Densho Digital Archive - Albert A. Oyama Interview

Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Albert A. Oyama Interview
Narrator: Albert A. Oyama
Interviewer: Janet Kakishita
Location: Lake Oswego, Oregon
Date: November 10, 2013
Densho ID: denshovh-oalbert-01

<Begin Segment 1>

JK: Today's date is Sunday, November 10, 2013. This interview is taking place at the residence of Albert and Masuko Oyama in Lake Oswego, Oregon. Todd Mayberry and Betty Jean Harry from the Oregon Nikkei Endowment are observing this interview, and Ian McCluskey from NWDocumentary is the cameraman. I am the interviewer Janet Kakishita, and I will be interviewing my uncle, Albert Oyama, for this project, sponsored by the Oregon Nikkei Endowment, part of the Minidoka oral history project. Uncle Albert, we're going to start with some personal questions getting to know you, like when and where were you born?

AO: I was born in Portland, Oregon, Emanuel Hospital, April 10, 1926.

JK: And at that time, where were your parents living?

AO: They were living out in Montavilla, which is an east side district of Portland area.

JK: And what was the name that you were given at birth?

AO: Albert Akira Oyama.

JK: And is there any significance to your name?

AO: Not that I'm aware of. Akira, in Japanese, I understand, means "bright light." But other than that, I don't know anything about it.

JK: Okay. And let's talk a little bit about your father, get to know your father. What was his full name?

AO: His name was Iwao Oyama, and he's from Japan. He grew up in Yamanashi-ken, which is an area due west of Tokyo. He grew up as a farmer's son, though his grandfather, I understand, was a medical doctor in that area.

JK: And how about your dad? Was he going to school then?

AO: Yes. He was the second-born in his family, and I believe he was the second. And he went to Waseda University in Tokyo. He graduated from Waseda, which, at that time, was known primarily as a journalism school. So he graduated there before he came over to the United States.

JK: Okay. And how did he decide to come to the United States?

AO: That I don't know. I never talked to him about that.

JK: Do you know how many brothers and sisters he had?

AO: I think he was the second in a family of five children.

JK: And then let's talk about your mom. What was her name?

AO: Her name was Izumi Abe, and she grew up in, was born and grew up in Yamagata-ken, which is northwest of Tokyo.

JK: And what kind of work did your mother's family do?

AO: They were all in agriculture.

JK: And how did your mother decide to come, her family decide to come to the United States?

AO: That I don't know, although she was one of the few that went to college, she graduated from Tokyo Women's College. And why she decided to come to the U.S., I don't know. I don't even know if she knew my father at the time when she came over or not.

JK: Okay, let's talk about both of them now. How did they meet and get together?

AO: Again...

JK: Do you know?

AO: I don't know. All I know is that they met, and I believe they both met in Seattle. And my mother's uncle was a newspaper man, and he ran the newspaper in Portland, Japanese newspaper in Portland, Oregon. So I think my father came down to Portland to learn the newspaper, because my uncle wanted to go on down to San Francisco, and do a Japanese newspaper in the San Francisco Bay area. My mother evidently came to Portland about the same time, and they were married here in Portland in 1922. So that was probably a year or two after they came over from Japan.

<Begin Segment 2>

JK: Thinking of your father, how would you describe him and his personality?

AO: Well, strictly a businessman. He ran the Japanese newspaper, as I said, it was a regular printer with Japanese type, and had about, I guess around twenty or twenty-five employees at the time.

JK: What else do you remember about the newspaper? Did you get to go down and help at the shop?

AO: I used to deliver papers. And I'd deliver to all the north end Japanese people, businesses, and I remember being paid eight dollars a month for that job.

JK: And did you do it by bike or bus?

AO: I walked. In the north area, most of the businesses were close together in what's now known as Japantown, so I just walked that route. The south was a little farther spread out, but I did not deliver in the south, there was another route, that place.

JK: What was the name of the newspaper that your dad started, and where was it located?

AO: It was called the Oshu Shimpo, and Japanese type only, no English, and it was a daily, Monday through Friday.

JK: And where was this newspaper office located?

AO: The office is at the site now where the Nikkei Endowment office is, at Second and Davis.

JK: So if you could think back, walking into your dad's newspaper, what would a person see? I mean, what did the business look like with the twenty, thirty people working?

AO: Well, the thing that impressed me the most was his desk. And the reason his desk impressed me, it was always covered with papers and everything. But around three edges of the table, there were cigarette burns on all three edges, because my dad was a very heavy smoker. [Laughs]

JK: How did they do the print in Japanese?

AO: It was all type, it was sent over from Japan. So there was no hand typing or anything like that, it was all individual characters that were on lead type, and the ladies used to pick out the type from a large collection on the board. They would put it onto the press and have a printer, a mechanical printer that printed the paper.

JK: We'll get back to the newspaper as we go through our interview, different phases. What was your mom like? What was her personality?

AO: Well, that's not too easy for me to say. I didn't have too much to share with her. I was, I think I had one sister, Minnie, and I think the two of us pretty much grew up by ourselves, because my dad was never at home, he was always on business downtown or talking at various groups and things. So we never saw too much of him as we were growing up. But my mother was always at home.

JK: And what did you observe about the relationship between your mom and dad? How did they deal with difficult situations, or how did they show affection?

AO: My dad never used to take me fishing or hunting or anything, but we did always go to the community picnics that were held. And both my father and mother were members of the Nichiren Buddhist Church, so my sister and I of course went with him to the church.

<Begin Segment 3>

JK: I'm going to talk now about your childhood. You said you had a sister Minnie. Was she older than you or younger?

AO: She was two years older than I was. At the time when we grew up, we lived out in Montavilla as I mentioned, so we did not know many of the downtown north end or south end Japantown people. So we were sort of isolated from the Japanese community. Most of my friends were hakujin friends. There were a few Japanese families that lived out in the Montavilla-Troutdale-Gresham area that we knew, but they were few and far between. Most of my friendships, as I say, were with the hakujins. Also, my dad took me downtown to the YMCA, and he got me to be a member of the YMCA, downtown YMCA group, and so I had a lot of friends, mostly all hakujin friends, at the downtown YMCA, the one on Sixth and Taylor.

