Densho Digital Archive - Dorothy H. Sato Interview

Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Dorothy H. Sato Interview
Narrator: Dorothy H. Sato
Interviewer: Linda Tamura
Location: Hood River, Oregon
Date: October 30, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-sdorothy-01

<Begin Segment 1>

LT: So, Dorothy, where and when were you born?

DS: I was born on May the 24th, 1923, in Carlisle, Washington. My father was working in a lumber camp then. And we stayed -- well, I don't remember what they told me -- I think we stayed there 'til I was probably five or six years old.

LT: Okay, okay. And what was your full name when you were born?

DS: When I was born it was Hamako, a Japanese name.

LT: Okay, and your last name?

DS: Suguro. And that was my given name. And before went to high school, we put American names in front of our Japanese names. So that's why my name is Dorothy Hamako Sato now.

LT: So did you choose...

DS: We just chose our names. A lot of families did that at that time, because we were all given Japanese names because we had Japanese immigrant parents.

LT: Uh-huh. So did you choose the name or did your parents choose the name?

DS: No, I think all of us, my sisters and I, I think we just got together, and my sisters did the same thing to their names, too.

LT: And about how old were you when you made the change to become Dorothy?

DS: I think we were through with grade school. It was before we entered high school. And that's what we're known as, all of us, by American name.

LT: Was there a significance in choosing your American name between grade school and high school?

DS: No, I think we just did that because we were going on to high school, and we were through with our primary education.

LT: Okay. So can you tell me about your father, his name, where he was born?

DS: My father's name was Nobujiro Suguro, and he was born in Shizuoka, Japan. And he was forty-four when I was born.

LT: Okay.

DS: And other than that, it wasn't... I mean, just a typical Issei immigrant man.

LT: Okay. Do you have any information about his family?

DS: No, they rarely talked about... I do know that my mother, she talked about how she swam in the ocean, so I know that she lived by the ocean in Shizuoka. My mother and father never talked too much about their family in Japan for whatever reason, and naturally we never asked.

LT: Okay, okay. Can you give me your mother's name and where she was born and when?

DS: She was born in Shizuoka, Japan, her name was Matsu Noda, and I think she was born in 1889.

LT: Okay, okay. So what were the circumstances of your mother and father marrying in Japan, and then how did they decide to come to the United States?

DS: What I can remember is I think they came in search of greener pastures, and ending up in a lumber camp certainly isn't greener pastures, but that's what he did when he first came. And then they came to Seattle later after that.

LT: Okay, okay.

DS: They didn't talk too much about their life in Japan, I don't know why. We never asked.

LT: Sure.

DS: Just accepted.

LT: And I'm sure that was fairly typical.

DS: I think so.

<Begin Segment 2>

LT: When they came to Grays Harbor, do you have any idea what kind of jobs your father had, anything about the details of his work?

DS: No, I really don't know except that he worked in a lumber camp, as probably many of the immigrants did at that time when they first came. I think they even worked, I think they actually worked in the lumber camps on the railroad.

LT: Okay. And what about your mom?

DS: Well, my mom took care of us, and she was very, she was a good lady. She took care of all of us, and I think she was the boss in the family. Or she would tell us what to do more than my father.

LT: Can you give an example? Can you talk a little bit about how you noticed that?

DS: Well, because my mother, we would always go to her for advice, and she would take it upon herself to regulate our lives more than my father did, which I think was typical with the Japanese people.

LT: Can you give me an example of some advice that you or your siblings sought from your mother, and what you asked, and how she helped you to address that?

DS: I don't know. I mean, I can't give you any specific times, but my mother was very, more dominant than my father. And what I remember -- this is so funny that I remember this. I must have been about six years old and starting kindergarten or school, we all went to Bailey Gatzert. And I don't know why this sticks in my mind, but I've always remembered this. That I was going to school one day, and it was pouring rain, so my father took me to Sears Roebuck in Seattle and he bought me a red raincoat, and then put me in a taxi to go to school. [Laughs] I went to school in a taxi wearing that red raincoat. And I must have been a first grader, and I can't remember, I can't recall why I would remember that as vivid in my memory of him. But I don't know why I remember that so vividly, but I did get a new raincoat, red.

LT: And did your mother have any comments about that?

DS: No, as I remember, we just accepted that that's what he did. He knew some guy who worked at the, Japanese fellow who worked at Sears was a friend of his, so he went to him and had him wait on us. I don't know why I remember that so vividly.

LT: Was that a way that he expressed his affection for you? Did he express his emotions to you in other ways?

DS: Well, yeah, but you know, Japanese Isseis are different, as you well know. I don't know what it was, but he did buy me that raincoat, and that's what I remember.

LT: Okay. Can you talk more about your father and his role in the family and his relationship with your mother?

DS: Well, I don't remember too much. I mean, we had five children, I mean, there was two others born after me. And I really don't remember too much about their relationship. I think we just accepted the mother and the father. I don't really remember that much. And they're talking about their life in Japan, they never really talked about their life in Japan, I don't know why.

<Begin Segment 3>

LT: Okay. You said that you were raised in Seattle, and can you tell us about where you lived and what it looked like and what it sounded like, and what it was like to grow up there as a kid?

DS: Well, I lived in Japantown where all the Japanese, they were all Japanese. And they had hotels, little restaurants, grocery stores, there was a movie theater, Sagamiya, which was a Japanese confectionary store. I mean, all the kids were Japanese, lived upstairs and went to school, I think we all walked to school, I don't think there was a school bus. We all walked to school, and I remember one little kid who lived close to us, he was an announcer for the baseball team in Seattle. He got to be, he knew how to imitate the announcer, and that was a big thing for him. They made a big thing out of this little kid. [Laughs] But life in Japantown was... we went to school, we played together, we shopped at all the stores, and it was just something that you accepted, that's what you did every day.

LT: Okay. And so where did you live?

DS: We lived in a hotel. My mother and father had a hotel, and there too many rooms, but that's where we grew up. I think we lived in the hotel until I went to, until I finished eighth grade, and then we sold the hotel and moved into a little family house. And since then we bought another house and that's where we were when the war broke out. But life in Japantown was just one day after another. You did the same thing, you went to school, you went to church, you played with the kids, and they had programs at this Nippon Kan Hall up the hill there, and that was a place where they always had programs, safety patrol programs, I mean, awards, school programs, everything generated from there. It was quite a haul. I think it still stands there, I'm not really sure.

LT: I'll ask you to go back, being a country kid, growing up in Japantown, the people nearby, and growing up in a hotel seems like another world to me. Can you tell me about the hotel, what it looked like, what the rooms were like, the people who came?

