Densho Digital Archive - George Tsugawa Interview (denshovh-tgeorge-01-0010)

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LT: So after Minidoka was completed in Twin Falls, Idaho, you and your family moved there. Was that in the fall of 1942?

GT: I guess that's about right, early fall, I think that's about right, because I do know that some of the guys still went out and helped harvest some things... or was that the next year? But anyway, I know it was right around the fall.

LT: So how did you get from Pinedale to Minidoka?

GT: Well, see, I never did go to Pinedale.

LT: Oh, excuse me, Portland Assembly Center.

GT: Oh, how did we get there? By train. Yeah, I don't remember how, but they loaded us in the train just like sardines. And they've had the curtains on 'em, they pulled the curtains down so they don't, so you couldn't tell where you were, but they never raised the curtains 'til we got to Minidoka, our final destination. Then they raised the curtains up for us to see where we're at, and just as far as your eyes can see, it was sagebrush, everywhere it was sagebrush. These big army trucks would come out and load 'em up, take 'em to Minidoka as fast as they can get 'em off the train to Minidoka. And that, again, I don't know how many miles there were, but we didn't know what to expect. When we got there, we were greeted by machine guns, about four towers there. Yeah, I think there was about four of 'em, and that was the way we were greeted. It was kind of a threatening thing there, but as far as I know, there was no, there was nothing ever done that the guards could ever talk about, because I think everybody was well-behaved. There were some other camps that they ran into some trouble, there were some Japanese from California area that resented the whole thing, and they... let's see, they had a name for those guys. I can't even think of it right now. Anyway, they --

LT: The "no-no boys"?

GT: Huh?

LT: The "no-no boys"?

GT: (The yogores), something like that, yeah. But, you know, I got to hand it to 'em, because they resented that. They had a right to be resentful of the whole thing, and I think there were, a lot of 'em were Kibeis, you know, those that, they had probably a lot of respect for Japan, so those are the ones that gave them a little bit of trouble. There were incidents where they had riots in the camp, this and that. Not many, but there were just enough to be concerned about. But in our camp, I never did hear of anything bad going on in our camp. Yeah, I think most of our kids, everybody in our area respected what they told us to do.

LT: What is it like to come to a new place that you know is going to be your home, and to see military and guard towers and guns?

GT: You mean what is my feeling? Well, gee, how do you describe that? They sure let you know you were prisoners. There again, you know, I think... I don't know if there was any feeling, there was a lot of fear, a lot of feel of fear at first. But why they needed those machine guns and everything, but there was a lot of fear in everybody when they saw these towers with machine guns mounted all over. But as far as anything else, I think you were just so wrapped up in that, you were washed into it, brainwashed everything, that you were a prisoner, you'd better act like a prisoner. But later on, they lifted some of that restriction on us, when they found out that the Niseis weren't going to blow up the camp or blow up the country. After they got to know us, they become much relaxed and very, more cooperative. But the first feeling was, my gosh, you wondered where you were. You feel like you were part of Hitler's group or something like that. But as time went by, we proved that we were not going to blow up the country and that we were good citizens, so we got along pretty good.

LT: Just going back, I'm wondering, does it change how you feel or what you think or how you act when you see those kinds of precautions?

GT: No. You know that you're a prisoner, you're not going to do anything, you're there for however long it's going to take, and you just accept that. And that's just the feeling I had, that there was... well, you might say there was no hope, I guess, you'd better forget about it. You just stick it out or whatever the, however the war turns out. There was, sure, there was a lot of fear. "When this war ends, where are we going, what are we going to do?" there was a lot of that feeling, lot of that. As far as the war itself, well, we wonder, who's going to win the war? So we just didn't know what kind of feeling they have. It was sure mixed emotions on that. I think, when I talked about we proved their, the Niseis provide that they were good citizens, good people, because I think the following year, the United States asked for volunteers to join the United States Army. If you can imagine asking that after you're a prisoner of them, then they all of a sudden they ask you if you want to join up the United States Army, so you could see the turnaround there. And not just our camp, but you total all the ten camps, I believe, there were thousands of Nisei that went, they joined up, and here their parents locked up still behind barbed wires, but they went. And that, I just can't give those guys enough credit for what they did with their mom and dad behind barbed wires, they went on, joined the army, probably a lot of them didn't ever come back. But my gosh, you got to give those guys... and that was where the 442nd was born, from those guys. And they went on to become, made a real name for themselves, what they did over there, especially in Italy, things like that. A lot of my good friends did go, but I had, my brother and sister... at that time, my mother was ailing, too, so I was more or less the breadwinner, you might say. The rest of the kids were in the service.