JK: What kind of activities did you do as a young person when you were out in Montavilla?

AO: We had a basketball team of all the kids my age. We didn't play much football or baseball, mostly basketball, 'cause that was probably the easiest sport to play without equipment. So I think that was the primary thing that kept us going. Also, in Montavilla, there was a park present, so we used to go to the park and play a little bit there.

JK: And so your basketball team was mostly hakujins?

AO: Yes.

JK: And did you move from Montavilla?

AO: Yes. When I became high school age, we moved to, close to Washington High School, 17th and Ankeny, which is right next, one street over from Burnside street on the east side. But it was within walking distance of Washington High School, so we went to school there.

JK: Were there... what was the population like at Washington? Were there Japanese there?

AO: There were a few. Again, only a few. Most of my friends there also were hakujins.

JK: And what kind of activities did you continue to pursue or start up there?

AO: I played basketball, continued to play basketball there. I managed to play on the Washington junior basketball team, not the major, the regular team, but the junior team. And then I took up the sport of table tennis. And so I played a lot of table tennis and got to be pretty adequate as far as that's concerned.

JK: Did you move again, or was that your...

AO: No.

JK: Okay.

AO: We lived there on 17th Avenue.

JK: How did your family decide to move to Montavilla and then to the Washington High School area?

AO: I don't know. Of course, my sister and I were both very young at the time, so I don't know why, other than the fact that my father probably figured that since we were growing up, that it would be better to go closer in to town and take some part in the Japanese community activities, which I did. I became a member of the Troop 123, which was the Boy Scouts, Japanese Boy Scout troop, and I participated in the Japanese community's basketball group. They had a regular league of basketball players, and played every Sunday at Peninsula Park.

JK: And so this is how your family helped to keep you involved with the Japanese community?

AO: Yes.

JK: And did you do other things besides, did you go to Japanese school?

AO: Oh, in Montavilla there was a Japanese school in Russellville, and we went to school there in the evening, three times a week, Monday-Wednesday-Friday. So I was exposed to the Japanese language and Japanese teaching. Dr. Nakata, the dentist, was one of our teachers in Montavilla.

JK: So what was the curriculum mostly focused on? To have the ability to do conversational Japanese or to read and write?

AO: Reading and writing. I remember one story, there was one fellow named Aki Makino, who lived out in Montavilla close to where we lived. And during the annual recital time, he was supposed to sing a song. And the song is "Haru ga Kita," which means, "Spring is Here." And he started to sing that song, instead of saying, "Haru ga kita," he said, "Saru ga kita," and saru in Japanese is "monkey." [Laughs] And so when he got by the first line, the whole audience broke up. It was quite an interesting recital at that time.

JK: Did you have a part in the recital, too?

AO: Yes, but I don't remember... I had nothing funny happen like that, so I don't remember much about my participation.

JK: Did you live in houses when you were growing up?

AO: Yes, just regular houses.

JK: Uh-huh. What do you remember about them?

AO: Oh, I used to do a lot of shoveling of coal and hauling wood, because all we had was potbellied stoves in the Montavilla area. And then, of course, we moved into, by Washington High School, we had a regular wood furnace. So I still had to handle wood, the heating went much easier.

<Begin Segment 4>

JK: Did you have any other responsibilities, too, when you were growing up, besides keeping the fires going?

AO: No, not much. There wasn't much to do. I remember my father saying that... he had a car, of course, and he used to drive us around. And when I became fifteen, close to sixteen, he said, "Well, pretty soon you're going to be driving, but you have to know a lot more about cars than putting in gas and water." So I said, "Like what?" And silence. [Laughs] He didn't say anything else after that. I got to learn how to drive after I turned sixteen.

JK: Did he teach you?

AO: No, he was already interned. I didn't turn sixteen until after the war started. I was fifteen in December of '41. So the war started before I turned sixteen.

JK: Before you could learn from Dad, okay. Thinking of your family life, what was mealtime like? Did your dad come home for dinner?

AO: Well, I think most of the time probably so, but I just can't remember, not clearly, whether he did or not.

JK: Were there any special meals you remember that your mom used to cook?

AO: Oh, only at special occasions like New Year's and so forth, they would have very fine banquet type dinners. Other than that, not routine. Routinely we had rice every evening, of course.

JK: But any favorite dish that your mom made that you enjoyed eating?

AO: Nothing special, no.

JK: Okay. Did your family do activities together for outings or for fun?

AO: Well, these picnics, these undoukais, they called them. They were the Japanese community picnics, and that's about the main outing that we participated in. There was always, of course, church, Nichiren church gatherings that we went to as a family.

JK: Okay, well, think about the picnic. What do you remember about the picnics that you attended?

AO: Mostly it was a chance to get to see, meet and see other friends from the other areas. We used to have races, running races and three-legged races, things of that nature.

JK: And what kind of food did they have at the picnics?

AO: Oh, bento food just like in the boxes that you brought over and showed us today.

JK: And how about Nichiren? What kind of activities do you remember at church taking place?

AO: Well, the main activity that I remember is going to play tennis before church on Sundays. We used to go to Benson High School, which is on the east side, and they had tennis, outdoor tennis courts there. And that's where I met my wife when we were still young kids. And we used to play tennis there and then go to church and sit through Sunday school at church. I can't remember much about Sunday school because most of the teachings were in Japanese. And my understanding and speaking of Japanese was pretty limited, because I didn't learn that much out in Montavilla Japanese school.

JK: Did they have any special holidays that they celebrated?

AO: Oh, yes, they did, regularly, but I don't know what they were, though.

JK: Did they try to include American holidays in your celebrations?

AO: I don't know. I can't remember. Oh, in our family, you mean?

JK: Well, we'll get back to your family, but at church. I was thinking of church.

AO: Church I can't remember, no.

JK: Okay, well, let's get to your family.