DS: They were, as I remember, we had a flight of stairs going up, probably twenty steps, which we had to clean every so often to help my mother and father. And the rooms were small, and they're all transient; they didn't stay there for months, they came maybe for two or three nights. And they were all races. But we were not the hotel, the only hotel in town. There were probably ten hotels in Seattle in Japantown. I mean, many Issei people had hotels, like they had grocery stores. And it was just a way of life for us. We lived there, too, in a hotel, so it was not like living in a home. We had different rooms, kitchen, where we slept, parlor, we had several rooms that we went in and out every day. So that's the way we grew up, and I guess that's what we accepted growing up.

LT: Did you provide meals for the hotel guests?

DS: Oh, no. No, they just paid for the room. And my mother was in charge of cleaning the room and changing the sheets for each person that rented. No, we never provided meals, it was just a place to stay. And they were good people who stayed there, but they didn't stay there for months, they would just... and we also had Japanese people staying there, too. We had some colored people, Filipinos, and some Japanese people also staying there. They would have grocery stores or something, and they'd find a place. They didn't have a place to live, and they'd stay there. So we grew up having a lot of friends in Japantown. We went to church, the bus picked us up to go to church. My sister was a Catholic, and so we ended up going to the Catholic church every Sunday, the bus came and picked us up. And it was just everyday living, but it was just all we knew. We went to Japanese school after we went to English school, and we must have gone there for years. But that was just a way of life with us, and then we'd walk to school, walk to Japanese school, we walked everywhere, or rode the bus or the streetcar, it was the streetcar then.

<Begin Segment 4>

LT: Can you tell us more about school at Bailey Gatzert?

DS: Uh-huh. Bailey Gatzert was, I think, from first grade to the sixth, I'm not sure on that. We had a lady principal, her name was Ada J. Mahon, and she had a doll called Lassie which she brought to school every day. And she had a little rooster that she brought to school, too. And we were all either Japanese kids, Chinese kids, a few colored, Filipinos, it was just a melting pot there. And we went to, I think it was up to sixth grade, and after sixth grade, we could go to Washington for seventh and eighth grade. But when we got to sixth grade, several of us decided that they're gonna stay at Bailey Gatzert, we were the first eighth grade graduating class at Bailey Gatzert. And we had programs at the school, parents night, I remember my mother coming one day to school to visit. And then we had school programs, we had, program was, one was Momotaro, if you remember Momotaro, he's the Peach Boy.

LT: Can you talk about that one?

DS: Well, I was the star.

LT: Oh, we need to hear about that.

DS: But I don't remember why I was the star, but I wore a kimono. And it was a school program, just for the school. And I don't know why I was the star or what my role was, that's long ago. But that was a school program where the parents came and watched, it was funny. But we did have a lot of school programs, and the parents were invited to come. It was a nice school, but like I say, it was one through six.

LT: So can you talk a little bit about Momotaro and what the story is and what your role was?

DS: Like I say, I don't even remember what my role was. I was the star, but I can't remember what my role was.

LT: Peach Boy.

DS: Peach Boy, it was Momotaro, who... as I remember Momotaro was a peach shell, I think, the pit. And it breaks, and the baby is Momotaro. I don't remember much more after that. But that was the play, and like I say, I don't know why I was the star. But I was dressed in a kimono, I remember that.

LT: Do you remember your feelings when you were preparing for that or what happened afterward, or what your parents or your sisters and brothers said?

DS: No, I was the star, so it was just focused on me, and that's all I can remember, that I was the star. But why I was the star, to this day, I don't remember.

LT: So did that prompt you to other roles?

DS: No, no, it was just something that they asked me to be. And I can't remember what grade it was, fifth grade or sixth grade.

LT: And this was at Japanese school or regular school?

DS: This is at Bailey Gatzert.

LT: Pardon?

DS: Bailey Gatzert, regular school.

LT: Okay, so this was at your regular school, but you were putting on a play about Japanese culture then?

DS: Yeah. So that was quite interesting. But most of the students were from Japanese families. A few, like I say, were Chinese, and Bailey Gatzert was in a district where it was like the melting pot, Chinese people lived two blocks from Jackson Street, that was Chinatown, and it still is. To this day, it still is. But that was just a melting pot school. We had nice teachers, all lady teachers, at that time they were all unmarried, you know, the law said you couldn't get married then. And they were very nice, caring older ladies. We all went to that school.

LT: Were your teachers at Bailey Gatzert Japanese or Chinese?

DS: No, they were Americans, Caucasians. They were all Caucasian ladies, older ladies.

LT: So they were learning Japanese culture, too, as they were including Momotaro and others in your curriculum, then. And can you talk a little bit about Japanese school and how that was different from Bailey Gatzert?

DS: Well, we went to Japanese school every day after school was finished, so it was about three o'clock. And we would all walk down the... Japanese school was down the hill. Mr. Nakagawa, I think he was the principal, and we just all walked down the hill, and it was right after Bailey Gatzert and I think we stayed there for maybe two hours every day. Teachers were all Japanese ladies, very strict. They taught us to learn to read, to write, to speak Japanese. And they were quite strict. They were quite strict as teachers. And I remember going to, after I finished there, my mother sent me to another Japanese school. It was run by Mr. Ishii, it was kind of a different school, very strict. And that was on Saturday. To this day, I don't know why she sent me there, but I did go. I think that went for about a year. And when I was eighth grader, I did not go to Japanese school after that. Probably thought I, it would interfere with my high school. Many people, many kids quit going to Japanese school when they were eighth graders. They didn't carry it over into high school.

LT: How did you feel about Japanese school?

DS: Oh, no, it's the way of life. We were told that we were to go to Japanese school and learn Japanese, and that's what we did. And they were strict. The teachers were very strict, but they were good teachers. And probably was a good thing.

LT: How were they strict?

DS: They were strict, and we had to... I mean, we couldn't talk in school. We had to pay attention to the teacher all the time, you know, it was very, they were very strict. They weren't lax in letting us chase around the room. They maintained the rules, and we had to follow the rules. But that was just a way of life. I mean, I can't speak Japanese today... I learned when I was in the Japanese school, but you forget what you don't speak.

LT: Sure.

<Begin Segment 5>

LT: So you talked about being the star of the play Momotaro. I'm wondering, growing up in Japantown with parents who were from Japan, how did you learn about Japanese culture, and what do you remember most about that?

DS: Well, when we were young, small, my mother... I took violin lessons and my youngest sister took piano lessons from these two Japanese sisters who lived up the hill. And my other sister took koto, koto lessons from this lady who was, had been a professional dancer and Japanese musician. And so I think that's why, how we were introduced, and I knew girls who took odori dancing, Japanese dancing, from professional ladies. And although I didn't take any Japanese instruments or learned how to do the Japanese dances, I was, I had friends and girlfriends who did, and I would go to their programs. They came to my recitals, and I think slowly it just sinks into you that you are Japanese, and culture is something that you're bound to grow up with. That's probably the extent of my...

LT: Did your parents talk to you about being Japanese or how you should behave as Japanese?

