Tacoma Japanese Language School Oral History Collection

Mary:Okay, well we are here with Kazumo (Kaz) Horita, age 83, of Chicago, a Nisei man, and it is March 11, 19-, uh, 2005. My name is Mary Hanneman, with the University of Washington.

Lisa:And I’m Lisa Hoffman, also with the University of Washington, Tacoma. And we’d like to start if you can tell us where and when you were born, and a little bit about your family background.

Kazumo:Okay, well, let’s see. Born December 23rd, 1921, in Tacoma, and talking…talking about myself… how long a history do you want here? [laughter]

Mary:Well, tell us about your parents, when your parents came to Tacoma, and uh…

Kazumo:Okay, my father came in 1906, my mother came 1920, but talking about Dad, he came mainly to raise funds, raise money to be able to help for the family in Japan. He came with his older brother. My dad was the youngest son in the family, and came with his older brother, and the two of them were going to do that. I think part of the reason for having all of this occur is that the family had funds for lots of years and had property and all that, but they had a couple of uh, my grandfather, grandfather, whatever, excuse me, but, uh, they knew how to spend the money and I think they threw away the money if nothing else. And they were at the point where they were in debt, so that that was the reason for Dad and Mom, uh Dad and his older brother coming to the United States to see if they can’t at least help out in that, the paying off the debts and all that.

So uh, my dad was fairly well educated for the Japanese boys in those age, and I know that much, much later than that, when I visited Japan, my cousin told me that it was too bad that Dad had to be one of those that came to the United States, because his uh, he would have had a good career in Japan, they thought, because of his education. He came over here, worked in a, and I’m not quite sure exactly how many years, but only a few years, in uh in a sawmill. And then from there, he established his own, uh, produce market, and he had that produce market, uh for many years. I’m not quite sure the year, as I say, when he opened it, but it would’ve been somewhere around, uh, the late nineteen-hundreds. Late 1900, before 1910.

Mary:Where was that and what was the name of the produce?

Kazumo:Okay, I’m not quite sure where his first one might have been, but we had two separate—by the time he established everything—we had two separate produce markets. One located on the corner of 11th and Market, and one located mid-block, the middle of, I think the address was in fact something like 1124 Market Street. [dark shape crosses camera right to left] And uh so, he did, at least from what people tell me, and a lot of that and this information comes from the people that supplied him the, uh produce, which would have been the wholesale markets [dark shape crosses camera left to right] and the farmers. My dad did a real good job of doing that. And in fact, I’d have to say, at least a hundred times I was told by the wholesale people that, “When you grow up, if you could be like your dad, you’re going to be a success.” So yeah, I felt, uh, that he was doing a good job.

And then subsequently, there’s things like, I went to Japan, uh on a business trip, visited my cousins, who were living in a place, Fukui, Japan, and when I saw them, they said – I slept over at their, my cousins’ house actually – and he said, “Do you know, do you know anything about this house?” And I said, “What do you mean, do I know anything about the house?” “Well, want you to know,” and it was a nice house, “I want you to know that your dad is the one that sent the money to build the house.” And so it was things like that that. Then I met other cousins who told me that, “your dad is the one that sent the money so I could get married.” Another one that says, you know, “I was very sick, and your dad is the one that sent the money” that, you know, was medicine and hospital and things, costs that they needed. So I thought Dad did a pretty good job, at least I felt he was pretty successful, and I would’ve been like kids in those days, pretty happy to be as successful as he was.

A cute story that occurs, I mean, I may just interject it right now, but my, in World War One, now this will going back to what, 19-, uh -16s or -17s, when the United States got into the war, but even prior to that, the Germans had a hard time getting jobs, they were rejected for employment and all that kind of stuff, and, um, my dad hired a German fellow, his name was Mr. Schreiber, as a truck driver for his store. And now we speed forth into World War II, and Mr. Schreiber found out about the fact that we were going to have to leave, we were going to, you know, just be taken away somewhere, and we remember Mr. Schreiber coming down just about every day to Dad, saying, “what can I do for you? You know, I want to help out. I want to be able to do whatever it is, because you’re the one that did everything for me during World War I, I want to do something for you.” And so we stored our, a lot of our furniture and things with Mr. Schreiber, leaving so… But it was kind of interesting how that occurred.

