Audio Tour

EMILY ANDERSON

Welcome to the audio tour for Don’t Fence Me In: Coming of Age in America’s Concentration Camps. I’m Emily Anderson, JANM’s curator for this exhibition which explores how Japanese American youth asserted their place as young Americans confronting the injustice of imprisonment in concentration camps and embarking on the universal journey of adolescence during World War II.

In this audio tour, you’ll hear how young Americans grew up in the ten War Relocation Authority camps. From scouting to sports, social dancing to music, and post-war life, you'll learn how they drew upon their own resilience and creativity to forge friendships and community in the face of abrupt upheaval to their youth.

For some, these activities were the continuation of their pre-war participation or became the foundation for a lifetime of dedication. For others, they were a brief experience that only lasted as long as their incarceration. But whether they were the most important thing or one of many things happening in their lives, their participation was an integral part of their unique wartime experience.

JOH SEKIGUCHI (JEROME CONCENTRATION CAMP)

JS: My full name is Joh Sekiguchi, but Joh is written J-O-H to be Japanese name, not English.

EA: And where were you born?

JS: In Modesto, California.

EA: So, what kind of things did you do in Troop 99?

JS: Well, because I became interested in snakes, we organized an all-day snake hunting trip, for instance. We went into the forest and forced the snakes to come out. They didn't want to come out. They didn't want to be killed, right?

EA: How did you force them to come out? What did you do?

JS: Well, around that time, they were clearing some of the forest areas, so they were dynamiting the roots of these big trees. Whenever they dynamited the old root up, you could see about ... I’d be exaggerating, but 100 snakes at a time like all coming out of their holes. Then we'd grab a big stick and—

EA: So you were killing snakes. What did you do after that? I'm sure you didn't just kill them. You must have done something with them.

JS: Well, some of the older people actually loved to eat them. They were accustomed to eating them. And then some made beautiful belts out of it.

EA: Were there other Scouts from other places with you?

JS: Only Jerome and Rohwer, two Boy Scout troops. We joined with the…uh, I guess it was the McGehee, Arkansas troops.

In fact, when we first got there, to my surprise one Caucasian boy—smaller build than the rest of us, you know—jumped onto our truck bed. We thought, Hey, what in the heck is this guy doing? Is he going to start a fight? It turned out that he meant to be very friendly, you know, to show us that he’s accepting us, right? So, we caught on pretty quick, and after that it was really smooth going. We built this big campfire, sang songs. That’s really about all we did.

FRANK KIKUCHI (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

FK: I was baptized by the Catholic Church, Maryknoll Catholic Church and after that it was Francis Isamu Kikuchi.

EA: And where were you born, Frank?

FK: Seattle, Washington, Kings County.”

When I went into camp, Manzanar, I went, uh—I was too young to really get a job yet because you had to be eighteen, I think. But anyway, I was only seventeen so I used to look around and walk around camp a lot. I ended up at a recreation hall that was run by a scoutmaster for a troop in Venice. Venice, California? He recognized my talent, so he wanted me to help him. I said, ‘Okay, I'll help you.’ I was good in craft work, all kinds of craft work. So I helped him. Only trouble is I didn't have any material, but if I did have the material like weaving, I helped him because you can weave cord, you could weave anything if it’s standard size.

BOB URAGAMI (AMACHE CONCENTRATION CAMP)

EA: We’re right here with Bob Uragami.

BU: And, uh, my dad came to the US in 1902 and then my mom—I don’t know how many years after that—she came. It was around 1915–’16—somewhere in that area—and both started life in the US and here in Los Angeles. I guess in my family it was automatically that I’d be involved in Boy Scouts.

My dad was very good relationship for our camp director Mr. Littly and through him, we were able to leave camp. We went to a place called Twin Buttes. It was a reservoir, but it was basically a lake and we went on—Amache had farming equipment, so we went to camp on a farm truck and my dad arranged for rations for a week. So we had a good time doing Boy Scout camping and our troop was the only troop that went. And my dad made sure we had a flagpole and an American flag. So we would start every morning by raising the flag and by that time we had buglers, so we’d blow the bugle and raise the flag. And there is a story connected to that too. (laughs)

Down in the end of the reservoir, there was a small, small farm grocery store so my dad and Mr. Fukuyama—he was another helper, my dad’s helper—went down there to check it out and we didn’t have any fresh water. So these people arranged to give us fresh water. And you know these big milk containers? We go down every day to get fresh water and the things connected were raising the flag. Their son were already in the Marine Corps fighting the Japanese in the South Pacific, but they said, ‘We would really look forward every morning to hear the bugle coming across the lake and seeing the flag go up.’