DS: No, not really. Not really. We were a minority race, naturally, a minority race, and like going to Bailey Gatzert was nothing because they were all minorities. And when we went to high school, that was a different story. I went to Franklin High School, which was on the south side there, and there were... most of the Japanese I think went to Broadway High School or Garfield. My sister, older sister, had gone to Franklin, so I went to Franklin, too. There weren't as many Japanese kids there as at Broadway or Garfield, so you kind of integrated more into the Caucasian society. The kids, they were all nice, we never felt any, I never felt any discrimination in high school, in all my classes. And I was lucky to be graduated from high school before the war started. My sisters, I think, finished their high school in camp, but my brother and my older sister and I, we all went to Franklin.

LT: Do you remember any adjustments when you moved from grade school, where most of your classmates were Japanese and Chinese, to middle school, or junior high, as you said, where there were many more Caucasians. Was it an adjustment, did you have to think about differences? Did you have "aha moments" where you thought, "Wait a minute"?

DS: No, we didn't have a junior high system. We went from eighth grade straight to high school, and I never felt that way of going to high school and being in, where all were, the majority were all Caucasians in all my classes. I may have been the only Japanese in some classes. And I just accepted that, and I never was discriminated on in high school. I don't remember anybody discriminating against me because I was Japanese. I think I was accepted with all the teachers and the kids.

LT: As you were becoming more involved with the hakujin community, your parents were still speaking Japanese, and they were more Japanese culture. How did that work for you and your family?

DS: My mother and father never tried to impress on me that I was Japanese, and that I should act like a Japanese. I mean, that was never an issue in our family. They accepted what we did in school, and there was no problem there, and no problem of my being accepted by the Caucasians in school, no discrimination, I never felt any discrimination in high school. I worked in the office, too, in high school, during my study period, so I got to know the teachers, all the teachers and the kids who were in charge of honor society or something. And I never, in all my four years in school, felt discriminated on because I was Japanese. I felt that I was accepted, and to me, that was not a big thing. I didn't... actually, it wasn't that important to me to be in school and to be... and I was accepted, so maybe that's why it wasn't important to me, because I was accepted.

<Begin Segment 6>

LT: Thinking back, at your home, with your parents who were Japanese from Japan, what was mealtime like? What did you eat?

DS: What did I or how did I?

LT: What did you eat and how did you eat?

DS: We ate always as a family. We always, all of us ate together every evening, we had dinner, we all ate together. And lunch, of course, when we were in school, we either took lunch or sometimes I ran home for lunch. But it was all, mostly Japanese food, and we all ate together. That's one thing we did was we all... you know, families now, the kids are in football or whatever, and they don't eat together. One of my daughter's friends was visiting us once from college, and he said, "Wow, you eat every meal together?" At home, he never ate with his family. I mean, it was because he'd come in and his mother would make him something and that was it. Well, we always ate together as a family.

LT: What do you remember eating? What might be a typical meal?

DS: Oh, it's usually rice, miso soup, and some okazu, you know, sukiyaki or something. And always coming home from Japanese school, and I would always wonder, "I wonder what Mom is making today for dinner." [Laughs] But it was always, mostly Japanese food. We grew up on Japanese food, or Chinese.

LT: And then during the meal, what did you talk about? Did everybody participate equally, did your father and mother lead the discussion?

DS: No, I think us kids, 'cause there's five of us, I think we dominated the conversation at school, and my parents would tell us what they thought of what we said. But, no, our dinnertime was not a battlefield. I mean, it was pleasant, as I remember, but I don't know. And then, of course, we had to clean up after that. I felt it was just a typical...

LT: And you were the middle child. You had, can you talk about your sisters and brothers?

DS: My older sister was very smart in books, and we all looked up there. And my brother was never the, see, my sister was very smart, and so she'd be in classes in high school where they knew her as being smart. Then came my brother, and he didn't, like all, maybe, boys, he didn't apply himself. So they expected him to be as smart as my sister in the classes, but they're the same classes, but he wasn't. And then I came along, and I wasn't dumb, but I wasn't smart, all that smart. My two other sisters below me, they graduated, like I said, they graduated in Puyallup. They graduated high school in Puyallup. So, yeah, my sister was very smart. She went to Seattle University, got her master's at Columbia, and the last job she had was at a counselor at Ingraham High at Seattle.

LT: As the middle child, were there some specific responsibilities that you had in your family?

DS: No, everybody had the same... no, there wasn't... my being a middle child was nothing different from sister who was below me, or my youngest sister, we were always treated all the same.

LT: Now your family did go through a transition that involved your father and your moving from the hotel. Can you talk about that a little bit?

DS: Yeah. Like I say, it was before I went to high school, we moved, we sold the hotel and moved into a place on, Poplar Place, it was just a little house, Japanese neighbors. And we just accepted it. Well, it was good for my mother not to be associated with the hotel as she was getting older, she was doing most of the work, and for her to get out of there. So it was mainly for her, I think, that my father and mother sold the place. And we lived at this house on Dearborn, and then later on, about a year after we bought this place on 26th Avenue where we were when the war broke out. You know, life just went on. I mean, I graduated from high school in '41 and the war started in '41, 'cause I was out of high school in June. And I worked at a little factory, I can't even remember what I did. And then when the war broke out, then that was it.

LT: And your mother was a single mother with five children, and too, with the passing of your father.

<Begin Segment 7>

LT: Okay. Well, let's talk about the war. On December 7, 1941, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Where were you and what happened, and what did you think?

DS: I think that I was in a movie theater. Maybe we remember that the intercom, I mean, came out and said all the servicemen were to report to the base right away, but they didn't say why. And until I came home, I didn't know what had happened. And I think it was through the radio that we found out what happened. I'm pretty sure it was the radio or somebody came over and told us that Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor and war was being declared. Then I thought, oh, that's why they told us at the movie theater, announced for the servicemen to report to their bases. I didn't know until I came home, and I thought, "Oh, wow, what's happening?" Yeah, soon after that, we were told, they imposed a curfew on us, we had to be in by, I can't remember what time. And my brother would invite guys over to play poker, and I remember his putting blankets over the basement windows so they couldn't see. And the Chinese people, they had buttons saying, "I am Chinese," so they wouldn't be taken as Japanese. So that was quite a jolt to hear that war was being declared, and what happened afterwards, that we had to evacuate.

That was an awful period of time, and actually, worse was when we had to leave and go into camp. But we were herded like sheep, and we never, I mean, we never questioned, where, I mean, today there would be riots protesting what the government tells us to do. But in 1941, no one did that, and I think actually the JACL was a very young organization, that they didn't have too much power behind them, and they couldn't fight... actually, you can't fight the government, and what happened was they told us we had to evacuate, and gave us time, and that's what happened. It was sad, but like I say, we didn't protest. They gave us time to... we were lucky, and we had friends who took care of our house for us, and they rented it during the war to soldiers and their wives, or their family, and so my mother, they would come back to the house after the camps were closed and she was in Chicago. She and my brother came back, and the house was still there, unoccupied, so they took up life. But it was really a sad, sad period of time there, what happened.