Lisa:Do you know why your dad and his brother went to the Tacoma area, and did they stop in Seattle at all?

Kazumo:You know, uh, I don’t know that for a fact, but I think…See most of the, most of the Japanese that came over, when they came over, they really had some kind of a contact. In other words, there was some, someone who was bringing, you know, they were going, in fact I don’t know if they went to Japan, but they had the contacts in Japan to say, “okay, you know, why don’t you come out, boy you know it’s pretty nice over there, you can make money and all that.” And all of that, they were recruited in some ways, uh by, and I think Dad, probably heard about the United States, how good it would be, how you could make your millions and go home, type of thing. And uh, but who that was, but why do I say that? I say that because there were, he came from my se-, as I say, Fukui-ken, and there were other people from Fukui-ken that were here at the time. Now there were not a big number, because if you ask the Tacomans “where did you, where, what’s the origin of your ancestry,” you know, you’d hear Hiroshimas, and the Hime, and, you know, others, but Fukui had a number of them. And so I think that’s… Someone had told them about the potentials of coming here. Now that’s true of not just Tacoma but all the other locations too, I know.

Lisa:And how about your Mom, then, how did they meet?

Kazumo:Well, Mom, uh, that’s uh, arranged. I guess somewhere along the line, they told the people how wonderful Dad was, and all that kind of stuff, and so that’s, uh... I’m not quite sure exactly how it all happened, and in fact I’m not quite sure whether my, my… I think I’m correct in saying that he went to Japan and brought her back, rather than for her to come alone. But I’m not sure that that’s true. I don’t know, some families, I don’t know exactly, what all about how their parents came over, and all that, but I don’t know that I know.

Part of the reason for not knowing is that when you’re a kid, all you’re worried about is play, and you’re out playing a lot.

If, and I think you’ll find this kind of true, that if you find that a person lived with their parents after, let’s say, the schooling age, and spent a lot of time together, they know a lot more about their parents than someone like me, who just barely got, well, in fact, really truly got through high school, went away to college, separated ever since that time, and never really lived together to any extent, maybe for short periods but, and so you really didn’t have the opportunity to talk to your parents and know what’s… And so, like in our family, you look at our family, I would guess offhand that my sister, and my, and one of my brothers, and in fact my youngest brother also, all three of them, because they spent more time with my parents, know more about some of the things than I do.

Mary:So you’re the oldest.

Kazumo:I’m the oldest, but I’m the one that probably left the family. In fact, I shouldn’t say probably, I left the family very quickly after schooling. My sisters lived with my folks just about all the way through, because they stayed in Chicago and had a multi-apartment building together. My one brother, Tom, he didn’t come here, but he’s living here, but he never got married, so he spent all his time here, all his life with Mom. And in fact, when Mom got to the point where she wasn’t able to get along too much because of dementia, he’s the one that took care of her. My younger brother, he was so young when we left Tacoma that, for example, he never went to Japanese school. But in his case, he also lived with them until he got married, and then even after marrying, because he was in Chicago, he was able to see Mom and Dad. For me, we left Chicago and went to Pennsylvania and lived there for twenty-five years. So we were away from the parents for a long time. The only thing we know is what conversations we had when we came over here on vacations and stuff like that.

Lisa:You said that as a child you did all kinds of play, and you were interested in playing. What kinds of games did you play, and what would you do? I think you mentioned marbles.

Kazumo:Well, most of my life I was very much involved in sports. I spent a lot of time on sports, including baseball, basketball, football, did some bowling, so that was my life. It wasn’t girls, it was sports. [laughter] And work. I, I’d say that…most of the days were spent in school and then play. The Buddhist church, and the Methodist church, both had gymnasiums. So later, they had ping-pong tables set up, and all that kind of stuff, so you could just spend your time… It was a recreation hall for you.