BOB WADA (POSTON CONCENTRATION CAMP) 

My name is Robert Wada, middle name Mitsuru. And I was born in Redlands, California. 
And so he says, ‘Let’s go, we're going to form a Boy Scout troop.’ ‘OK.’ It was a small drum and bugle corps. A small band. We did a lot of things with our band. We did a parade for the volunteers who were leaving for the 442nd. They had a parade in camp and we were in the parade carrying the

colors and stuff, you know. Well, when we were first forming, Aki Imamoto said, ‘Well, we can choose a number.’ We always wanted a number and he’s the one who immediately said, ‘Let’s ask for 100 for the 100th Battalion.’

Then we went into the town of Parker, and unloaded the semi-trailer into one of the box car with the scrap paper. After we got through we walked across the street to this restaurant. The scoutmaster said, ‘Okay, I’ll treat you. Let’s all get a Coke and a hamburger.’ And that sounded good and so we went over there and sat there. we sat there. And the waitress went back and forth by us and we sat there. Finally the scout master asked the waitress, ‘Ma’am can we get some service here?’ and she said, ‘No I’m sorry, I can’t serve you. Would you all please leave?’ And then somebody—one of us said—I don’t know if it was me or someone, ‘What the hell, why do we have to leave?’ or something. And then I think John Homer said, ‘Let’s throw their salt shakers!’ and the scout master said, ‘No, no, no, no. Don't do anything, don't say anything.’ There were two or three men sitting at the counter so the scout master said, ‘Don’t do anything, just get up. Let’s go.’ So we left. But I was really pissed off. I was mad because I had two brothers who were already fighting in Europe. And here I am breaking my butt and sweating with all that scrap paper and we’re in our Boy Scout uniforms and yet we got treated like that.

BACON SAKATANI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My full name is Harumi Sakatani. I’m called “Bacon” as my nickname. I was born in El Monte, California.

The Boy Scouts went to Yellowstone in 1944. Okay, how it got started was that the project director knew the head of Yellowstone National Park. So one day on June 6, 1944, this project director was reporting to the National Camp Director of the War Relocation Authority. He was giving a weekly report to his boss and so, you know, in his weekly report, he told the national director—he says, ‘I would like very much to establish a camp for the

Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts this summer and I want to—and I want…’ No, it says, ‘I went to Yellowstone park Saturday and talked to Mr. Rogers about it. We have two buildings at the next first camp in Yellowstone that we did not move last winter.’

The Heart Mountain camp was taking unused barracks at the Yellowstone park and bringing them to the Heart Mountain campsite, and so this Heart Mountain camp director talked to the head of Yellowstone that there were two more barracks left at Yellowstone. So the camp director asked the head of Yellowstone if Boy and Girl Scouts from the camp could go to Yellowstone and use them to camp there. The camp director said that the boys and girls of the camp were too much under the influence of their Issei–or you know Japanese immigrant parents—that we youngsters were too much under the influence of their Japanese parents. So the camp director wanted us young people in the camp to have a feel of the American way of life outside of the camp just like other white Americans.

So this letter that the camp director wrote to the national camp director asking permission that we Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts can go camping at Yellowstone and so it was through this effort that our Heart Mountain camp director—it was through this effort of this camp director that 500 of us youngsters at the camp were able to spend one week at Yellowstone. There’s this document stating what happened.

BILL SHISHIMA (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

BS: I’m Bill Hiroshi Shishima, or legally Bill is William, so I was born way back in 1930 where Los Angeles was born on Olvera Street. Well, my brother was in the Boy Scouts, he was 2 years older than me. So I was looking forward to joining the Boy Scouts.

EA: I’m sure you boys must have gotten, you know, into stuff like when you're hiking and camping or just... I can't imagine, even Boy Scouts, just being good kids all the time.