AO: The family, yes, we all celebrated the regular American holidays just like everybody else did, Thanksgiving and Christmas and so forth.

JK: Okay. Your school. Probably Montavilla would be your grade school, right?

AO: (Vestal) Grade School.

<Begin Segment 5>

JK: What do you remember about grade school days?

AO: One incident that I could remember is being a little bit late in going to school, and when I got to school, all the kids were already inside the school building, and I couldn't open the school door because the doors were so heavy. And so I went home crying and then my mom brought me back to school, opened the door for me, and explained to the teacher why I was late that day. I still remember that incident because I just wasn't strong enough to open that school door. [Laughs]

JK: And what do you remember about your classroom or your classmates? Were they mostly hakujin?

AO: Yeah, almost all hakujin. I can only remember one Asian girl that was in the same class as I was, and her name was Grace Wong. She was a Chinese girl whose family lived in the Montavilla area. But I had no other Japanese or Chinese classmates in my class.

JK: How did the kids, the other kids in the classroom treat you?

AO: Oh, I never felt any separate treatment or prejudice or anything. I think I felt pretty much like I belonged there, and nobody made fun of me or did anything to make me feel like I was not fully acceptable by the school and the kids.

JK: Were they interested in your culture and heritage? Did they want to learn more about what Japanese was?

AO: No, not that much interest.

JK: So you had no opportunity to share. Would they come home to your house and do things with you?

AO: Oh, yeah. I'd go to their place and they'd come over to my place, and we'd play and so forth. But there wasn't much discussion or talking about being Japanese or anything different.

JK: Okay, how about when you moved to Ankeny area and went to Washington High School? Do you have any interesting memories of your high school days?

AO: Well, I remember playing basketball on the junior team, which was the secondary team, not the main team. And I remember, after the war broke out, I remember our team traveling to different schools, and I remember it was either Jefferson or Roosevelt, and the only prejudiced thing that was said was when I was going to shoot a foul shot, somebody in the audience said, "Remember Pearl Harbor." I still remember that voice saying that. But other than that, there wasn't any prejudice against me. I was also very interested in table tennis as I mentioned, and I became pretty proficient in that. I joined the Portland table tennis club which had a facility right across the street from the downtown public library. So I used to go there quite often to play table tennis. I entered many of the tournaments that we had there for boys that were sixteen and under. After the war broke out in December of '41, all of the Japanese ancestry people were supposed to be in their homes by eight o'clock, and not be outside away from home after eight p.m. every night. Well, I wanted to enter the tournaments that they had, table tennis tournaments downtown in the club, and so I had to, quote, "break the rules" and stay there past eight o'clock. But because I did that, I was able to win the Oregon State sixteen and under boys table tennis tournament. The Northwest tournament was held in February of that year, of 1942, and so I became the northwest boys sixteen and under champion. And then I played at the Pacific Coast championship, which was also held in Portland that year, in '42, and I won that. So I became the Pacific Coast sixteen and under boys table tennis champion, and I had some kind of national seeding of twenty or twenty-one or something like that.

JK: Were you worried about breaking the...

AO: Oh, yeah, 'cause I knew I wasn't supposed to be out after eight p.m., but I wanted to win the tournament, so I stayed out and I played in the tournament.

JK: Were your parents worried or did they know that you were doing this?

AO: No. Well, my dad was already interned by that time.

JK: And so your mom?

AO: Yeah. Nobody ever said anything.

JK: How about your tennis team, your table tennis team? Were they concerned or did they help you?

AO: No, they didn't say anything. There were several Chinese players at the tennis club, and they were more sympathetic to me than anything else.

<Begin Segment 6>

JK: What are your memories of Japanese community events when you were growing up? You talked a little bit about the picnic, but are there other community events that your family or you participated in?

AO: I joined the Japanese community's Boy Scout troop, Troop 123, which met at a Methodist church downtown. We formed the drum and bugle corps, so we used to get together and play at various festivities, and we played in the Rose Parade here in Portland. We were invited up to play in the Seafair Parade that they had up there every summer. I didn't make it up there because I had the mumps at the time, so I didn't get to make that trip. But I played the bell lyre because I had taken piano lessons, and so I knew all about the musical notes, and so I played the bell lyre in the drum and bugle corps.

JK: Did your parents have expectations about keeping Japanese culture alive in you and Minnie, or did they talk about how you have to be Japanese and how you have to American?

AO: I don't think that was stressed very much. My parents took my sister and me to Japan when we were, I think I was four, five, six years old or something, and we stayed there for maybe less than a year. But other than that, they did not emphasize anything about Japan or Japanese culture. I think they pretty much assumed that we were going to be assimilated into the regular U.S. American culture.

JK: When you went to Japan, do you have any memories of that? You were like six years old, you said. Can you remember anything? Did it impress you?

AO: I can't remember anything except one thing, and that was that they had all these shoji screens in Japan, and I can remember pointing my finger and poking my hole through the shoji screens and getting bawled out by my parents and their brothers and sisters. That's all I can remember about Japan. [Laughs]

JK: So they spent a while there with family, and you were able to meet family, but you were very little then?

AO: Yes.

JK: How did you travel? Was it by ship?

AO: Yes, it was by ship.

JK: What do you remember about that trip? Was it long?

AO: I don't remember much at all.

<Begin Segment 7>

JK: Your father's business, we talked about that, and we talked about that you did have some responsibility delivering the paper. Is there, did your father own this himself?

AO: Yes. I think that the paper was started by a relative of my mother's, a Mr. Abe, he would have been my mother's uncle. He came to Portland long before my father and mother came here, and started the Japanese paper here. And then he wanted to move down to San Francisco to either start or handle the paper in the Bay Area, so I think at that time he invited my dad to take over because of his journalism background, to take over the newspaper here in Portland.

JK: So then your dad bought the business from him?

AO: I don't know if he bought it or given it, I don't know anything about the finances of it.

JK: And it sounds like your dad's paper was very successful.

AO: Yes.

JK: Because it distributed not only to Portland, but where else was it being distributed?