Lisa:You mentioned marbles earlier, where did you play marbles?

Kazumo:On the bare ground, you know, most of them you kind of wet it down and level it off, and then you play. I don’t know, do you know marble?

Lisa:In a circle?

Kazumo:Yeah, you’d have a circle, you’d start, shoot the marble, and then you’d knock the marbles out of the circle and things like that, and … that’s where, as I mentioned, this Akiyo Ichio, he’s the one that came to me and said…I didn’t realize it, but I know that I never was looking for marbles, my bag was always full. [laughter] Yeah but…

Mary:Did you…go ahead.

Kazumo:No, I…[gestures to go on]

Mary:Well I was going to ask, did you…you played on a church team, did you play on a high school team, and then also in the Courier League? It sounds like…

Kazumo:Not high school, I did not. My closest to school was when I was in college. I turned out for baseball and I was, I didn’t make the team, but I was in the last cut, so that was about as close as I got to playing.

During the time that we were in high school, there was Japanese school, for one, not a real priority in my mind, but priority, but the other part of it was that my dad has his store, so quite early I started to help out whenever I was needed, and it had a higher priority than to play sports. But I did play enough in school, you know, just intramural-type sports. So school was part of it, in fact, I think I mentioned to Lisa already, but this John, Jack Godfried that wrote my nice letter, when I was, when I wanted to get out of camp, so was the one in McArthur Intermediate School, in our final annual, yearbook, he wrote down: Kaz Horita, the first Major League baseball player. [laughter] So that was, that was nice of him.

Lisa:Yeah.

Kazumo:But, but my baseball was pretty good, pretty good, but okay, where else did we play a lot of baseball. It was Courier League for the Japanese-Americans, in Seattle, Tacoma, and the whole valley area, was a major thing for us. I mean, lots of our boys played. I’m not quite sure who you’ve interviewed so far and who’s played, but Taki, Taki Ikeda, have you interviewed Taki Ikeda in Tacoma? He’s, he was a good player, but other than that, I don’t know that you’ve interviewed anyone else that was a, you know, a star, but the reason I say that is because I, I was kind of a star. You know…[laughs] At least, I felt very good about it, and I was on the All-Star team fairly frequently, and an All-Star team meant that you were at least considered pretty good in the Seattle, the valley, the Tacoma, and the whole area there.

Mary:Well, so you had to travel quite a bit to play in those games.

Kazumo:Yes, we went, we went to Seattle pretty often, because Seattle had the majority of the teams. And then you also went to the various, well, there was a Kent, instead of “Kent” it was called “White River,” and there was Sumner, Orting, no Orting didn’t have one, Orting didn’t have one. Uh, Fife had a good team every year, Fife had a real good team. Seattle had lots and lots of teams, but around Seattle you’ve got Bellevue, you’ve got Green Lake, those are teams that…they had teams. That was basketball and baseball, and they had enough teams so that there was four separate leagues. There was an A, B, C, and a double-A, so that you started with a C when you were real young, and then you kept advancing up.

Mary:So you got to know people from different communities maybe as a result of that.

Kazumo:The boys, especially, yeah. In fact, now you had to play enough, but fortunately, I did play quite a bit, so that when I got, for example, when I got involved in the JACL, Japanese American Citizens’ League, and I got involved very much there, so I used to go around the country for the JACL. I would go to some towns, and they said, a young fellow would come up to me and says, “My dad said to say hello to you.” And it would be one of the fellows that I’d played either basketball or baseball against. And yeah, so, it also made it so that when I was, again my work took me around the country a lot, foreign countries as well, but when I was going around the countries I would go to a, Kansas City, and I’d tell my buddies that I went, that I was going there to that location, I says, “I’ve got to call up my buddy here.” “Kaz, you’ve got more buddies all over this country than anyone else that we know, you know.” And I’d go to Kansas City, and I’d call someone up and “hey, you know,” and these are fellows that either were fellows that were in Tacoma, or most of them were fellows that I got involved with in sports before or because I was now becoming quite involved in JACL. I got to know a lot of people from there. So yeah, I was fortunate in, as I say, at least the other fellows that I worked with, just couldn’t understand how a person could have that many friends around different parts…

That was one of the nice things about being a Japanese-American. Because that gave you the chance to, you know, just very quickly get to know a person.