BS: (laughs) One memory I remembered, we were able to go to Yellowstone National Park for one week camping in the old CCC barracks, Civilian Conservation Corps barracks. It was empty. So we got to go camping there one week. We were in line for chow and we had a long line. So this guy butts in up there. I said, ‘Hey, there's a line back here.’ So he got behind me and knifed me—a Boy Scout. And I was shocked. It was just enough to draw blood out of me, but I was shocked. I got knifed by a Boy Scout. Yeah, I never forgot that. And he happened to be... I knew him and he was in this Koyasan Boy Scout Troop 379. 

YASUKO IKEDA (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

I’m Yasuko Ikeda—used to be Yasuko Morita. When I was in Heart Mountain and I was in Troop 20 in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. I must’ve been around twelve, thirteen, and fourteen years old when I was there.

As I say, I don't know how many troops were in our camp. We did get to go camping, The government took us out to, I think the Shoshone River, and they set up a big tent with army cots in it. And I don't remember doing anything except that we didn't have to cook, the leaders cooked it. I remember they're digging a hole in the ground and lighting the fire there, but I don't remember what we ate either. So, that was that camping trip.

A year later, they let us go to Yellowstone. They took us in army trucks. We stood in the back of trucks and went there and there we stayed in barracks. I think there were CCC barracks that were not being used anymore. We’d get in the trucks and go see things. And one place I remember was the grotto where we could see a road about a block away. And it was a car full of sailors that came by and they yelled out the window, ‘Go home Japs.’ And so, we did not answer back, but among ourselves, we all said, ‘We'd like to go back to California, or Oregon, or Washington.’ And that's all I remember.

JEANETTE MISAKA (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

JM: My name is Jeanette Sumi Mitarai Misaka.

IN: Where were you born?

JM: In San Jose, California. We were in Santa Anita then after that we went to Heart Mountain, Wyoming.

Well, I was very proud to be a Girl Scout and I had a uniform and the whole bit, when you're little like that, you think that’s really pretty neat. And I was

lucky that I had one and I didn’t think about it until afterwards. And I think, oh gosh sakes, here I’m pledging all this stuff, this thing, but I did keep up  and I have helped others and done all this good stuff, but it’s interesting. You just really remember the things that you were learning.

Well, and I learned a lot before I came to camp too. But I was really surprised that I found this book in my... amongst my mother’s... all books and things that we had packed.

Well, Girl scouting, the principles behind it, I’ve lived it. I’ve tried to live up to the code. But other than that, it was a good experience and it exposed me to doing things in larger groups beyond the Japanese community.
 

JUNE BERK (ROHWER CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My name is June Yasuno Kyoko Aochi Yamashiro Berk. And, um, I was born here in Los Angeles, in Hollywood, California.

By that time in camp, they had built this big field house with a beautiful stage. And um, they played basketball in there and they showed first, first run movies like The Uninvited. I remember that because I was so scared. Um, and then on the stage I have pictures of, um, of this girl dancing, Musume Dojo and I'm playing the Shamisen and I’m singing Nagauta because we had a time to practice and learn all that. So it was sort of like a resurgence of Japanese culture in the camps where people were able to, uh, spend time learning those things that they wouldn't have had that if they were living in the city, you know? But we’re all together. So I think those were the things that benefited and created this continuance of the Japanese culture in camp.
 

MASAKO KOGA MURAKAMI (TULE LAKE SEGREGATION CENTER)

MM: My name is Masako Koga Murakami.

I lived in San Francisco and we evacuated to Fowler which is in Central California. Then from there, we went to Gila River camp, too. And then, when the loyalty questions came out, [questions] twenty-seven, twenty-eight, my father answered no, no. So we were sent to Tule Lake in 1942 or three. Yeah.

When we moved to Tule Lake, I just assumed that we were going to Japan, and I just took it in stride. And for me, being in Tule Lake was a really good experience. The school. The teachers were great. I didn’t have anything political in my mind.

IN: Do you remember the Japanese school?

MM: Oh, Japanese school. Yeah, that was, I really enjoyed Japanese school. I loved the teachers. They were all from Japan, as I recall, at least the ones I had. And they were very strict. Classes were huge. I learned a lot of

my math there. And I remember at the end of the class, he would recite numbers and you have to add them up in your head, and the ones who would get the right answer can leave. You could never do that here, ever. There was no problems with discipline. I mean, you had to really be quiet.