LT: When you learned that you would be leaving, that you would be forced to leave your home and leave Seattle, can you talk about your thoughts and then what you needed to do to prepare to leave?

DS: It was, like I say, a very bad time. We were told to leave, and we were told that we were to leave on such and such a date. We were to take only two suitcases. Of course, at that time, we didn't have anything, but today, that wouldn't even fill my shoes. But we just went along with what they told us to do. We did not protest. Like I say, we had these friends, my sister, older sister's friends, who said they would take care of our house, and that's the only thing we had was the house. We had good neighbors who said they'd watch the house. Other than that, we did what we were told.

LT: What do you remember about... you have one suitcase. What do you remember about the choices of what you were going to take and how you left the house?

DS: We left the house intact. Everything was in the house, we didn't take anything out of the house. And what we packed for ourselves was just clothes, shoes, and that's all we took was clothes. And of course, like I say, in 1941, we didn't own too much anyway, I mean, compared to what we are now. So two suitcases, each of us took two suitcases and we boarded a bus and went to Puyallup. And the house, we left it intact. All the furniture was in there, everything was in there. And then we didn't have to worry about, "What should we do with this," "what should we do with that." The Olsons were to take care of our house. They said, "Just leave everything." And so they rented it furnished like that. Well, when my mother came home, the stuff was still in the house. Of course, they had to dispose of a lot of stuff years later, but we never had a problem of what to do with this and what to do with that, 'cause we didn't have much. We didn't have anything except the house and furnishings in the house. So to us, it was not a problem like people who were on the farm had to dispose of the farm and the tractors.

LT: Your sister was not with your family.

DS: My oldest sister had gone on a tour of Japan. I think the war broke out in '41, she probably went in 1940. She's a Catholic, but she went with a Christian group. And this is what they did. They had, they called them kengakudan, and someone would lead a group. She went with, oh, maybe fifteen other young ladies of her age and chaperones. Of course, yeah, they boarded a ship, and so she was stranded in Japan when the war broke out. She was a Catholic and she was with Our Mothers of the Sacred Heart in Tokyo. And she went, I think she went to school there, or she taught at the Sacred Heart Academy in Tokyo. And then she was to come back on the first ship that was after the war started, she was to come back on a ship, and the mothers told her not to get on that ship because it would turn back, which it did. So then she was stranded on Japan during the war, so she was associated with the Sacred Heart school there, taught school there, and later went to work for General McArthur's forces in Tokyo, in the office. And then she was one of the first Nisei to come back to the United States, and the first ship that came back. And after she came back, she got a scholarship to Seattle University, she graduated there, and she started to work at the Seattle University and went to get her master's at Columbia, and then came back to work at Ingraham High in Seattle as a counselor. So she was the only one of us that went to college. All of us never did, and she just worked herself back in life in Seattle. Took care of my mother, she lived with my mother, took care of her, and she was happy to be back in the United States.

LT: So she was separated from your family when you went to the assembly center.

<Begin Segment 8>

LT: Can you talk about how the rest of your family went to the assembly center and where you went and what you thought when you got there?

DS: We went to Puyallup Assembly Center, and they were just all barracks. They were just rooms. And we all were issued cots and mattresses, I think, and we just slept there. All our meals were at the mess halls, and it was, the showers, they were all outside. They were outdoor lavatories, which we in the city never experienced anything like that. I think country people may have, but I thought surely life was very different. But this is what we had to do. We had neighbors, these rooms had open ceilings. And I think, I can't remember now, but they probably were six rooms in one unit. And we were herded in like sheep. I mean, we ate at the mess hall, we did this, we just... people. And then I think that was in April of '42 that we went. And I think in August we were sent to Minidoka, I'm pretty sure. But life was very different. And I think one thing that happened was the family was not a family anymore. Because the kids would eat with their friends, and the family never was like a family unit, and I think that carried on into Minidoka, too, where we went to eat, but we went to eat with friends, not family. So I think they destroyed the family life. You were with your friends more than you were with your family. It was just a... those barracks were just a place where we slept. We ate at mess halls, we did everything in the, out of our rooms, so I think what the war did to us then was destroy us as a family.

LT: What did you and your family need to do to keep in touch when you weren't eating the regular family meal where you talked about your day?

DS: I think the only time was when we were in our room to sleep, or in the morning where you're still, when we got up. And my brother would go his way with his friends, and we had our friends, but I think we stayed closer, us girls, than my brother did, 'cause he was always with his friends. But I think the family as a unit, they just lost touch. Like I say, we were there to sleep, and then to get up in the morning, but then we had our activities or friends to play with. And I think my sisters and I kept closer because we were girls, and my brother was a guy and he went with his friends. So I think that's what happened. I think it stayed the same in Minidoka, too.

LT: So what do you think about your... so the kids spent more time with their friends. What about your parents in terms of the family unit? So if they weren't with the family, how were they spending their time?

DS: I think they spent it with their lady friends, like my mother would gossip with their friends. We still kept, we didn't isolate ourselves from my mother. We always saw her and took care of her, that whatever she had to do was important to us to take care of her. So we still saw my mother and conversed with her, and we were there with her all the time. Not all the time, not twelve hours a day, but we were always with her, that she was our primary, we had to worry about her well-being, and we took care of her. So as a family unit, eating and all that, we didn't... I don't think I ever ate with my mother. But I think she probably ate with her lady friends. But that was about the extent of it.

LT: Okay, and then how did your father spend his time, stepfather?

DS: My stepfather had passed away before the war started, too.

<Begin Segment 9>

LT: So let's go back to August of 1942 when you first arrived at Minidoka. I'm wondering if you could take a photo image of it, what did it look like, what did it feel like, what did it sound like?

DS: My first impression of Minidoka was, "Oh my god, are we going to live here?" It was dust. I mean, dust was blowing all the time. There was sagebrush all around, it was very desolate, very discouraging to be there. You got out of the bus and it just, the dust was all over, just blowing. And I thought to myself, "My goodness, are we gonna have to live here?" And then we were issued our apartments, and they were, I mean, everything was just bare. I mean, it was just, it was the same situation like in Puyallup, just a room where you were issued cots and mattresses. But what was the worst was that dust, I mean, it was just all over. It just blew all the time. And, of course, everything was the mess hall, the shower rooms, everything was communal, I mean, everything. And we thought, oh, my mother was so, she was so discouraged, she actually got sick. I mean, not sick-sick, she was just, I think it just overcame her. And we had to take her to the hospital. She went to the hospital in the back of a truck, that was an insult. Big truck, she sat in the back of the truck. She was not physically ill, it was just emotionally, she just went to pieces. But she was okay several days after that, and never had a relapse of how she felt after that. She just accepted it. But I think we were all, I think we all felt that way, that it was just so desolate. It was just like us coming from the Pacific Northwest to go to Minidoka, it was just like a desert with sagebrush all around. My first impression was dust. I mean, it was just dust all over, and it blew all the time. Of course, later on, the winters were cold. I don't know whether we burned coal in our stoves or what we burned, but, oh, my first impression was terrible. And I don't think it ever changed, but you learned to accept what you have to go through every day, and that's what we did, accepted where we were stuck. But we were all like that, every one of us accepted what we were gonna go through.