Mary:Because you had so much in common you mean? Or just a small community?

Kazumo:It’s, it’s, you feel a kinship to them, uh, somehow or other you’re a – you know, if you – if you, if I see, uh, what I think is a Japanese-American in a meeting or something, I go up to them, say “Hey, hi. Are you Japanese?” Now sometimes people don’t like to be – because if they’re not, then uh – or the other part of it is that if you’re a Japanese, some – some people don’t like to have someone else come up to them, you know. “Are you a Japanese?” Because then, then the thought is that you’re being asked whether you’re an American or not, and, you know. We’re Americans, you know, which is true. But I personally don’t feel very antagonistic, you know. I don’t – I don’t mind them asking me – I’ve – I’ve been around the country, I’ve been around the world and, you know, hey. So what if they’re – if that starts a conversation, okay! [laughs]

Lisa:Is this particularly true, do you think, with the Nisei?

Kazumo:Yes. I – I hear that quite often. If you, uh, look at the Japanese – the JACL, the Pacific Citizen, which is a JACL house organ, you, every so often you read someone, um, rebelling to being called a Japanese, you know, or “are you a Japanese?” That question arouses some [hands raised together in front] in a person. As I say, maybe I’m different, but uh, I – I, at least so far I haven’t had anyone – I mean I haven’t thought about it when they ask me. I reply very quickly.

That – that, maybe for me that occurred because when I started going to college, especially when you’re out in the world, when I came to Chicago, even though I was in a community where there is a lot of Japanese in Chicago, but school was very few of us. Because we were being selected to go to college, and so I… I know, I know that one of my first days’ experience at school when I went there, uh, this fellow who was Russian, Kutschtik, I think was his – but anyhow, he and I went to lunch together and, uh, he came, you know, we were talking and I can’t remember what the subject was, but anyhow, I was giving him trouble for being a Russian. He turned around, says “Kaz,” [shakes finger and looks intent] he says, “you know, I could call you worse names than you’re calling me here.” [laughs] So it was kind of fun.

Lisa:When did you start getting involved in the JACL?

Kazumo:When I moved to – when I was in Chicago, I wasn’t, I was a member – that’s about all. And then, when I went to Philadelphia, now that would be 1958, I, uh, moved from Chicago to Philadelphia… Philadelphia has much fewer Japanese-Americans than, you know, like than Chicago. And so one of the organizations that you could join to get – to meet with other Japanese-Americans was the JACL. And, uh, I got quite involved with them, first becoming a member there, and you’d probably hear the name somewhere, if you haven’t heard it already, Tom Tomaki –

Lisa:Uh-huh.

Kazumo:Well, Tom Tomaki, Dr. Tomaki, is a Tacoman, of course, and you know that, but he’s, he was out in the Philadelphia area. And I contacted Tom, and he helped, in fact, he helped me get the real-estate agent who found the place that we wanted to live, because we were the, the facilities that I was going to work at happened to be fairly close to where Tom lived. So anyhow, but… Tom Tomaki got me introduced to JACL. He was the one that says, “Hey you’ve got to join the Philadelphia group.” And so I – I went. He – he got me started, and he’s the one that gave me all the trouble, because then I got – then I got too involved.

I got, uh – I got in the JACL, and the next thing I knew, I was, before, well before a couple of years, I was president of the Philadelphia Chapter. And then that led me into becoming the governor of the Eastern District, which then took care of the Eastern part, and then the next thing I knew, I got involved in the National JACL, and I became, uh, well I was, after spending four years as the Eastern District governor, which wasn’t too often, because most people didn’t run for two, office for more than two years. Two years was the general, you know, that, you were elected for two years. But then anyhow, uh, subsequent to that, I got involved in becoming the national vice-president for JACL, and I was national vice-president for four years. And then, after that, I uh, was very close to this move from Chicago – I mean from Philadelphia to Chicago-area, back – back to Chicago from Philadelphia, back to Chicago, so I got, when I got to Chicago, I sort of… I said, “I live too far away from the JACL,” so I’m just a good card-carrying member now.