And until my dad passed away, just before he passed away, he said he was upset with the government for sending us to camp. So that's why he said, no, no. Not because he had other feelings, but when he found out that Japan lost and he said he didn’t want to go back. He was born in Bakersfield.

But my mother was born in Hiroshima—I mean, was born in Washington—but she went to Hiroshima where her family was. And her grandmother passed away, and her cousins passed away during the bomb, so she would never go back to Japan. She didn't want to step foot in it. IN: So after the war, where did your family go?

MM: Our family went to Hunter’s Point, which was like a, well, it was almost like camp again, barracks, but it was housing from the government. And then eventually we moved into San Francisco.
 

YURI LONG AND SUMIKO HUGHES (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

YL: My name is Yuri Fukushima Long. I was born in Miami, Florida.

SH: My name is Sumiko and I abandoned this name, Harriet Fukushima, but I became Sumiko Teresa Morimoto Hughes. (laughs) I was born in Miami, Florida. 

IN: Were there groups of girls?

SH: Well, yeah. (laughs) The JUGs were the youngest of the group, and they had…

YL: Forget-me-not.

SH: The next group up above us was the Forget-Me-Nots. Then the one above them was the Moderneers.

YL: The high school group of girls and then they had the junior high school group and then they had the… 

SH: The wild group. The JUGs. (laughs)

YL: The JUGs were the youngest group. And the JUGs were known for being wild.

SH: Not wild, rowdy.

YL: They used to think we were rowdy.

IN: And how did—well, can you explain the name and then and what do you remember [about] how it first came together?

SH: Well, I guess because every group had a club, and we thought, Well, you know what? We’re a bunch of girls. And we decided on Just Us Girls. The JUGs.

YL:  They call us wild because every—at the dances, the JUGs were always very popular,  and the guys would come and ask them to dance. And they jitterbug. They were on the dance floor all the time. And some of the other club girls were sort of off on the side. They didn’t get asked as much. And they didn’t jitterbug. And they used to jitterbug wild. They would throw them under their legs. And you remember Toh used to do that to you. And then at the end, they dip and hold them like that. That's what he used to do.

BOB WADA (POSTON CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My name is Robert Wada. My middle name is Mitsuru. And I was born in Redlands, California.

So we knew where the dances were going to be because they kept a log. A lot of the blocks had their own dances. So we had our own. They weren’t, like, out of control dances, they were good. People didn’t crash dances. Our block had a dance and they invited a few friends that would come. That’s about the only thing we did socially.

MIKE HATCHIMONJI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

MH: I’m Mike Hatchimonji and I was born in El Centro, California. The dancing techniques were very different. I danced, I think, the proper way, held her close and that sort of thing. With some of these guys, that had bend the girl backwards, then when it came to the jitterbug the fast stuff,  I was

one of the guys who sat down. I couldn’t do that. Some of the guys and girls were so good at that.

And somewhat restrictive in that we didn’t have cars. We couldn’t go anywhere. There weren’t soda fountains and restaurants and so forth. Had two movie theaters inside those barrack-type buildings. So yeah. As far as teenage social life concern, it wasn’t there.

EA: Could you go on dates, where could you go?

MH: That’s that, Where could you go? I suppose some guys and girls managed. Go out there and sit on a rock somewhere, look at the moon, listening to the coyotes howling out there. I don’t know.

YURI LONG AND SUMIKO HUGHES (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

IN: So at camp and after you guys were referred to as the JUGs not Just Us Girls.

YL: The JUGs, yeah the JUGs. Always the JUGs huh? They never called us Just Us Girls. It was always the JUGs.

SH: (laughs) My husband once asked, ‘How come you named your club, jugs?’ He says, ‘There wasn’t a pair of jugs in the whole group.’ (laughs)

YL: There was no what?

SH: ‘Pair of jugs in the whole group.’ Jugs.

IN: Yeah. So were you aware of that double meaning of jugs?

YL: No. I don't think so.

SH: She’s not aware of a lot of things.

