Entrevistas

1. Nisei Parents

2. His family Traveled to Japan in 1940

3. His Memory of August 6, 1945

4. Immediately after the bombing

5. Escape from Hiroshima

6. Other family members not as lucky

7. Returning to Hiroshima in ruins

8. His parents had little hope that he had survived the atomic bomb

9. Reuniting with parents in America

10. Adjustment to American life

11. The moment he realized he identified as an American

12. Overcoming trauma and speaking about his A-Bomb experience

13. On telling his wife he had radiation sickness and his son’s cancer

14. His views on nuclear weapons

Kakita,Howard

(n. 1938) Nipo-americano. Sobrevivente da bomba atômica de Hiroshima

Reuniting with parents in America

Probably around January of 1948, they told us that we had to return to United States to go back to our parents, whom we don’t remember, and leave our grandmother who raised us and saved us from total annihilation. Basically we raised holy hell. I mean we didn’t want to come back to United States. We wanted to stay with grandma. Okay, that was our mentality.

However, with lots of yelling and crying, and so forth, they put us on a ship from Yokohama in March of 1948, destined for the United States. Took us two weeks with a stopover in Hawaii to finally get here. So, two of us, my brother at 11 and a half and myself at 10, we were on the ship all by ourselves.

famílias avós avós( Japão pais pós-guerra Segunda Guerra Mundial

Data: September 3, 2019

Localização Geográfica: California, US

Entrevistado: Masako Miki

País: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Entrevistados

Howard Kakita nasceu em 1938 em East Los Angeles, Califórnia. Sua família o levou para o Japão em 1940. Seus pais e o irmão mais novo voltaram para os Estados Unidos em 1940 para cuidar dos negócios da família, mas Howard e um irmão mais velho, Kenny, ficaram no Japão.

Quando a guerra eclodiu, sua família nos EUA foi encarcerada em Poston, AZ. Em 6 de agosto de 1945, a bomba atômica foi lançada em Hiroshima. Howard estava a 1,3km do hipocentro e sobreviveu. Ele e Kenny voltaram para os EUA e reuniram-se com sua família em 1948.

Howard seguiu carreira em Engenharia da Computação. Após sua aposentadoria, ingressou na American Society Hiroshima-Nagasaki Survivors Bomb Atomic (ASA) e tem compartilhado ativamente sua experiência com a bomba atômica. (Setembro de 2019)