Lisa:When you moved – we will go back to Tacoma, I promise – but um, when you moved to Philadelphia and you were looking for a house, was it easy to find a place to buy? Were you steered into certain neighborhoods, were there covenants that said “No Japanese-Americans” in areas, did you face any of them?

Kazumo:If there was in Philadelphia, I’m not quite aware. There was, well, we made an offer on a house… Well, number, number one, I’m not quite sure how – how it was in Philadelphia, but now I’m, now I’m kind of flipping a little bit back here, but uh, when I was interviewing for jobs, jobs were not that difficult at that time. When I was interviewing, as far as getting interviews…

Lisa:Which years? I’m sorry, when is this?

Kazumo:This is right after the War. See, well, in other words, I went back to school after service, and, uh, so in 1947 is when I started looking for it, for a job. And at that time, and this was at school, at the Illinois Institute of Technology, we had lots and lots of interviews available to us. And, in fact, I remember a number of occasions when I’d be, or we, we’d be out playing softball, out in the field, and the lady who was in charge of … personnel office, well, let’s see, she was – any, anyhow, she was part of the group that got people to go to the interviews, and all that. She would come out, “Why don’t you fellows get dressed up and take an interview?” You know, and we’d go and take an interview, you know. [laughter] It was kind of like that. So, it was, but I had a[n] interview with Philadelphia Quartz Company, and they were headquartered in Philadelphia. And the – in my interview, the fellow that was interviewing me said something. It had not gotten to the point where, you know, he was going to say “Hey, you know, we’re considering you as a good candidate,” all that. But he said something about [how] it may be difficult to find housing in that area of Philadelphia. At that time I didn’t know what it meant, but it was in the area that was fairly, uh, I don’t know, I guess they were probably had nice houses there and so anyhow, that was one mention that I remember. Other than that, I didn’t get anything that I felt bad.

But, now, going back to the housing, when we went out to Philadelphia, they, uh, some of the people at Container Corporation, that I work for, were a little bit afraid how it might be to find housing. And uh, but having Tom Tomaki, as I say, was there.

And Tom had a friend, a doctor friend, whose brother was in the real estate business. And he, in fact, they were the ones that helped me connect, go around. Now whether they were being selective, or not, I don’t know. But, the fact is that one house that I did make an offer for, the first one, it was sold before I got it. But whether it was sold, and whether the neighbors are rebel – I don’t have any idea. But I know that when we did move in to a house in that area, we had the best reception. You know, we – I left Chicago hearing that out east those people are all cold, oh no they’re not going to – you know, I mean they just really not that friendly out there. Well I, we moved into this neighborhood and we had half a dozen people that baked a cake and brought it down, and all this, just to say “Hi, you know, we’re your neighbors, hi.” So that was nice, and we found them friendly. They were looking for churches for us, you know, we were invited to all kinds of churches, and all that, which was very nice. It was a strongly Italian neighborhood that we moved into. And as I say, we enjoyed life there for twenty-five years, yeah. Made some real good friends out there.

Now the, I might want to go back to before that, finding a house in Chicago.

Lisa:Okay.

Kazumo:And, of course, I’m sure that others have expressed it, but when we first came out, well, when I first came out, I had been approved to go to Illinois Institute of Technology. I came out here, and the Quakers, the American Friends’ Group, had a hostel, and that’s where they kind of suggested we go to, just for initial, just from there you go looking for your apartment. And I do recall my first experiences there, going along North State Street, which is all these honky-tonks were located there, in that area, going to places and there’d be a For Rent sign. You’d knock on the door, “Ohhhh, we’re sorry, but we just rented this…” I got lots of that from a number of them. And ended up, all I was looking for was a rooming house that, you know, that I could just have a desk there and enough so that I could do my studies and all that kind of stuff, and so that was kind of interesting. The Quakers did try to find a place for you, but they told me there was a place on a hundred and something, and I asked someone else where that was, and he’s like “ten miles out of town,” and you know, [scrunches face and raises hands, imitating fear], I’m afraid of going, being that far away, so I didn’t…

Lisa:So what did you do? Where did you end up?