YL: I don’t think they ever associated the JUGs with…boobs. (laughs)

SH: That’s what Bill said.

IN: So it was totally innocent the naming of the original part. You didn’t think of the double meaning.

SH: No, no.

BOB WADA (POSTON CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My name is Robert Wada. My middle name is Mitsuru. And I was born in Redlands, California.

A friend of mine, Homer Kinoshita from Bakersfield, he played the trumpet and he and I were good friends and Jim Hayashi and we

hung around together. They both had bugles and I was playing drums in high school. In junior high school in 8th grade I was playing the drums. So we all had a mutual interest in some kind of instrument so we said, ‘Come on! We’re going to form a Boy Scout troop.’ ‘Oh, okay!’ So, we just kind of recruited some guys we knew and everybody was, you know, excited to become Boy Scouts. We did form—it was a small drum and bugle band. Small band.

Well, we did a lot of things with our band, we did a parade for the (clears throat) volunteers that were leaving for the 442nd [Regimental Combat Team]. They had a parade in camp and we were in the parade carrying the colors and stuff. We did the colors at school events.

FRANK MURAKAMI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP) 

FM: Frank Akira Murakami

IN: Where were you born?

FM: Wapato, Washington. A little berg in the Yakima Valley.

IN: What did the drum and bugle corp do in Heart Mountain?

FM: We just played at different events. We gave concerts, and also marched in the different events. And we also supplied the flag-raising contingent that raised and lowered the flag at the administration building. So it would be three people, three scouts on the team, a bugler, and two to handle the flag. So it’d go up in the morning and then bring it down at night. Yeah. So yeah. I got to do that at least twelve weeks, and I got an award for that. And it was good duty, you were important. Everybody stopped wherever they were when you started to play the trumpet or bugle, and then when it was done, then the people would go on to duty again. You know. So yeah, it was pretty important.

GEORGE AND RICHARD ISERI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

GI: My name is George Iseri. I was born in Kumamoto, Japan.

RI: My name is Richard Takuji Iseri. Uh, born in Pacific City, Washington.

GI: We also went to Yellowstone. The Boy Scouts were sent to Yellowstone. My job was to take care of thirty-five kids in our barrack. After dark, when everyone is sleeping, you could hear the bears trying to knock the lid off the garbage can, you know, and here all I had was a flashlight.

IN: Did you run into any bears?

GI: Oh, I saw one but, uh, I put the light on and he took off. But one was standing up and I never seen a bear that large before. I thought they were real short and dumpy and when they stood up they were a good six, seven feet tall.

RI: I had to be the bugler to the blow “Reveille” to wake everybody up in the morning. Our main was down at the bottom where the...had to be close to the mess hall. Then we had another detached building further up the hill there where the other guys were staying. But I had to—I blew the bugle down here to wake everybody up, supposedly. Then I had to go up there to blow the bugle also. And (laughs) I’m running out there looking for the bears, you know. And if you ran, they're going to run after you and all of that stuff, so you really had to watch out looking for the bears. I was more afraid of the bears (laughs) than going out there to blow the bugle wake them up. 

GEORGE ISERI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

GI: My name is George Iseri. I was born in Kumamoto, Japan.

The Yakima [Washington] people should’ve been going to Minadoka but it wasn’t large enough to hold another 2,000 of us so they sent us to

Wyoming [Heart Mountain].

IN: So, how did you feel about being in a boy scout troop when you were stuck behind barbed wire? Did that seem odd to you, did it feel contradictory, or was it something that was there for you to do?

GI: Well, myself...you know…I knew that I have to be there because everyone else is there. And yet the time I used to salute the flag...Why? I’m in a barbed-wired area, and here I’m saluting the American flag. Just like...they don't do this now, but before, you know, ‘I pledge allegiance to the flag,’ we used to raise our hand. That’s the difference between now and then, but it was sort of confusing for me. But I knew there was a war going on because my uncle, my mother's brother, was in the original 100th from Hawai‘i already. So, he got drafted before the war, Pearl Harbor. And so did my brother-in-law to be. He was already at Fort Riley, Kansas, drafted. So I knew something was going on in this world.

