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HH: At this point, you were finishing your medical education in Boston.

HT: Yes.

HH: Your family was in the various concentration camps.

HT: Yes. My parents and my youngest son, youngest brother, were in Minidoka.

HH: So you were kind of spread out across the country.

HT: Right.

HH: Did you people ever try to reunite as a family or did you stay separate?

HT: Well, for several years we were separated because they all went their separate ways. I know my sister Shigeko, the oldest, was in Seattle, but she moved directly to Washington, D.C. since she was working for the U.S. government. So she did not go to camp. My parents went to Minidoka and my youngest brother, as I mentioned, my sisters were in Tule Lake for a while but they went directly to St. Louis, Missouri, where my three sisters were together for a while. And eventually, they came out to Philadelphia. One thing I might mention, while I was in medical school, you did ask me whether I had any unpleasant experience. I know during my second year, the army, U.S. Army started what was called the army medical training program and practically every student at every medical school in the country was in this program. Except in our medical school class, I was the only one exempted along with one other who had physical disability. And that bothered me no end because when the army started this medical training program, they paid for all the tuition expenses. And then upon graduation, they were commissioned as first lieutenant in the U.S. Army, and they were to spend at least two years in the army. And I naturally wanted to be included. So when I found out I was not included, I took a trip down to the Pentagon to see why I was being exempted. And I still recall vividly when I went to the Pentagon, I was taken from one office to the next starting with a captain, went up to a major, lieutenant colonel, and finally I saw about three colonels, none of whom of course could give me a satisfactory answer. And I finally a colonel who was supposed to be in charge of the whole program, and they had a big book that must have measured three or four inches. He was fingering through this book saying, "It's got to be in here someplace why you're exempted." Naturally, he didn't find anything. And that didn't satisfy me, so after a few more weeks, I took another trip to the Pentagon and I could ill afford the trip. But I was determined to find out why I was being exempted, and I wanted to find out from someone in authority. But even my second trip to the Pentagon where I spent a good deal of time, I did not receive a satisfactory answer. And one colonel did ask me would I, he would be willing to write me a letter that I did appear to inquire. But I didn't think that would help me any so I did not accept the letter. But I sort of wished I had. But I still came across the list of the names of the captains and the majors and the colonels that I saw at the Pentagon at that time. But that was one experience in medical school that was a bad experience for me. In fact, at graduation, I was not permitted to graduate with the rest of the class. Well, I was able to graduate, but I was not able to graduate in the army uniform where all the other male classmates were in the army. So I recall, I decided not to even attend the graduation and I left early to go to my internship. And on my way to the internship, I did stop in Minidoka to visit my folks for one day. And I made sure they wouldn't keep me there, so I left there and went to Cleveland for my internship.

HH: By the way, where was your internship?

HT: It was in Cleveland at Mt. Sinai Hospital, and that was right during the middle of the war. And the chief resident approached me the very first day and asked me if I should encounter any problem, any bad experience with any patient, to let him know. Well, this is the honest truth. All during my internship and residency, I did not encounter one unhappy or bad experience with any patient.

HH: If you will, speculate for a moment what your life would have been like if there had not been a war? You probably still would have gone to medical school at BU because that's where you were at the beginning of the war anyway. Other than that, what kinds of differences might have made to you had there not been a Pearl Harbor?

HT: Well, the question you're asking is have I ever speculated as to what might have happened to my life if there was no Pearl Harbor and no war subsequently? Well, I wondered about that many times myself. In all probability, after graduation from medical school, I would have gone back to Tacoma or Seattle area to practice. But naturally, upon my graduation, the West Coast was completely closed, I could not go back home. And it wasn't until the latter part of my residency that people were able to go back to their home. So by then, I was, I guess you'd call it an "Easterner," and I had no intention of going back to my hometown. Once I completed my residency at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, I obtained a position at Montgomery Hospital in Norristown as Director of Pathology, and I've been there for forty-six years and I just retired recently.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.