AO: It was mailed out to all the various subscribers in the Japanese communities and towns like Hood River and the Dalles, and other surrounding communities. So it was pretty well widespread throughout Oregon.

JK: And your dad covered local news, national news, and international news?

AO: Yes, the whole thing, right.

JK: Where was he getting his international news from?

AO: I don't know enough about the business to say where he got it, I don't know.

JK: Okay, but he was keeping everyone updated --

AO: Yes.

JK: -- who subscribed.

<Begin Segment 8>

JK: When Pearl Harbor happened, where were you? How did you first find out about Pearl Harbor being bombed?

AO: I was out, and as I mentioned, I played basketball in the Japanese basketball league, and we played every Sunday at Peninsula Park, they had a gymnasium near where we played. So I was there playing basketball when word came out that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

JK: And what did you do?

AO: Well, we came home immediately after that. And when I came home, the FBI agents were, there were, I think, three of them, were still in our house, and they were searching our house for my father. And my mother told him that he was down at the office downtown, but they wanted to search the house anyway. So they were going through every nook and cranny and door of the house looking for him. And then they finally left, and they found him down at the office downtown.

JK: What were your feelings at the time you saw the FBI searching?

AO: Well, I didn't know what to expect, but I figured since he was a newspaper, he ran a newspaper, he would be one of the... I would expect him to be one of the first ones to be picked up by the federal government, and he was.

JK: And what happened when they took him? Did you know where he went?

AO: Yes, he was put in Multnomah County jail, and I don't know how many Japanese community leaders were there, but there were a number of them there. I did have the opportunity to go visit him there at the jail a couple of times, and I do remember going there and seeing him at the jail.

JK: What did you two talk about?

AO: Well, I don't know. Of course, the newspaper folded that day when they took him. And so my mother and the other people who were helping out at the newspaper packed the printing press, I believe he had two presses and a whole bunch of, lot of type, packed the two printing presses and the type up in boxes and stored them across the street at a hotel called the Foster Hotel, which was run by, I believe it was owned and run by a Japanese person that my dad knew. And they stored all of his equipment in the basement of that hotel. So he had nothing left in the office and the printing area.

JK: What was your mom's reaction? How was she reacting to all this happening to your dad?

AO: Well, I don't know. I never sat down with her and discussed anything. I was fifteen at the time and at that age, I of course had no knowledge whatsoever about finances or anything other than lunch money and making a little money to buy candy and stuff. So I didn't have any discussion with her about him, but she must have gone through an awful lot to survive all that trouble.

JK: How about your sister Minnie?

AO: She was in college, she was in her first year of college at the time that the war broke out, so she was at home.

JK: How were your neighbors or your schoolmates responding about Pearl Harbor or what was happening to your dad?

AO: As I mentioned before, I didn't really feel any bad effects from any of my hakujin friends. They all treated me very respectfully, and I didn't have any difficulties. I did not meet with overt prejudice. One of the teachers, my English teacher, called Miss Plympton, she was very sympathetic, I remember. I did not get any offensive treatment at all at the school that I attended.

JK: Did you find out from other kids that their fathers were also taken?

AO: Oh, yes.

JK: Were you supportive of each other or kept each other updated?

AO: Yes. I don't think there was any group activity or community activity, because all the ones that were the community leaders were the ones that were all taken. So there was no community leadership left amongst the ones that were not put in jail.

JK: When you did receive notice that you needed to pack and report to the assembly center, what did your family have to do to get ready besides packing away your father's printing presses? How did your mom and you and your sister handle your home, your personal effects?

AO: Yeah, we were renting the house. I remember we had to sell our car, we had a Graham, which my mother sold. I don't know what she did with all of the other belongings because all we could take with us to the assembly center was what each one of us could carry. So we just had one bag that each of us was allowed to take to the assembly center.

JK: And what did you pack special in your bag?

AO: I can't remember, other than clothes. The only thing that I can specifically remember was because I played basketball, I had a wire eyeglass protector that I wore when I played basketball, so I do remember taking that and making sure that I had that in case I was able to play basketball wherever we went.

JK: And how did you get your father's things to him? I mean, how did he get ready to go to his relocation?

AO: I have no idea. I don't know anything about his clothes or anything like that at all.

<Begin Segment 9>

JK: When you went to the assembly center, what was your first impression when you entered?

AO: The only thing I remember was the smell of the horse manure, because it used to be a horse barn, where the assembly center was. And the smell just was overwhelming the minute you walked in to that area.

JK: And what about your living quarters? What were they like?

AO: Living quarters were, one large area was divided up into portions with plywood, plywood walls and canvas doorways covering the doorways, no rooftops or anything, it was all under this one big roof. So there was hardly any privacy going on anywhere.

JK: And what was your daily routine like for you? You were fifteen?

AO: Yeah, I had turned sixteen in April, and we went to the assembly center in May. So being sixteen, I was able to get a job there. I remember Mas and I both had jobs in the pantry, which was dishing out butter and jam and things like that. Then they found out that she was only fifteen, so they fired her. She couldn't work until she was sixteen, so she couldn't work there. But I worked in the pantry there for the few months that we were there.

JK: Did they pay you?

AO: Yes. I think I was being paid minimum wages, which for a pantry worker was eight dollars a month. Then skilled workers were getting sixteen dollars a month.

JK: What about your mom? What was she doing?

AO: She was a waitress in the mess hall.

JK: Did you go to school at the assembly center too?

AO: Yes, they had classes, but there wasn't anything much official. They were just more or less trying to finish up the school year, 'cause this was in May when most of us would have finished school in June. And so they were just finishing up some of the class works, but there wasn't that much schooling going on.

JK: Did they have activities for you to do?

AO: Oh, yeah. We had a ping pong tournament, table tennis tournament. I mentioned that I won the tournament there, and when I won the tournament, I was playing in the finals against a fellow named Sab Ikeda, whom you may know. But I had a wide hit one time, and he reached way out to retrieve it, and he dislocated his arm, shoulder. So he had to quit, so I won the championship from him.