SETS KOBATA SHINTO, HARU ITO WATANABE, ELAINE MORITA MORINAGA, HELEN CHIKAHISA SAKAKI (POSTON CONCENTRATION CAMP)

SS: I’m Sets Kobata Shinto. Maiden name Kobata. I’m from El Centro, California, Imperial Valley and when the war broke out we went to Poston, Arizona.

HW: And I’m Haru. In camp I was Haruto Ito Watanabe and I was from Riverside.

EM: I’m Elaine Morita Morinaga, and I’m from Imperial Valley, I was born in El Centro, California.

HS: My name is Helen Chikahisa Sakaki. I was born in El Centro, California. Same as Sets and Elaine. We knew each other since we were ten years old.

IN: So what was it like for you guys who had siblings that went off? What do you remember about them when they had to leave? Did you understand it at the time?

IN: Did you understand it really at the time?

SS: Not really.

IN: Yeah.

SS: And here we put up our little flags, so proud of them going overseas.

HW: Exactly, exactly.

SS: And we’re in a camp. US government camp.

HS: I know it. But then that was the irony of it.

SS:  The irony. Yeah.

HW: Yeah. And we didn't approve of the No No Boys. But later on in life, when you hear about what they went through, I mean, they were actually quite brave to stand up.

SS: Yeah, stand up like that.

HW: Because all the Nisei were against No No, right? So they had double.

SS: Yeah.

EM: The No No Boys?

HW: But now I understand that they were actually very brave people that were going on their conviction.

HS: Yeah. They were protecting what they had.

HW: Exactly. Yeah. 

EM: But at the time, they…

HW: Well, no, I'm just saying ours. We didn’t agree with them. That made it even harder for them.

EM:  Yeah. It was true.

HW: You know, what they went through was even harder, so I respect them even more. I didn’t at the time.

EM: Exactly.

HW: Because all we did in canvassing, patriotic songs, remember?

SS: Yeah.

HW: Everything we said was of the American flag and patriotic songs.

SS:  We all stood up for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

HW: Yeah.

EM: We were all very patriotic.

HW: Very patriotic.

EM: And the boys and everybody going to war. Oh, my God.

HW: Oh, yeah. So they had a good send-off.

EM: It doesn't compute anymore.

SS:  And we were in the tar barracks. And we put up our little flag to show we have a brother in the service.

HW: Yeah, right. Yeah. (laughs)

SS: It's kind of ironic.

HW: Exactly. We didn't think of it that way then, but yes, it was.

IN: What were some of the songs you remember singing?

HW: “Anchors Aweigh.”

SS: “God Bless America.”

HW: Yeah, “God Bless America.”

IN: How about the Pledge of Allegiance?

HW: Yeah.

HW: Very, very dedicated.

EM: Every morning, every morning in school.

SS: Every morning.

HW: Very dedicated.

SS: We went through all the motions.

EM: Absolutely.

HW: We were very patriotic in camp.

EM: Yeah. And we meant it too, at the time. We certainly did.

SS: Yeah, because all our brothers were in the service.

GEORGE AND RICHARD ISERI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

GI: My name is George Iseri. I was born in Kumamoto, Japan.

RI: My name is Richard Takuji Iseri born in Pacific City, Washington.

GI: Well, I think I led that life, trying to be a good Boy Scout.

EA: What about you, Richard?

RI: Yeah. Patriotism was something that was—I think it was always on our mind. We didn't think about Japan as an enemy. Was too young to even think about those kind of things. I didn’t understand the reason why we were behind barbed wires, but being there didn’t mean that our mind wasn’t patriotic, you know. The thinking was still American.

GI: I don't know anything about other countries except for America.

RI: Yeah.

BACON SAKATANI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

BS: My full name is Harumi Sakatani. I’m called “Bacon” as my nickname. I was born in El Monte, California.

BS: Our Assistant Scoutmaster was involved as one of those draft resisters. And so—

IN: Who was he?

BS: Takashi Hoshizaki. He was our Assistant Scoutmaster and so he was helping us, but a short time later, he was involved in a court trial so he was taken to jail and later sent to prison. So our troop was not that involved with the other scout troops.

TAKASHI HOSHIZAKI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

TH: I’m Takashi Hoshizaki, and I was born just down the street here on the other side of Alameda Avenue [in Los Angeles].

