Densho Digital Archive - Dorothy H. Sato Interview (denshovh-sdorothy-01-0011)

<Begin Segment 11>

LT: Oh, I have so many questions now. Can you talk about your brother's military service?

DS: He volunteered from camp, and so he was sent to Camp Shelby. And I can't remember how long he stayed there before he left for overseas. But he did come up to visit us in Chicago before he was sent overseas. And I don't think he was overseas too long before he developed ulcers and came back on the hospital ship. And I don't think he stayed at the VA hospital too long. And soon after he was discharged, I think the West Coast opened up and he came back.

LT: Did he talk at all about what he faced in Europe?

DS: He didn't say too much. He didn't say too much about being over there. We heard from him often, but he didn't say too much about what he went through.

LT: So I'm wondering, because your brother developed ulcers in the service and he had volunteered to serve in the United States Army. And your mother had also become sick while in camp. So how did those two experiences color your world and the effect on your family, considering where you were and what was happening to you?

DS: Well, my brother went in the service, and we were, my mother and sister were still in camp. So that was ironic. Of course, he was not the only one that went, many Niseis were overseas, and their families were in camp, and that was very ironic, that here we are in camp, and then a member of the family was serving in the armed forces. But that was one of those things we learned to accept that. And my brother never talked too much about what happened overseas, and a lot of people joked about my brother, said, "Did you get ulcers because you drank too much cognac or what?" [Laughs] He never told us. But it was an experience for him to be in the service, and my mother accepted that. We all accepted the fact that he was overseas, and we hoped for the best for him, and he did come back. And ulcers were not a broken leg or an injured arm. And life went on. We accepted, I think we were good at accepting everything that happened to us.

LT: And then on the homefront, your mother became sick while in camp. How did that change, or how did that change your family? How did that affect your --

DS: Well, my mother got sick, but it was not, it was something that happened to her emotionally. And I think she got over it. I mean, she was sick where she had to go see the doctor, but I think that she got over it because she made herself a part of Minidoka, I mean, the camp life. She got a job as a, working in the mess hall, so that was cooking. And she never referred to her illness at the time. She just went on with life. She never talked about it, and she never was sick after that. Emotionally she got herself out of that situation and she went on with life. So that was not a major factor. The major thing was that she got over it and she was fine. So that was not something, a stumbling block for her. She got over it, luckily.

LT: Sounds like your family did that a lot.

DS: We did. We learned to cope with whatever was thrown at us. And I think that would be the only way that you could live through an experience like we did. Like not just me, I mean, all of us. A lot of people asked me, talking about evacuation and being in camps and stuck in camps, and they said, "How do you deal with that? I mean, doesn't that make you mad to think about what happened to you because you were Japanese?" And to me, life throws you a lot of bad curves. And if you dwell on all the bad things that happen to you every day, to me it would be like having cancer and letting it grow and grow and make you into a miserable hateful person. And of course I do think about being in camp, but it's not a major thing in my life, that I experienced it, and I went through life, and I dealt with it. And I hated it when we went through it, but I don't have it every day of my life. I've forgotten it. It's just something that happened to us.