Interviews

1. The Kona Island community

2. Going to Japanese school

3. Starting work at five years old

4. Traveling the world seven times

5. Remembering December 7, 1941

6. Being an American soldier and an "enemy alien"

7. Volunteering to serve for the U.S. military in Japan

8. Meeting Japanese Americans from the mainland in MIS

9. Awareness of concentration camps as a Japanese American

10. Not relating to Japan Americans' experiences on the mainland

11. Visiting family in Japan

12. Being stationed in Japan during the American occupation

13. Rebuilding Japan

14. Investigating labor movements in Japan

15. Feeling closer to Japan as a Japanese American

16. Serving as a lawyer to Americans in Japan

17. To serve as a lawyer

18. Defining the term Nikkei

Sogi,Francis Y.

(1923-2011) Lawyer, MIS veteran, founder of Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation

Traveling the world seven times

I traveled around the world seven times. The reason I was able to do that was because there was a time at first when we had propeller planes, then came the turbo props, and then the jet planes. When the jet planes came we could go from New York to Tokyo directly non-stop. All the others had to stop on the west coast, Hawai`i, Midway, Japan and so forth. When Pan American offered a ten percent discount for world global travel, I took advantage of that and went around the world with them seven times. Distance wise, as I recall, Tokyo to New York is a difference is fourteen hours. The other way would be twenty-four hours. Rather than going to Japan and back which is forty-eight hours, going around you can do it in twenty-four. And so I took advantage of that and went around the world seven times and stopped of course at different locations on the way. And primarily my purpose of going to around the world was to visit our Tokyo office. That was my main purpose. And after that I would return either the other way around or back to New York.

Date: May 29, 2006

Location: Hawai`i, US

Interviewer: Akemi Kikumura Yano

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

Interviewee Bio

Francis "FranK" Y. Sogi was born in Lanihau, Kona, on the Big Island of Hawai‘i in 1923, the youngest of five children born to Issei parents who farmed vegetables, bananas and coffee.

Francis began studies at the University of Hawai‘i (UH) in 1941 at 18 years old, and—as required--served in the Reserve Officer Training Corps (R.O.T.C.) to prepare for military service. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, all R.O.T.C. students were inducted into the Hawai‘i Territorial Guard. However, he was soon discharged as being an “enemy alien,” and he returned to UH to continue his education. Men at UH with knowledge of the Japanese language were being recruited to join the United States Military Intelligence Service, so Francis volunteered and in 1944 was sent to Camp Savage and Fort Snelling, Minnesota, for training.

After serving in Japan, translating documents for the U.S. counterintelligence corps, he once again enrolled at UH in 1947. He completed his studies in 1949 and went on to Fordham Law School in New York City while his wife, Sarah, attended Columbia University. He passed the bar exam in December 1952 and was admitted to the New York state bar. In 1953, Frank was asked to serve at the Tokyo office of the law firm of Hunt, Hill and Betts and represented Fortune 500 companies doing license agreements, joint ventures and investments of all kinds. From 1959 - 1984 he was with Miller Montgomery Spalding & Sogi, and in 1984 he joined Kelley Drye & Warren until his retirement in 1993.

Because of their growing philanthropic interests, Francis and his wife Sarah created the Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation, a charitable foundation that currently supports the work of several non-profit organizations.

He passed away on November 3, 2011(November 2011)