But I wasn't there too long because I was then picked up as a draft resister. But I do remember—I always kid Bacon because Bacon was in my troop. 

I was sixteen, so very naive of what was really happening.

By the time that people start talking about the draft or volunteering [at the Heart Mountain concentration camp in 1943], I said, ‘Well, this is crazy. They put us into here and then expect us to go out and fight. And if I do go,’ I says, ‘I probably won’t come back.’ And then I begin to think about what’s going to happen to the rest of the family. And so finally when the draft notice came, I just didn't go to the physical. And by then I was working in the engineering department [at Heart Mountain], and apparently, one of the administrator’s sons was killed in the war. And so I kept working after I received my notice and didn’t go. So one of the other workers felt that maybe I shouldn’t come to work because it’d be sort of flaunting…‘I appreciate it.’ He says, ‘No, but it’s…’ ‘Oh, okay, fine.’ So I just didn’t report to work anymore. And then I guess a week or so later, I was picked up.

IN: People had already been getting picked up before you, right?

TH: Oh yeah I wasn’t the first. In fact it got to the point where there were sixty-three of us and the story goes that all the county jails in Wyoming were filled up with us. We were scattered all around.

IN: So where were you?

TH: I ended up in Casper, Wyoming, and then when the trial started everyone had to be there and so we got moved over to Cheyenne Wyoming and we just overcrowded it.

IN: I’ve seen that photo of all of you, the famous photo from the trial.

TH: Yeah. Right. But then we ended up with a three-year sentence, okay, and then Frank Emi later pointed out, he says, ‘You know,’ he says, ‘I wonder about the justice system.’ You’ve seen three different groups, because we had a group from, I think it was Poston. And then we had the Tule Lake group. And he says, ‘The Heart Mountain group got three years. Poston got 1 cent fine. And then Tule Lake, the three cases thrown out.’ So for all, for the “same crime,” we had ranged from acquittal to three years. So it was interesting to see that. But then in the end, when Truman was president, and about a year after our three years is over, we received the presidential pardon. So officially, there’s no record of our conviction.

YURI LONG AND SUMIKO HUGHES (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

YL: My name is Yuri Fukushima Long. I was born in Miami, Florida.

SH: My name is Sumiko and I abandoned this name, Harriet Fukushima but I became Sumiko Teresa Morimoto Hughes. (laughs) I was born in Miami, Florida. 

YL: But we were little, real little, when they moved us to LA.

IN: You went directly to Manzanar? You didn’t have to go to Santa Anita or anything? 

SH: We thought Manzanar was a terrible place. (laughs)

YL: Yeah because—

SH: The wind storms and cold in the winter, snow in the winter.

YL: Let’s see, what else did they used to do in camp?

SH: Baseball.

YL: Oh, baseball was real big. Every block, or lots of blocks, had baseball teams. And some blocks, they used to cheat, because they would get somebody from another block that was a good player and put her on their team. They would do that. And then they had gang fights. Gang fights. LA people versus San Pedro people and Burbank people. Who else? Burbank had a gang and San Pedro had a gang and LA had a gang, and they used to make fun of the LA guys because they said that they were city guys.

TOM IKKANDA (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

IN: We’re talking with Tom Ikkanda.

TI: Yeah so we set up a club called Manzanar Wingnuts. We even had some t-shirts made with ‘Manzanar Wingnuts’ across, great big ‘Wingnuts.’ I’ve still got pictures of myself wearing ’em. And I wish I kept the t-shirts, but I didn’t. But anyway, that's how we got that club name.

IN: A ‘wingnut’ was another term for an airplane mechanic?

TI:  Yeah, yeah, right.

IN: It’s also a double entendre. There is a wing nut that you actually, a bolt, a nut.

TI:  Yeah, there was a nut there.

IN: Right. Where did you fly the plane? Out towards the edges of the camp?

TI: “We flew ’em in the—”

IN: Firebreak?

TI:  Firebreak. There was quite a bit of room. And occasionally some would fly out, but, uh, what you call it, the guards would let us go out and get ’em. So it was okay.

JEANETTE MISAKA (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

JM: ​My name is Jeanette Sumi Mitarai Misaka. I was born in San José, California. (laughs)

EA: So in addition to Girl Scouts what were some other activities you did in camp?