JK: And was this the championship just for the assembly center?

AO: For the assembly center, yeah.

JK: Did they have basketball there for you, too?

AO: They had basketball, they had a gym there, they had baseball, we played baseball outside, too. There were a number of activities going on.

<Begin Segment 10>

JK: Did they tell you when you would be relocated again, or was it still unknown what was happening?

AO: Yeah, it was unknown until later on in the summer. And I can't remember when, but I think we left the assembly center in September sometime.

JK: And how did you get to Minidoka?

AO: Trains. The only thing I remember about the trains were they were all coaches. We had to keep the window shades pulled down day and night all the time while we traveled to Idaho so that we couldn't see out and nobody could see in. But we did go by train to Minidoka.

JK: Did they tell you anything about what to expect at Minidoka before you arrived?

AO: I don't remember hearing anything specific other than the fact that we would probably be joining in with the Japanese community members from Seattle, from the state of Washington. Oregon and Washington together at the Idaho camp.

JK: Okay, and when you got to Minidoka, what did you see there?

AO: Fortunately, I had met a Boy Scout from Seattle, a fellow named John Okamoto. The Seattle group had been to Minidoka before the Portland group went there. So he was quite familiar with everything, and so he took my hand and showed me around the whole camp and took care of me my first few days I was there.

JK: What was your day like in camp, a typical day for you? What would it be like?

AO: Well, we didn't get there 'til September, so schools were already getting ready to start. So our daytime activities were pretty much taken care of by attendance at school.

JK: Was it similar to school that you were going to in Portland, or was it different?

AO: Yes, it was quite interesting, because I never had a chance to meet so many Japanese people before in my life. And it was a real awakening to me to realize there were so many people of Japanese ancestry, because being in a regular high school in Portland, I never saw that many Japanese. So it was a very heartwarming experience to realize there were so many Japanese people around.

JK: After school, what did you do, after your classes ended?

AO: Oh, in summertime, you mean?

JK: Well, on a typical school day.

AO: Oh, school day, we were always kept busy, we played basketball or something after school, so during the time that we were in school, this John Okamoto was a very popular basketball player in Seattle. And so he and I got to know each other real well, and he go be elected senior class president, and I got elected student body president. So the two of us pretty much knew what all the activities were that were going on at the school, and that's what we participated in and everything that we could. We had a very... I could say enjoyable time in school. On the weekends, we always had dances. We didn't have a band at first. There was a Minidoka band later on, but initially, it was all dancing in the mess halls to record music, turntable music. But we kept busy on weekends.

JK: What was your mom doing?

AO: She was a waitress in one of the dining rooms, Block 39, where we lived.

JK: And when she wasn't waitressing, how else did she use her time?

AO: I don't know.

JK: Did she participate in crafts?

AO: I'm sure she did, but I didn't keep track of... I was too busy with my own activities to note what she did.

JK: How about your sister Minnie, what was going on with her?

AO: She was, had already started college, so when she went to Minidoka, she had already finished high school. So school was not an option there. But after a while, we found out that there was a, federal government had a student nurse program where the girls could go to college for four years, get a nursing degree, and then pay for their college education by serving four years in the army or navy nurse corps. So my sister decided to take advantage of that, so she signed up for nursing school and she went to Madison, Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin school of nursing. And so she spent all of her four years there, from '42 to '46.

JK: How did your family keep in contact with your dad? Were you able to? Because he was somewhere else.

AO: Yes, he was... from the Multnomah County jail, he was transferred to Missoula, Montana, to a camp there for the Japanese internees. And then from there was transferred to New Mexico, then stayed at a camp down there. But we were allowed to write letters and correspond with him.

JK: Did he say anything about his camp life or what it was like for him?

AO: No. I think the only thing I can remember is that he was given the option to, if he wanted to, he and the family, could move back to Japan instead of staying here. And we turned that option down right away and said, no, we did not want to go to Japan. So that was not something that we considered doing.

JK: And how long was your dad away from you? All through your internment at Minidoka, or did he get to join you at Minidoka?

AO: Well, I left Minidoka in November of '43. I graduated in June, spent the summer working in farms around Idaho, and then left in November. So he was not there at all during the time that I was in camp, so he came back after I had gone.

JK: So he did come to Minidoka?

AO: Yes, he did, I don't know exactly what year.

JK: Okay, to rejoin.

AO: Yeah, but he rejoined my mother there.

<Begin Segment 11>

JK: And then when you returned home, you came back home. You didn't have a home to come to because your rental home wasn't available to you anymore. Where did the family go then?

AO: When I did not come back with them, they came back separately, but they went to Vanport, and they lived in Vanport, which was the federal subsidized housing for this area. Most of the people who lived in Vanport were workers who had come to the Portland/Vancouver area to work in the shipyards, and so they were mostly from the south who came here and lived in Vanport.

JK: And how did your dad restart his business, his newspaper?

AO: Well, he tried to find out where his printing press and the type, Japanese type were, because when he came back to this area, they were no longer in the basement of the hotel where my mother had stored things. He had found out then that the federal government had confiscated all the printing presses and the type, and had used them during the war to print propaganda leaflets in the Pacific Theatre. So He had nothing to come back to at all to set up a business again. So the only thing that he could do was set up a Japanese newspaper here on mimeograph paper. And so he had a mimeograph machine, and he wrote all of the articles in Japanese by hand. And so he did all the Japanese part, and Kimi Tambara, he hired Kimi Tambara to do the English part of the newspaper.

JK: So his newspaper, from a staff of twenty to thirty people became a staff of two?

AO: Two.

JK: So it really suffered from the war.

AO: Right.

JK: And what were you doing? You didn't live in Vanport, you moved on?

