Interviews
Allyship after camp
When we came back from camp, um, San Bernardino does not have a Japanese community, right, but there was a Chinese market, and it was run by a family called the Kwoks. We could not have our store without them because they were the only butcher and they had a, a butcher store on, uh, a butcher thing, and they eventually opened up what is, a, a pretty big market, there used to be, called Palace Market, real supermarket, which is one of the first ones out there and everyone in our family, me, my brother, my sisters, both of them, all worked there.
But after the war, there were certain companies that wouldn’t sell. You know, my father, still does not like, um, it’s Langendorf, or Pepsi. Because they asked to, to get their products in the store and they said, we don’t sell to Japs. We could not get meat.
So, they said, we’re here, you know. So, we got to be friends, my sister especially became friends with Rosemary Kwok, and they became good friends. But we would have to walk, it must have been over a mile, I can’t remember, we had to go through a meadow get up into a thing. And my father would order the meat and we’d then put the meat on our shoulders. And we were relatively small kids, all of us had to kind of lug it through the hot sun to our store. And that’s how we got our meat products there, you know.
Date: September 8, 2011
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki, Kris Kuramitsu
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Sneaking out of the Hastings Park camp during World War II
(b. 1928) Doctor. Former Chair of the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation.
Government sold Japanese Canadian properties for little money
(b. 1928) Doctor. Former Chair of the Japanese Canadian Redress Foundation.
Hiding out to avoid the concentration camps (Spanish)
(b. 1932-2016) Peruvian painter
Questioning Curfew
(1918-2012) Fought the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.
A Dutiful Son
(1918-2012) Fought the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.
Bypassing the Constitution
(1918-2012) Fought the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.
Erasing the Bitterness
(1923–2008) One of the leaders behind the redress movement.
Challenges of finding a summer job
Judge, only Japanese American to serve on CWRIC.
Speaking out in camp
(1916-2010) draft resister, helped form the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee
Would do the same again
(1916-2010) draft resister, helped form the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee
Traumatic experiences before camp
(1913-2013) Doctor specializing in obstetrics in Southern California
“Everybody went in like sheep”
(1913-2013) Doctor specializing in obstetrics in Southern California