JM: We had the drill team and Reiko Ohara, from Los Angeles area, was our drill team leader. She was very good. She had us really trained and we had to have white uniforms. I mean different, but all white, and then the pom-poms. I remember making those pom-poms and then we would... the Boy Scouts would lead the parade with the drum and bugle and we would follow with the drill team. (laughs) That was pretty neat.

RAYMOND UNO (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP) 

My name is Raymond Sonji Uno. (laughs) I was born in a taxi cab in Ogden, [Utah]. 
That’s one thing I am amazed about the Japanese, I think back about it, they are very organized just because they used to have a Japanese

community and Japan town, Japanese churches, like baseball it kinda brought the Japanese community together. 

So immediately they had baseball teams and they had different kinds of sporting activities. But vaudeville was one of the things. One of the things I remember about the vaudeville is that I became friends with Norio Uyematsu who's very active in Korean War vets in Los Angeles, and Howard Okamura, who used to be a pharmacist, that passed away. There were all three classmates and I don't know how we got together, but we formed a trio and the three of us sang “Lamplighters Serenade.” And that's the only thing I remember. I don't remember the song or anything. So that's kind of brought us together and Norio and I are still really close friends and I go to LA, he gets the group together.
 

BACON SAKATANI (HEART MOUNTAIN CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My full name is Harumi Sakatani. I’m called “Bacon” as my nickname. I was born in El Monte, California.

My father found a farm that he could work at. And so in June of 1945 my two sisters and I and my parents left by bus for Idaho. I was a junior in high school and my mother—I think we worked for 35 cents an hour pulling weeds. We just packed up with what we

had and went on the train and went back to California.

We didn’t have a place to stay and so we got a tent. So we lived in this tent. I don’t recall how we lived. It must’ve been terrible living in a tent and I don’t know how we cooked or whatever, but after a short while, we found a farm in Pomona, which was not too far away. 

It was a run down farm and oh, it was a big struggle to start all over again from nothing, you know. We lost everything when we were placed in the camp. It’s hard to talk about, you know, what we went through. I would say for us—for some of us—that the life after camp—right after camp—was the worst part of what we went through.

JUNE BERK (ROHWER CONCENTRATION CAMP)

My name is June Yasuno Kyoko Aochi Yamashiro Berk. I was born here in Los Angeles, in Hollywood, California.

Well, my father wanted to come back because he knew he was dying. And he says, ‘I wanna die in my home.’ And I thought he

meant Japan. And I thought, Oh my God, how are we gonna get to Japan? But he meant California. He wanted to come back and die in LA.

My mom called me and she was crying. And she said, ‘I don't, we don't have anybody to, to take care of us. Um, Yas is busy with his family and his baby.’ So she says, ‘Can you come out here to take care of us?’ So I said, ‘Okay.’ So reluctantly I came back to LA and I found my mom and dad and myself duplex in, uh, west side, um, near Jefferson and Edge Hill. And, um, it was the first time my father says he was in a brand new duplex. I found a duplex for us to live in. So he was very happy. He says, ‘I’m in a first time in my life. I'm in a new building.’ Um, uh, and he died about six months later. 

FRANK KIKUCHI (MANZANAR CONCENTRATION CAMP)

FK: I was baptized by the Maryknoll Catholic Church and after that it was Francis Isamu Kikuchi.

IN: And where were you born, Frank?

FK: Seattle, Washington, Kings County.

IN: Did you have a hard time finding a house to move into?

FK: Yeah there were a lot of places that Japanese weren’t allowed to live. So you couldn’t buy a home.

IN: So how did you find a place to live?

FK: Boyle Heights wasn’t too hard. This family, two brothers, had gotten together and they bought a home and they... It wasn't a big home, but they rented out the sun porch. They made it a home. I mean, one big room. And they made it a room to rent. And, my father heard about that and rented it. And, we lived in it for one year, one big room.

IN: In one big room, So that sounds like living in Manazar all over again

FK: It was, It was worse. I think about now, my poor mother, she went all the way to wherever she would go, I guess, Beverly Hills or somewhere to clean house. Well, my father, he was a dishwasher in a hotel or restaurant or something like that. Very terrible. Those were terrible times where we had to save money.