LT: You mentioned that the family unit dissipated because you didn't eat together. You ate in a communal hall. The restrooms were also communal.

DS: Yes, yes, it was terrible. The restrooms, they were outdoor toilets, and the shower room was just open. You know what I mean, everybody took a shower there. I mean, no privacy. That was, to me, that was very hard to accept, I mean, the invasion. But that's what it was. And we weren't about to change it because we didn't like it, we had to accept what was given to us.

LT: So how did people respond to showering and going to the bathroom together? How did they deal with it?

DS: It was just something, I think you just had to, I mean, just something you had to do. I mean, what would you have done otherwise? You had to take a shower, you had to take a shower. You had to go to the bathroom, you had to go to the bathroom, it's outdoor. And like I say, growing up in the city, I had never been exposed to that. So I think for all the city people it was hard to accept. But that's what it was, and you had to learn to live with it. I think that's what we all did, we just learned to live with it.

LT: Can you talk about your daily routine?

DS: I got a job at the leave section where if you wanted to leave the camp, you had to go through us. And I think I got twelve dollars a month, and my bosses who were college educated got sixteen dollars a month, I think. I'm not real sure. I'm not real sure of the amount, but that's where I worked, so I'd get up, and I think I walked to work every day. I think there was a bus, but I walked to work, and that's where we stayed. We had lunch, and we worked probably 'til about five, then we came home and had dinner and whatever. They had a lot of things going for the young people there, dances once a week in the mess halls. And I know they had this guy from Seattle, Koichi Hayashi, he had a little band that still played. And then like my sisters had to go to school during the day. And then they had like Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girls Scouts, they had flower, they had little activities for age groups. And I don't think I ever went to flower arranging class or anything. And then you spent time just, like I say, horsing around with your friends, talking to friends. And the time goes fast. That's about what, actually going to work. Everybody I think had a job, some kind of a job, and that's what life was in camp.

LT: So you were processing leaves when people applied to go to school or to work. Can you talk about your job and the processes that people went through?

DS: You know, I don't remember too much about it, Linda, but I do remember that you had to have a place to go before you got out of camp. If you were going to school, you had to have a letter of acceptance from the school, or if you were going to join somebody you had to have a letter saying that you were being... and then I think they paid our way. In fact, I'm pretty sure they paid our passage. And I know when I left camp, I went with a friend of mine who was going to Madison, Wisconsin, and she was living with a preacher, minister, and I was going to Chicago to be with my friends. My mother was working in the mess hall in camp, so she packed a lunch for us, rice balls and chicken and all that, and we were in with the soldiers. And I think there were two other guys who were going to Chicago same time. But it was a long train ride, but it was good to get out of camp.

<Begin Segment 10>

LT: So let's go back, then, to your decision to leave camp. So your mother and you and three siblings were living in camp. How did you decide that you wanted to leave?

DS: Well, I think my mother was very much against it. My sister was in Chicago with her husband, and so I had a place to go. Well, my mother was very much against it. We had heard stories about Chicago, how bad it was in Chicago.

LT: In what ways?

DS: Well, they had, they said then they had "white slavery" where some people would meet you at the train station and take you away, girls, young girls. And so that was the story then and my mother thought, "Oh, you can't go." But I talked her into it, and she packed us a lunch. I just decided that it was time to get out of there, mainly because my sister was in Chicago and I had a place to go. And I had many friends in Chicago. A lot of people who left camp when to Chicago. So where I lived in Chicago was all people from camps. I knew a lot, I had a lot of friends in Chicago, and that was why I made my decision to go. Why would I waste more time in camp when I could go out? And because I had a place to go, I think it was easy for me to go. And like I say, my girlfriend went to Madison, Wisconsin, and she stayed, had a place to stay with the minister, and she went to the University of Wisconsin, that's where she was going. And her brothers, she had her brothers come out later, too. So that's why I went to Chicago.

LT: Okay. When you went to Chicago, what did you expect? You were a city girl from Seattle, you've been to camp in the rural area in Puyallup, now you're off to a new city. What did you expect life would be like there?

DS: Well, I expected that I was out of camp, and it would probably be like Seattle, I mean, city, much bigger than Seattle. And I had to go find a job, I knew that. I was able to stay with my sister. In fact, I stayed with her until... oh, yeah, my mother and sister got out of camp, and my brother got out of camp. I had to find a job, and my first job... and Chicago then was not like Chicago today. I mean, it was still, to me, it was a bigger Seattle, I mean, the town was big. But you could make your way, you could get on the streetcar, you can get on the streetcar and go places. And so I was able to take the streetcar and I don't know how he did it, go look for a job. I think I had... I don't know how I got this interview, but I went to a dental manufacturing place run by a sister and her husband, and her brother was in the navy. And I worked there for a while. It was a small place. And then I worked for some guy who was on Michigan Avenue, can't even remember what he made. And from there I worked at an optometry college. My boss had this place on Michigan Avenue, moved to this place, the optometry college, and he called me and asked if I would come. And so I went to work for them. And I think that's where I was when I left Chicago. But I lived with my sister for a while, and then, like I say, my mother... my younger sister and I lived together, and then my mother, then we all moved to the north side and lived with my sister who was married. And then we moved again to an apartment after her husband came back from the army.

LT: So your mother joined you?

DS: Yeah, my mother and brother, my mother and sister came out from camp and joined me when the camp closed. They had to come out. And my brother joined the army from camp, went to Shelby. And then he was sent overseas, and came to visit me once from Camp Shelby, and then he was sent overseas, and then he came back on the hospital ship. He had ulcers, developed ulcers and he was sent to the hospital, the VA hospital on the near north side in Chicago. And I remember going to see him with my girlfriend whose boyfriend was there, and we took the Elevated one night and went to the VA hospital to see him. And he was discharged soon after that. I think soon after that, they opened up the West Coast where my brother and my mother went back to Seattle. And our house was still there, so they just moved back in.

<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.

<Begin Segment 12>

LT: So thinking about when you left camp to go to Chicago, that was a big change. Can you talk about how you felt and what you were thinking at that time?

DS: Well, Chicago, to me, was just another city. And the reason I chose Chicago was because my sister was there. I mean, if my sister was in New York, I probably would have gone to New York. And I figured, being there, I had to make my own way so I wouldn't have to go look for a job and go on with life. And I think that probably was my attitude all through this evacuation, that you had to accept what happened to you and make the best of it and go on.

LT: What was it like to be, though, out of camp, especially the first day or two when you realized, "I'm not in camp, I'm in Chicago, life is different"?