AO: No, before I came back from evacuation, from Minidoka in ('43) I went to Chicago in November of ('43), stayed there for a couple months, and then went to college, Southwestern College in Winfield, Kansas, in January of ('44). I went there because it was a Methodist school, and I got exposed to the Methodist church here in camp, in Minidoka. And so I got a Methodist scholarship to go to this Methodist school in Winfield, Kansas, and became baptized as a Methodist there. I turned eighteen in April of '42... no, that would have been '44, I'm sorry. I spent a year in Minidoka going to school, so I turned, in April of '44 I turned eighteen, and I got my draft notice to go in the army. And the war wasn't over yet in '44, so I left Southwestern College at the end of the semester, in May, and went to Salt Lake City to be inducted into the army at Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City. And so then I had my physical exam there, and I flunked it. I was a 4-F, which is not fit for military duty. And I didn't like that designation, so I said, "Is there anything else you can put me in?" and they said, "Well, we can put you in 1-A limited, and as long as the war is going on, you won't be taken because we don't want limited, physically limited people fighting overseas." So I said, "Okay, put me in 1-A limited," and they did. So they didn't take me in the army, and so I decided to do something else. And so I went to work on the railroad, the SP&S Railroad, which is between Spokane, Portland, and Seattle, was hiring Japanese people to work on the railroad. But we couldn't work in the Portland to Seattle area because that was still an area where Japanese could not be present. So I worked from Spokane to Pasco.

[Interruption]

AO: Well, I can say that I went to work for the railroad for a year, and then the war ended, World War II ended in August of 1945. I was still working on the railroad at that time, but because the war ended in August, I felt that, well, I might as well leave the railroad and come back to the West Coast, which was now open, and attend school. So in September of '45, the next month after the war ended, I came back to the Portland area and got a scholarship to attend Pacific University in Forest Grove. So I spent the following year there in Forest Grove. At that time, my wife -- I wasn't married then, of course -- Mas was attending Linfield at McMinnville, so we were able to see one another every so often. The summer of '46, after the school year, from '45 to '46 was over, I didn't know what I was going to do in the summer of '46. And Yosh Inahara, Dr. Toke Inahara's brother, was also attending Pacific University. So he said, "Why don't you come out to our (farm) in Ontario? You can work on the farm during the summer." And I said, "Okay, I'll go with you." So we both went to Ontario, and I was working on the farm there.

<Begin Segment 12>

AO: And then when I left the Forest Grove area and went to Ontario, the draft quota in Ontario was very short. And so their draft board said, "Well, you're in Ontario, you're being drafted now." So they drafted me and told me to go to Fort Douglas in Salt Lake City. I figured, well, another 1-A limited, so I'll just go there, take another physical, and come back to the farm. So I went there, and they gave me another physical, and they said, "You pass. You're 1-A." I said, "Well, I was 1-A limited before. How could I be 1-A now?" And they said, "Well, your feet aren't as flat as we thought they were, and your eyes are correctable to 20/20, so you're 1-A." So they took me in the army. And that was in June or July of '46, so they sent me to Aniston, Alabama, Fort McClellan, for my basic training. So I spent the summer there, June, July, August, September, doing basic training work, doing regular marching and rifle toting and stuff to become an infantryman. At the end of the basic training, everybody was going to get their assignments to go someplace, and the caption of our group says, "Are you interested in going to Officers Candidate School?" They said, "You have a year of college, and you sound intelligent, so you're eligible." I said, "Oh, okay," I thought, sure. I figured that was better than being a rifleman or a foot soldier. So I went to take an exam, and I passed the mental exam, but I flunked the physical exam. And I said, "What's the matter with my physical exam?" And they said, "You've got flat feet and you've got poor eyes." So those same two things that kept me out of the army before, but let me go back in, now kept me from becoming an officer. And so they assigned me to go to Korea.

And so that was September, October of '46. And so I got to Camp Stoneman in California, and got on a ship to go to Korea. Interestingly enough, the ship that we were going to sail over on was a victory ship, and the victory ship had been made in Vancouver, Washington, because that was the kind of ship that the Vancouver shipyards were making for the navy. And so I got on this victory ship, and we set sail for Korea, which was where our entire group was going to go. It took us twenty-six days to get to Korea, which sounds like an awful, awful long time, and it was. And the reason it was was because the ship had to go southward, because there was a typhoon in the Japan and Korea area, and so the victory ship could not sail into the typhoon area. So we had to spend a few days extra going farther south and waiting until the typhoon had passed by the Korea/Japan area. Then we landed in Inchon, which was the famous port where MacArthur landed for his invasion of Korea later on. But anyway, we landed in Inchon and we were all sent to the replacement depot for infantrymen. In other words, we'd be assigned to the infantry battalion somewhere on the island of, in the country of Korea. When I was at that replacement depot, before I got my assignment, one of the sergeants came up to our group and says, "Anybody here know how to type?" I said, "I know how to type." So they said, "Okay, you're assigned to be a clerk typist. Your MOS is now clerk typist instead of an infantryman." I said, "Oh, that's great."

So they sent me to headquarters company at a place called ASCOM city, which was very close to Seoul, Korea. And so I spent my months in the army doing clerk typist work for the ASCOM city, the city where the Korean, the U.S. troops were centered in Korea. While I was there, I was at the barber shop once, and some of the Koreans saw that I was an Asian and said, "Do you speak Japanese?" And I said, "Yes." And all the Koreans knew Japanese because they had been under Japanese rule for thirty-something years. And so they said, "Well, we want you to speak to our PX manager because we want a raise. We've been cutting hair for a long time and we haven't had a raise." An so they asked me if I would be interpreter for them and get them a raise. I said, "Sure, I'll be happy to." So I met with the captain of the PX and I gave him the story, and the captain said, "Sure, we'll give them a raise. They haven't had a raise for a long time." So I went back to the barber shop and told them, and they were all just very, very happy. And they gave me free haircuts for all the rest of the time that I was in Korea because of that. [Laughs]

[Interruption]

