Interviews
Grandparents were incarcerated in Jerome, Arkansas
So when he came back to Honolulu, my grandmother applied to voluntarily evacuate with her husband. So you had 1300 people from Hawaii who were actually tapped by the government to go to the concentration camps. You had another 1000 people who voluntarily joined them, the families. All in all it was 2300 people who went. Anyway, at the end of December, my grandfather went on a separate ship, my grandmother and the children went on another ship and they met in San Francisco. This is where it gets fuzzy because when I checked the records downstairs in the museum that says where he went to camp, they showed him in Tule Lake, but I’ve never found anything that said he was in Tule Lake.
So now my aunt tells this story about them having to go by train to Jerome, Arkansas. Because all of the train were coming from east coast to the west, every time a westbound train came they had to get off the track and wait for it to pass by. So a trip that would have taken like three days normally took a week. And she said she had never seen her father cry but he was literally in tears the whole time. But he was telling the kids that Japan is stupid, that there was no way they would beat the US in war, and that the kids needed to believe that the US was still the greatest country in the world. That’s the story that kills me.
Date: April 25, 2018
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Postcards to Nisei soldiers
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Hiding what happened in camp
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Camp as a positive thing
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
Rounding up Issei and Nikkei
(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.
His father describes the importance of photographing camp life
(1924-2016) Photographer and businessman.
Image of Americans
Sansei from Hawaii living in Japan. Teacher and businesswoman.
The birth of a novel through a conversation with her nephew
(b. 1934) Writer
Mixed emotions after declaration of war on Japan
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Train ride to Jerome Relocation Center
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.
Atmosphere in his Merrill’s Marauders unit when surrounded by Japanese soldiers
(b.1913) Kibei from California who served in the MIS with Merrill’s Marauders during WWII.