DS: Life is different. It was a wonderful feeling. It was like being released. I mean, you can do what you want, you could go where you want, you could eat what you want, you could shop. I mean, you were free. You were free, and that's the way I felt, that I was free to do whatever I wanted to do, whatever that was. And my world was very small. It was a very small world. And then my mother and sister were able to come out, and we were all together again. And like I said, you learn to accept what's handed you and go on with life.

LT: Being outside camp in the Midwest, were there others who saw you as, especially your mother, as a citizen of Japan and equated you with the enemy, knowing that we were still at war? Were there instances where you faced prejudice?

DS: I don't think so... yeah, now I take that back. Because we looked for apartments, and they wouldn't rent to us. I mean, they just wouldn't, you know, you're "Japs." They wouldn't even consider renting to us. And little things I think we experienced, but I don't think I ever let it mount up to anything, so I was, so I would think, oh, I'm a low-class citizen. I never thought of myself as that. I was an American citizen, and we took what was handed to us, and life has to go on. I never really experienced prejudices except where you wanted to rent an apartment and they didn't, they refused you. I don't think I ever really experienced times when I was told, "You can't do that because you're a Jap." I don't think I ever experienced that.

LT: Can you recount an experience going to ask about renting and what the person said and how you responded?

DS: Well, naturally we just took it, like, I mean, when they said, "No, we're not going to rent it to you," they may not have come out saying, "because you're Japs." But we accepted it; we didn't fight it. I think we probably thought that that's what they would do, and many times you were rejected because of that. But I don't think we let it bother us too much except when I got here, again, I don't think we went into rages because we were... I think we just accepted those things. And prejudice, I think, still exists in different ways even today. But I don't think you could let it bother you. I'm ninety years old, and I don't let things like that bother me. [Laughs]

LT: So how did you feel when the war ended?

DS: Oh, that was so great. I remember being in Chicago when the war ended, and I think I was downtown in the Loop, and people were just going crazy that day.

LT: What were they doing and saying?

DS: Oh, they were just dancing and yelling and screaming, and it was just pandemonium. I mean, people were just going crazy, I remember that. And I thought, "Oh, wow." I thought, "Wow, finally." That was a good feeling, yeah.

LT: I have to ask, so you said people were dancing and screaming, so what did you do?

DS: No, I wasn't dancing or screaming. [Laughs] I was there, but not dancing or screaming.

LT: Okay.

<Begin Segment 13>

DS: So World War II ended in 1945. And what did you do after the war, and how did you decide to return to Seattle?

LT: I was working in Chicago, I think I was working at the optometry college. And I had a lot of friends in Chicago, and my sister, my two sisters were there. My youngest sister Jane, she had married. Yeah, she had married before I came back, and my other sister was there, and I had a lot of friends in Chicago. And this one year, my mother wanted to see her granddaughter, who was my sister Beth's oldest daughter. Audrey was five and a half years old, and so I took her home on the train. I took her back to Seattle on the train. And Audrey was five and a half, and I think when you turn five, you have to pay child's passage on the train. So I told Audrey, I said, "Audrey, I'm going to pretend like you're four and a half because I don't have to pay fare for you." So I said, "If you meet anybody, you're not to say you're five, you're to say you're four and a half." She was insulted. She met some friends on the train, and she had to tell them she was five. [Laughs] I didn't want to pay fare for her.

So I took her back to see my mother, and when I was there, I had some friends in Portland, so I went down, took the train and went down to see my friends in Portland. And one of the fellows said, oh, he'd be happy to drive us around, so three of us get out of the thing, Portland girls, we got in his car and he took us around and we went to see Lillian Toyota. We knew her in camp, all of us knew her in camp. She was married to Tom Toyota. And we dropped in to see her for half an hour or so, and then Lillian called, wanted to know what my address in Seattle was. And she sent her brother up, who was Ray, she told her brother about this gal who came to see her the other night with some of the girls, and, "She's from Chicago, and you ought to go up to Seattle to see her." So what's what he did. He came up to Seattle to see me. Yeah, and then he went back and would you believe he brought his mother and father up to see me? [Laughs] That was something. He brought his mother and father up to Seattle to meet me. And they had some friend in Seattle who also knew my mother, and so he wanted us to have dinner with him and I said, "No, I don't think I'll have dinner with you." I didn't know him, you know, I didn't know his parents, and I wasn't going to be on display. [Laughs] I said no, I wasn't going to go to dinner, so he went and took his folks home and came back up again. And then I had to leave for Chicago about two days after that, and that's when it started. He was very interested, and he called me all the time and sent me flowers, you know. When I was taking Audrey back on the train, she said, "Auntie Do has a boyfriend," because he gave me a dozen roses to go home, I mean, on the train. And that's when it started. And after corresponding and all that, I came back, I think I came back in December of '49 or something like that. Then we got married in February 1950. So that was a quick one, wasn't it? [Laughs]

And for me to get married and to be in Parkdale, Oregon, I mean, it was beautiful. But I'm from the city, living in Chicago with all the Elevateds going and all the noise and everything, I couldn't even sleep at night in Parkdale, it was so quiet. Now I can't go to the city and sleep because it's too noisy. But yes, it was definitely an adjustment for me being from the city to this place in Parkdale which I love, but it was really a definitely adjustment for me. First of all, they were raising chickens and what did I know about chickens? What do you feed 'em? And then I had to live with his father and mother, which when he said that, I didn't even, it didn't even make a difference to me. My friends were just aghast. They said, "What?" But I went along with it, and I knew a half a year into it, it wasn't going to work. I had to get out. But it took four years for me to get out, I mean, to get our own place, but I did. And you know, Japanese Issei, they tend to regard their daughter-in-laws almost like a maid, that, "You're going to do this and you're going to do that," and that's wasn't, it was not for me.

LT: Can you give an example of an expectation that an Issei mother-in-law might have and then what you, how you responded?

DS: Well, Issei mother-in-law, they want you to... well, first of all, Ray's mother thought that I should do everything she told me to do, wear an apron, you know, when I'm in the house, I'm supposed to do the dishes and all that kind of jazz. And I went along with it for a while, but then I figured it was not for me. I mean, I was not to be bossed around like that. I was not to live somebody else's life. And so I mean, I wasn't very popular with them because I didn't do everything they asked me to do, very little. So, you know, it just was not going to work out, especially with children, too. She was bad with the kids.

LT: I'm trying to decide, how would one tell an Issei mother-in-law that you don't want to wash the dishes any longer? You don't want to follow all the orders. That must have been difficult.

