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) Japonés estadounidense. Sobreviviente de la bomba atómica de Hiroshima

Overcoming trauma and speaking about his A-Bomb experience

After I came back from Japan, this is back in 1948, my mother would tell me that I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming—nightmares. And I had difficulty with some of the food items. Anything that had a tinge of red like spaghetti with marinara sauce, a pink orange or pink grapefruit, I had trouble with that, rare meat. Anything that reminded me of the carnage that I witnessed as a child. So I had trouble eating and swallowing those items.

But as time went by, by 1955, 10 years after the A Bomb, things seemed to have dissipated. Since then, I've been able to talk about it. Although some subjects I get into sometime gets me a little bit choked up. But I could discuss this things, perhaps with less emotion than some of the people in the audience because I've done it so often and maybe I’ve become hardened to it. So yes there’s some difficulty, but it’s not unbearable.

bomba atómica sobrevivientes de la bomba atómica hibakusha Hiroshima (ciudad) prefectura de Hiroshima Japón trauma Segunda Guerra Mundial

Fecha: September 3, 2019

Zona: California, US

Entrevista: Masako Miki

País: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Entrevista

Howard Kakita nació en 1938 en el este de Los Ángeles, California. Su familia lo llevó a Japón en 1940. Sus padres y su hermano menor regresaron a los Estados Unidos en 1940 para ocuparse de su negocio, pero Howard y su hermano mayor, Kenny, se quedaron en Japón.

Cuando la guerra empezó, su familia en los Estados Unidos fue encarcelada en Poston, AZ. El 6 de agosto de 1945, la bomba atómica cayó sobre Hiroshima. Howard estaba a 0.8 millas del hipocentro y sobrevivió. Él y Kenny regresaron a los Estados Unidos y se reunieron con su familia en 1948.

Howard siguió una carrera en ingeniería informática. Después de su retiro, se unió a la Sociedad Americana de Sobrevivientes de la Bomba Atómica Hiroshima-Nagasaki (ASA) y ha estado compartiendo su experiencia con la bomba atómica. (Septiembre 2019)