were farming in Caldwell. And they quit farming and they started a grocery store here in Ontario. And so when they quit farming, they sold the truck and tractor and things to my dad, and I don't know what they paid for it or what. But that's how he started. He had one truck and one tractor, and the cultivator parts with it, that's how he started. And my sister used to drive the tractor, the truck. And then when I come back, well, she left.

AC: How was the feeling of having to move out here and having to reintegrate into a postwar community?

IK: My feelings?

AC: Yeah, well, your feelings and also, what did your family go through?

IK: I don't know how they felt. I know they weren't happy, but I just knew some people here. I had one kid here that was in the army with me, and so that's how I started. We started running around together, and then I got to know some people and then we started our own softball team, we started a basketball team and things like that, and get to know a lot of people that way. And I played softball for quite a few years here on the city league. And then we had quite a few people that played basketball, too, so we had a community hall with a basketball court over here, so we were trying to start a league. But it was pretty hard. We never did get started; we just played basketball.

AC: Was this mostly just amongst the Japanese community?

IK: Yes, it was. Yes, it was.

AC: So did you associate mostly with the Japanese community when you relocated?

IK: Yes. And we had quite a few. It was like Oregon Slope and this area here, we had quite a few Japanese people here. A lot of 'em moved out, especially the younger people, they all moved back to the coast. Like us, my kids, they wanted to stay. So there was a few families like that.

AC: How were the relationships between the Japanese community and the Caucasian community right after the war here?

IK: Oh, that was one of the reasons there were so many here, because the feeling was good. I mean, they treated us good. Of course, naturally, there were a few of them that didn't, but you can't help prejudice. But by and large, most of the people treated us pretty good. They realized what we went through. Of course, we had deals where we tried to educate the people what we did go through and what we were. In fact, I had some investment people over from Boise, Idaho, and this is way in the '80s, now. And I had some investments with him, and I had to sign some papers. I said, "Well, I'll be over to sign." He says, "No, I want to come over and see your place." So he came over and he brought his wife with him, and we were sitting there talking and I signed the papers and things. We were just discussing general things. And she says, "It's amazing, you speak such good English," she says. [Laughs] And I had to tell her that we were U.S.-born and we were educated here in America. She thought we were from Japan, I guess, I don't know what she thought, but she didn't know that we were... so there were still some people like that.