DS: Well, it was difficult, but you had to do it. I mean, I figured that she wasn't going to take hints. I mean, she was a person in her own right, don't get me wrong. She was a person in her own right, and I was not there to judge her where it affected me as a person. And didn't beat around the bush, I just straight out, I flat out told her that I didn't like what she told me, I wasn't going to do this, I wasn't going to do that. I was not married to her, I was married to her son. And that's what my marriage was, to her son. And I mean, it sounds bad, but I had to tell her flat out, I mean, no hemming and hawing. So as a result, they weren't very fond of me, the mother and father weren't very fond of me, but I didn't marry them.

LT: It must have taken a lot of courage.

DS: It did; it took a lot of guts. And I was, the whole family looked upon me as, oh god, you got to treat 'em better. It's not treating them better, it's asserting my rights as a human being, and as a wife to my husband. And I did that. So you can imagine how displeased they were with me, because they look around, and, Linda, you know, in the valley, a lot of sons and their wives lived with their in-laws, right, you knew that? And it wasn't working, but they thought, well, their standing in the community would be looked upon as you don't have power anymore. You're letting her tell you what to do. You know, so among their friends, they thought they'd lose a little respect among their Issei friends. I think that kind of worried them: "what are my friends going to say?" But anyway, I stuck up for my rights as a human being and as a wife to their son. Where did not like to estrange them from me, I felt that it was something I had to do, and it wasn't easy. It was not easy, because the whole family hated me because of that, I mean, because of my, they figured my disrespect. And it was not disrespect, it was standing up for your rights. But anyway, that's what I did. So life was bearable. I mean, it wouldn't have been otherwise. And I've talked to other gals in my situation in Hood River and they've said the same thing, where it was very hard. I didn't need any encouragement from other people, I mean, that was what I was gonna do. But I was looked upon as, "Wow, she's something else," you know?

LT: That was very un-Japanese, right?

DS: Yeah, yeah.

<Begin Segment 14>

LT: So you spoke candidly of life in the Japanese home. You were a city kid living in rural Hood River on an orchard. What was that transition like and how did you feel when you first realized what this life was like?

DS: Well, I'd say it was different. I mean, of course, you know, as a new bride you're starry-eyed and all that, but it was different being from the city and living only in the city. And come to live in the country, you know, my friends all clucked their tongues when they heard where I was coming to. You know, they just all clucked their tongues, and I don't think they gave me too many years, but I stuck it out. And I just love living where I do now, I mean, I just love it. But it was a transition that my husband was a farmer. But you know, Linda, I never worked out in the orchard. I remember being out there one... I think the year I first got married there was a bad windstorm, and Ray had a lot of apples and apple trees, and blew off a lot of apples, so his mother and father were out there. I don't know what they did with the fruit, they picked it in buckets. And so I was told to go out there and do that, and my mother-in-law didn't like the way I did it. But anyway, that was the only time I went out. Then I went out one year during the harvest, I think that was before I had the kids. Oh, and that must have been the first year I was there. He asked me to go out to check the fruit and harvest for punctures, which he probably did, too. And so I worked one harvest, I think, I was out there. Never asked again to go back. I never worked another day in the orchard in my life, mostly because I can't even lift the ladder. I can't even move a ladder, you know, and I was never asked to go work in the orchard. So to this day, I've never been out in the orchard for a day's pay. [Laughs]

But I love living where I do, and I love the kids growing up on the farm. It was different, but I think it teaches us something, too. My kids never, they had to go out and spend... oh, they worked in the strawberry field. I don't know if you did or not, but they're old enough to go to pick strawberries for Akiyamas. They all worked, they had to get up at a certain time and be ready to go. I think I took 'em out to Akiyamas', and they worked in the strawberries. And then when they were finished working in the strawberry, I think when they were seventh grade, they went out to thin. And I told them, "You go out a certain time in the morning, you're not to come in ten times for water. You stay out there until lunchtime, and you come in and eat lunch and you go back out there again." I mean, it was just the business. But they never changed water or anything like that. They got a little taste of it driving the jeep in the orchard. They loved to do that. But where I was concerned, I never spent the day in the orchard. But I learned to love living in Parkdale. I mean, I didn't drive, I didn't know how to drive, so when I first got married, I was stuck. I mean, I couldn't go to, like I did in the city, couldn't go shopping when I wanted to, I couldn't do anything when I wanted to. My husband had to take me to Hood River. But after I got my license it was different; I could go anytime.

But also, you know, like Ray's mother, I always felt sorry for her because she didn't speak English, she didn't know how to drive, she was stuck. She had to ask her husband to go to the store for her. She used to walk up to McIsaac's. She never went to Hood River to shop, and if she went, she didn't know how to shop. I mean, she didn't even know how to give money and count the change. I mean, she just didn't know those things; she never learned. I always felt sorry for her about that. First of all, she didn't speak English, but then she could have gone to Hood River and shopped. But because she didn't drive, she had to ask her husband. It was just a different life for her. I felt she was just stuck, you know. Whatever she did was cooking and cleaning and nothing for herself. I always felt sorry for her.

I enjoyed my life in Parkdale after I got used to it, because I could go where I wanted to. We went to Portland often, we went to Seattle, my folks were, my mother and extended family are in Seattle, and today I just love living where I am.

<Begin Segment 15>

LT: Another example of your making do and figuring things out. I want to go back to postwar because your husband Ray was one of the first three Nisei to return to Hood River. And first of all, I'm wondering what had you learned about Hood River during the war time?

DS: Well, I didn't know anything about what happened to Hood River, for people in Hood River, until I got married, until I met Ray and got married and came to live there. Then I found out.

LT: And what did you find out?

DS: Ray had a scrapbook. He kept a scrapbook of the Hood River News, the ugly things about the Hood River News about the American Legion, and he kept scrapbooks from the newspaper and stories about when he first came back. And that's when I learned how bad it was in Hood River. Of course, like in Seattle, it's a bigger city, we never faced that kind of discrimination. And Ray's life after he came back, that was really, really sad, because those three guys, I think one was your uncle, right? Seth, and what they went through and how people treated them, I mean, the discrimination was just prevalent, I mean, everywhere you went. I remember Sheldon Lawrence writing a story to the Hood River News, he was a captain in the service, and he came home one year and he went to get a haircut at a barber shop in Hood River. And while Sheldon was sitting there, he said this Japanese American soldier came in, dressed in uniform. And the barber told him to get out. He says, "I don't give haircuts to Japs." And Sheldon wrote that in the paper, in the Oregonian, he wrote to the Oregonian. He was just appalled by it. But I think the treatment of the Nisei returning to the valley was, I think it was unheard of. I never heard of such hatred as existed in Hood River.

LT: What did Ray say about his experiences when he came back?

DS: Well, he said that living in the house and they'd hear noises, and they were so scared, they thought somebody was going to come do something bad to them. And he said Mr. McIsaac, who owned the McIsaac store, he was such a good guy. He gave them groceries, and they couldn't buy gas anywhere, they couldn't go to, they were just really, and Mr. Linville, Clyde Linville, who was, I don't know what his title was, but he helped them a lot.

LT: The WRA rep?

