Discover Nikkei

https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/1599/

Grandfather helping administration in camp

My grandfather, being a business man and having some administrative skills, he was tapped by the war relocation center because they were already starting to plan what was gonna happen to all of the incarcerees, where they were gonna get back and how they were gonna get employed and etc etc, so he was the only Japanese American that they brought into their office either in Little Rock or just in the camp. He went in there and was trying to find out ways of placing people, which was obviously a thankless task because nobody was hiring Japanese Americans much less providing housing for them or renting rooms to them. An amazing consequence of this whole experience. He did get some help from the people who were taking care of his business back in Honolulu. He also got a refrigerator, or ice box, from A.P. Giannini during the war.

I*: Sent to the camp?

Sent to the camp.

*"I" indicates an interviewer John Esaki.


Arkansas business concentration camps economics Jerome concentration camp management United States World War II camps

Date: April 25, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Robert Fujioka was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1952. He attended the University of Michigan earning a BA degree and earned an MBA from the University of Hawai'i. He has been in the banking industry since 1974 and currently serves as Vice Chair, Japanese American National Museum Board of Trustees, a Trustee of the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, and the First Hawaiian Bank Foundation. (November 2018)

Funai,Kazuo

Bad business deal (Japanese)

(1900-2005) Issei businessman

Funai,Kazuo

Company in Tokyo burned down (Japanese)

(1900-2005) Issei businessman

Hirabayashi,James

Life in camp as teenager

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

Kochiyama,Yuri

Hiding what happened in camp

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

Kochiyama,Yuri

Camp as a positive thing

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

Miyatake,Archie

His father describes the importance of photographing camp life

(1924-2016) Photographer and businessman.

Takeshita,Yukio

Involvement in JACL

(b.1935) American born Japanese. Retired businessman.

Matsumoto,Roy H.

Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center

(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.

Kosaki,Richard

442 soldiers visiting U.S. concentration camps

(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i

Shimomura,Roger

Receiving a negative reaction from father upon asking about World War II experience

(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor

Yamasaki,Frank

Loss of happy-go-lucky adolescence in Puyallup Assembly Center

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Yamasaki,Frank

Memories of dusty conditions at Minidoka incarceration camp

(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.

Adachi,Pat

Family life in a Japanese Canadian internment camp in Slocan

(b. 1920) Incarcerated during World War II. Active member of the Japanese Canadian community

Naito,Sam

Starting an import business after World War II

(b. 1921) Nisei businessman. Established "Made in Oregon" retail stores

Terasaki,Paul

Difference between experiences of youth and older people in WWII camps

(b.1929) Pioneer medical researcher in tissue transfer and organ transplantation.