AO: I was almost up in the army, the draft -- because the war had ended -- the draft was ending, and all draftees were going to be discharged after one year of service. And so my time for discharge came up, and so I asked them if I could have a week's leave in Japan because I had relatives in Japan that I would like to visit as long as I'm here in Asia. And they gave me a week's leave in Japan, so I flew from Korea, South Korea, to Tokyo. I was stationed at the hotel headquarters, army hotel headquarters in Tokyo, and there the manager of the hotel was Richard Iwata, who was a Portlander, because I knew him from way before the war, and he and I played basketball together on the same team before the war broke out. But he showed me the ropes of how to get around in the Tokyo area, and then he took me to the railroad station because I wanted to go visit my dad's brother who lived in Yamanashi-ken, which is the state due west of Tokyo. So I got on the train, the train depot was all bombed out yet, it had not been repaired since the war had just been over. So I got on one of the coaches, and the coach was all crowded, so I had to stay in the aisle. And it was immediately obvious that I was an exception because when I stood in the aisle there, I could look right all the way down the aisle, my head was the only one that was higher than everybody else on that, standing on that aisle. And so it was quite a shock to realize that the Japanese people were all very, very short. There were no tall, very few, if any, tall Japanese living in Japan. I'm sure the nutrition, war, etcetera, played a very important factor in stunting the growth of all the Japanese people.

But any rate, I trained over to Yamanashi-ken, the capital of Yamanashi-ken is Kofu, so I went to Kofu and met with the police there, and they took me to Minabu, which is a small town outside of Kofu. And my father's brother came to that town to meet with me and take me back to his farm, which was in, a short distance away in Minabu. So I stayed at that farmhouse for a couple of days before I came back from Tokyo. On the way back to Tokyo, the mother, my brother's... my father's brother's wife took me to Shizuoka at the foot of Mt. Fuji to meet my dad's older sister. So I did get to meet two, one brother and one sister of my father's before I left Japan. And from Shizuoka, I went back to Tokyo and then came back to the States. I came back to the States in a general ship, which was much faster than the victory ship. [Laughs] And there was no tropical storm or anything, so we came back in I think it was eleven days, in contrast to the twenty-six days to go over to Korea. And then I was discharged at Camp Stoneman and came back to Portland from there.

<Begin Segment 13>

JK: And then when you came back to Portland, did you continue your schooling?

AO: Yes. So I came back, and it was the summer of '47, and I didn't know what I was going to do, but I wanted to go back to school. My sister Minnie was working as a nurse at a surgical hospital, Matson Memorial Hospital in Portland, and she was a surgical nurse. And she says, "Why don't you come to the hospital and see what the doctors do? Maybe you can be a doctor, because it's a very interesting profession." I said, "Sure, okay." So I went with her to the hospital. They let me change to the green uniform, cap and mask, and I sat next to an anesthesiologist there, he was very kindly and showed me what he was doing. The surgeon was very kindly and told me he was putting in a replacement valve in a patient's heart. And it all was just fascinating to me because I'd never been exposed to anything like that before, so I decided right then that I wanted to go to medical school. So I went, had to take general chemistry, and I hadn't taken chemistry, which is, of course, one of the first-year courses for medicine. And so I took that at Vanport University, or Vanport College, which became Portland State University. So I spent the summer at Vanport College taking a general chemistry course. And I transferred to University of Oregon in Eugene. And I had a hard time because all the veterans had come back from the war, and there was no housing, no more housing available at the campus, so you had to find your own housing, approved housing, or not go to school. So I asked what's approved housing, they said, "Well, you can work as a houseboy at some family, and that's approved, and you can then go to school." So I became a houseboy at a doctor's family there in Eugene. And so I was a babysitter and vacuum cleaner work, and weeder at this doctor's house for a year while I went to school in pre-med there.

JK: In our pre-interview you had a story about an expectation the wife had at dinnertime, and it was just kind of a cute story.

AO: Yeah, they were, as I say, this was a doctor's family. The doctor, incidentally, was the team physician for the Oregon, University of Oregon football team. So he was kind of up there. But at any rate, his wife wanted to have a, kind of a fancy household, so whenever it was time to have dinner, she would ring a bell from the dining room, and I would come out from the kitchen to see what she wanted. And when I came out, I had to wear a white dinner jacket to make it look like I was really a waiter. So that was the formal part of my duties. The informal part was playing with their two boys, they had two boys that were young, like eight or ten, so I used to babysit and play with them. So I had an enjoyable time.

JK: Did the doctor know that you were interested in becoming a doctor?

AO: Yes, they knew.

JK: So they were supportive.

AO: Yes. So the second year I was down at Eugene I transferred to the campus, 'cause it was veterans housing available, so I stayed there.

<Begin Segment 14>

JK: While you were going, in between the University of Oregon, did you stay at Vanport at any time at the family home?

AO: I cannot remember ever staying there for any length of time. Maybe for a couple of weeks or something, but I never did stay there. For example, when the flood happened in May of '48, I was down in Eugene in my pre-med studies at the time, so I was not aware until after it had happened.

JK: And then you came to Portland to help look for your mom.

AO: Yeah. My mother was one of the few that drowned in the Vanport flood, and I think there was another Japanese person named Mizuno. I remember that name because mizu, the first two syllables, is "water" in Japanese, and they were saying Mizuno. And then my mother's name was Izumi, mizu-i backwards. But that had mizu in it, too. And they were saying both the names had "water" in their names, which is coincidental.

JK: When you came up to Portland to help look for your mom, shared that experience.

AO: Right after the flood, of course, the bridges were washed out, and we were unable to find out if any of the Vanport refugees were over in Vancouver. There was no communication. Phone lines were out. And so one of my close friends, Sam Okazaki, he had a car, and Sam took me and we drove down to the Bridge of the Gods by Cascade Falls, and drove across the bridge and over to Vancouver. And he drove me around in Vancouver, we went to all the rescue stations, and the hospital, the police station, but we couldn't find any trace that my mother had been over there. So we came back empty handed.

JK: It must have been very hard for your father, because in his newspaper, he had written, they had written a story asking for help or any information. Were they ever able to find your mom?