DS: Yeah, Mr. Clyde Linville, who I got to know later, 'cause Clyde lived in Hood River for a while, too. But Ray thought it was just horrid. He thought it was just horrible that the people... and his property was taken care of by John Cooper who was a neighbor down the road, and everything was just like he left it. Ray was so lucky the house was still there when he came back, and Ray felt he was so lucky that Mr. Cooper had taken care of his place, and a lot of people lost their farms and bad things happened. Mr. Cooper was very honest and a good guy, and he took good care of Ray's orchard.

LT: So once you learned about the situation in Hood River and how Japanese had been discriminated against, what did you think? Did that affect how you interacted with the community?

DS: No, I was aghast. I mean, I could hardly believe what happened in Hood River. But again, I chalk that up to wartime hysteria, that people, if they don't, I mean, go with the majority, they're looked upon on their own side from other people as traitors, siding with the "Japs." So I was horrified to learn of all that happened. But my feelings toward people did not change, I mean, the people in the valley, because I think it was all wartime, to me, it was wartime hysteria and the way people reacted.

LT: Once you lived in the valley, did you face prejudice?

DS: No, I never did. I never did. Parkdale used to have firemen's dances and everything, and I remember dancing with some of Ray's friends. And they'd tell me, "Now, Dorothy, just be sure. Nobody's going to do bad to you." You know, they were very encouraging to me, as someone coming from outside, and being a member of the community. They were very encouraging to me. And I never faced prejudice here in the valley. Like I think by the time I got here, I think there still was prejudice, but I don't think it was as bad. I think there always will be prejudice, I mean, jealousy. I think that's what festers it, jealousy among people. But I never was faced with anything like that.

<Begin Segment 16>

LT: So how did you feel about the redress movement from Japanese Americans?

DS: I thought that was great. I thought that, finally, the government is doing something to say, "Hey, we're sorry." But you know, that $20,000 a person, I mean like me, I had nothing when I left. I mean compared to people who had acreage and lost a lot. To me, I mean, I had nothing. What I mean is we didn't have a business, we just had a house. And I thought, "Wow." But to a lot of people, that doesn't pay for anything. It was just... oh, I can't think of the term now. It was not exchanging value for value, it was just... I can't think of the term now. But anyway, to me, I thought, well, great. But then a lot of people lost a lot during the war, which I don't think you can ever get back or even think about. But I thought redress, I thought it was necessary for the government to say, maybe, "I'm sorry it happened." Maybe that was their way of saying, maybe, "I'm sorry." I don't know.

LT: You have a son and two daughters. What do you tell them about your experiences facing prejudice and your experiences during the war?

DS: Of course, listening to me tell about, they can't imagine how it could have happened in the United States. Because they've studied a lot, and they can't imagine, how would that happen to citizens residing in the United States? That's their thoughts. But what happened and how I tell it, they don't like to hear about it. But they don't know... my kids never spoke Japanese. I don't know, did you, Linda?

LT: Not until I was an adult.

DS: Yeah. My daughter took evening classes at, I don't know, somewhere in Portland, but they never, we never talked to them in Japanese. Mainly because I think after we came back from the war, we were told, "Assimilate in the Caucasian society. Don't stand out as Japanese." I think that's what we were told. I remember talking to Dr. Carter about that once and he said, "Well, you're probably right." He said, "Well, you should have taught your kids Japanese." I think he was Danish or something, and his parents taught him how to speak in Denmark, wherever he was from. But we never taught our kids how to speak Japanese, which I think today, I should have. They knew how to count, 'cause Ray told them how to count in Japanese, and they also knew all the bad words, but I think right now, I think, yeah, I should have taught them how to speak Japanese, which we didn't, and I regret that. But their thoughts about what we went through was just like reading it in the books or hearing it from your folks, and wow, just ugly.

LT: So it sounds like you're saying that your goal as you were raising your kids was to assimilate and not to integrate as much about Japan and Japanese American culture?

DS: Right. My granddaughter, like I say, the second granddaughter, is a senior at U of O. And she was just aghast at what happened. Ray has a scrapbook of what happened, like I said, and one summer she was up, and she found that scrapbook, and she went through, and she couldn't hardly believe. She couldn't hardly believe, and she wrote a paper on that, which she's a very good journalist, and she wrote a paper on there that just, what she got from the scrapbook and put into words herself was just amazing, what she found in those scrapbooks. It was just amazing. She said she could not hardly believe, and I couldn't hardly believe it, too, when I heard it. But I think you live with it.

<Begin Segment 17>

LT: As you look back on your life, how would you say your wartime experience affected who you are now?

DS: Yeah, I think that what we went through should never have happened. And I think, you're right, Linda, I think it affects you as person growing up. I was only in my teens when the war broke out, and it was a very vulnerable age. I think it has, in everything I've done, it probably has affected me without saying this is what happened. I think unconsciously, my actions and everything, I think it reflects my past: my growing up in Seattle, went through the war, living as long as I am, I think it has affected me in many ways that I can't put my finger on.

LT: What do you think your grandchildren and others should learn about Japanese Americans?

DS: Yes. I think like Densho and Oregon Nikkei, I think they're great in pursuing that the people should know what happened. I strongly believe in that. I want my grandchildren, every one of them, to know what happened, to read, and to reflect on it; what can happen to you. My oldest granddaughter graduated Gonzaga last year, and she was working in Spokane up to several weeks ago when she finally moved back to Portland, she wanted to be closer to her family and she just got a job last week, so she's really happy about that. She worked at an ad agency. And my second granddaughter, she's a senior, a very good journalist. Her writings are just way up there. And she puts herself into projects; like if I told her, "Julianne, look into this." I mean, the evacuation, she'd go all out. She'd write papers and papers and papers on it, she's that way. She's a thinker, and she goes after everything. My grandson Zach is a junior in high school at Lake Oswego. He plays varsity basketball and varsity football, and is getting right there where he's going to take the SAT and all that, so he's thinking college and getting to be involved with thinker. He's athletically inclined, so he spends a lot of time, which I think is great, his commitment to athletics will help in this world as a citizen. But I do want them to know what happened to my generation; I do want them to know that. And I will make it a point for them to know, to learn more about it. I do believe that the public should be made aware of what happened. And everybody doesn't know. Do you know that one of the encyclopedias, I think it's the Britannica -- I may be mistaken in that -- does not have one mention of evacuation? Isn't that interesting? In all their volumes of books, it doesn't mention it. I think it was the Britannica, I'm not quite sure.

LT: What's important in life?

DS: For me now as a ninety-year-old, to live every day. And don't let things get you down. I have three great grandchildren, I mean, grandchildren who are great kids. And my kids, Gordon is next door, Peggy is in Salem, and Sally, and I see them all the time. And I'm content. I live in a beautiful place, and I can't... I see the mountain every day, Mount Hood is in my backyard, and I love where I live. I am content.

LT: Thank you so much.

DS: Thank you, Linda.