AO: At the time of the flood, no. There were several Japanese farmers and fishermen who, when the flood waters subsided a little bit, they, for example, they identified the unit that my mother, that my dad and mother lived in. And so we took a boat, went out to that unit, and made a thorough search of the apartment there, but we couldn't find any trace of her. Her body floated after... I think it was about three or four weeks after the flood was over, that the body was, floated and they found it.

JK: So they were able to find it?

AO: Yeah.

<Begin Segment 15>

JK: Then you went back to school and continued your education.

AO: Yes. I finished two years of school at the University of Oregon. At the beginning of the second year, I would have been a senior, after having been at different schools, I would have been a senior, and so I applied to the medical school here in Portland. Fortunately, I had studied very hard and got good grades, and so my GPA was the highest GPA of any of the medical school applicants from the University of Oregon. So I won the McKenzie, A.J. McKenzie Scholarship fund to go to the medical school. So once I had won that award, then I was assured that I would be accepted into medical school, because anybody who wins the award is automatically awarded a position to medical school. So I found out that I was accepted at the medical school, so my life, last year at the University of Oregon became a teacher because I knew I'd been accepted into medical school.

JK: And then you went to medical school. How did the path go there?

AO: At the medical school, I became a member of the class of 1953, and there were two other Japanese American students in the class. So there were three of us Japanese Americans in the class of '53, and there was one Chinese fellow that was also in the class. I was able to maintain my grades there, and so I kept the scholarship for all four years. They have a medical school honoring group called Alpha Omega Alpha, which I became a member of. And so my life at the medical school was pretty easy. The only thing I didn't have is much money, so after I told Mas -- she wasn't my wife then -- she was at the University of Oregon, I told her that I had enough money to go to two years of medical school, but I didn't know how I was going to finance my last two years. "So if you can work and save money for two years, then we could get married at the end of the second year of medical school and then you can support me my last two years." She said, "Okay." So she worked hard the first two years while I was in medical school. We got married between my second and third year in medical school, so I was able to finish with her support. And now I have to support her through the rest of her life because of those two years. [Laughs]

JK: Well, things worked out well for both of you.

AO: That's right. We're both very happy.

JK: And you had three boys.

AO: Yes.

JK: And is there anything you did differently with them than you did with your, than your dad did with you?

AO: No, I think all three boys, we tried to stress the importance of education to all of them. The first and the oldest one was not interested. He was more interested in cars and things, so he spent one year at the University of Oregon, but didn't stay. He didn't graduate. The second son also went to University of Oregon. It's funny how everybody in our family went to University of Oregon. He went there and graduated in the business school there. The third son also went to University of Oregon, he decided he liked science, so he decided to become a physician also. And so he took pre-med down there, and he got accepted to the University of Oregon medical school when he finished school in Eugene. Now he finished medical school, he finished his training in pathology at the medical school, and he's now a pathologist at Good Samaritan Hospital here.

<Begin Segment 16>

JK: You've had a good life. And when you came back, reestablished yourself, and began a career and marriage and family, you also became involved in many community activities. You were president of some organizations. Can you talk about some of the activities you became involved in, and in particular, with the Japanese community, and it could be also with community or your work.

AO: As far as the Japanese community is concerned, both Mas and I have been very active in the current Japanese American group. Their offices down -- it wasn't there before, but anyway, JACL, Japanese American Citizens League, chapter here in Portland, and I became president of that one year, and I think it was in the '70s or possibly '60s. But I became president of that. Mas received an award from the JACL, Portland chapter, because of many years of activity which she did for the JACL group here. So we were both very active in the Japanese community though the JACL. I think that's the main activity as far as the community is concerned. We did not move to the Nichiren Church after the war, so we were not very active in any of the Buddhist Church activities, although our parents were still very active in the Buddhist churches. As far as my activity, I became very active in the hospitals doings, and became president of the staff at St. Vincent's (Hospital), and became president of the alumni association at the University of Oregon medical school. So I've had a lot of very interesting experiences in my professional activities as well.

JK: And you also were on committees and things for the Legacy Center, too.

AO: For the legacy center, I've served on a couple of committees, but I don't think I was ever very active. The only activity that we really took part in was painting the Legacy offices when we first moved to that area. We both were handling brushes to paint the thing. But I have not been that active in the Legacy, except for supporting them, of course. We also supported the Portland Taiko group for many years.

JK: So you've been doing community service and supporting the cultural kinds of things, and things that promote better understanding of Japanese, the Japanese American community and the medical field. You had, in our pre-interview, you had a really good story about the support of a hakujin friend that grew up with you, and when you were at the assembly center, he did something special for you?

AO: I had two people come visit me at the assembly center here in Portland when I was interned there. One was a teacher, she was my English teacher, Ms. Plympton, who was very sympathetic to the whole situation. And the other was a classmate named Don Peterson. Don Peterson and I used to play basketball together, we played table tennis together, we were very close friends. When I ended up going to the assembly center, Don got my yearbook -- this was in May when we went to the assembly center. So Don got my yearbook in June, and he passed that around to our classmates. And he got a lot of signatures and comment in the yearbook for me at the same time that he got signatures for himself, and he brought that to me, to the assembly center and gave it to me. Don Peterson became quite famous, he was probably the most famous person in our class from Washington High School, because after years of working hard, he became president of the Ford Motor Company. And so a number of years later, I wrote him a letter to congratulate him, and he wrote back and said, "Thank you very much," and that he certainly remembered me very well from the school days.

JK: Is there any lesson or experience that you want to pass on to your grandchildren or your great grandchildren about the war experience that you went through?

AO: Well, only in that they've given talks, the grandchildren have given talks at their high schools, and the message I think is, "Please don't let this kind of thing happen again." So that's the main message. As far as they're concerned, we want them to continue their education and being as good as they can as far as the education in general, life in general.

JK: Is there anything else, a question that I didn't ask you that you wanted to add to this interview?

AO: I don't think so.

JK: Everything covered?

AO: I don't think I have anything else specific that I wanted to mention. I think you've covered everything pretty well.

JK: You'll be able to edit this later. But thank you for sharing and lending your voice in this oral interview, Uncle Albert.

AO: Thank you.