Kazumo:Well, I ended up in a rooming house that actually had a few other Japanese students there. And so, well I say a few, yeah, there was about, there was about two, two others that were there, and they had a room open, and so I got there.

Mary:And what year would that have been?

Kazumo:That would have been 1943.

Mary:So you had been discharged from the service–

Kazumo:No, no, this was, [camera jumps downwards] I was – this Jack Godfried letter, that was to approve me – well, what happened there, was that as soon as we got put into these concentration camps… Well, number one, we went to a, for us in Tacoma, we went to Pinedale, California, which was down in, close to Fresno, all the way from Tacoma, and that’s hard to understand why we got all the way down to Pinedale, California, because right in Puyallup, those people went to Puyallup Fairgrounds, and the Seattle people went to Puyallup… But anyhow, we were down in Pinedale, California. Then from there, the Tacoma people got shipped up to Tule Lake.

And then from, there was quite a number from Tule that later, because Tule became a separation, I mean, not a separation, no, the people that, well, I don’t know if you’ve got into this whole area of trying to answer yes or no, whether you would serve for the country, and all that. Well anyhow, those that said, because of some difficulty in interpreting those questions, they said “no, no,” well some of those, those people were left in Tule. I’m not quite sure whether all of them were or not, but anyhow, but the rest, the ones that otherwise were sent to other camps.

Well I was out of the Tule by that time, but my parents, for example, [camera shifts upwards] went to Minidoka camp, Minidoka up in Idaho. But as far as now how did I get out to school? When I was in Tule, and this is fairly early after we were interned, that they sent down to those who, [counts sequence off on fingers] number one: could essentially afford to go to school, college, and be able to handle the finances out of their pocket, more or less, in other words they were not sure that you could go out and find a job. And so, for those, and if you showed that financial capabilities, then they started to look for – and they were happy with everything else, they, your application – then they would let you apply for schools.

Well, now, instead of saying I want to apply for Illinois Institute of Technology, it was a case where the Quaker group, the American Friends – and this was in the co-op, well it was a cooperative effort, between the universities that were kind of willing to do this and the American Friends – that they looked for colleges for you. And in my case, for example, the University – I wanted to get into chemical engineering, maybe chemistry, but more chemical engineering. That’s what I wanted. So, the University of Tennessee, Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, and Illinois Institute of Technology, all three said, “We will accept Kaz as a student.” And so the University of Tennessee at that time, to me sounded like it was the far south, and I was just going to not – well, I was a little bit afraid of it. Swarthmore College was chemistry, rather than chemical engineering. And that’s – and then, of course, Illinois Institute of Technology, being in Chicago, and by that, you know… Chicago was where there were a few Niseis [camera shifts off to the right, off of Kaz] that were starting to go on to – well, anyhow, I chose the [camera shifts back onto Kaz] Illinois Institute of Technology, and that’s how I got out to school.

So I got the approval, and again that’s when one of the things that I had to have was reference letters, and that’s, one of the letters was John Godfried’s letter. So that’s kind of how everything occurred. It was kind of interesting leaving camp, for me, because I didn’t, decided that I would, instead of coming directly out to Chicago, I would – and I’m not sure whether I asked for approval to do this or not, but anyhow – some of my friends by that time had gone up to Walugah – Wah – Walla Walla, Washington, where they were harvesting asparagus. So I visited some of them. Then, on the way through there, I visited Doctor Munekata’s family. Now Ryo was not there, because he was in California, and he never got, he had to go to a camp down there, but his two sisters and father and mother were in Napa, in Napa, Idaho, and I visited them on the way out.

Mary:So you arrived in Chicago in ’43.

Kazumo:’43.

Mary:And went to school.

Kazumo:Went to school, yes, and we had to go to school essentially throughout the year, there was – we were tied with the Navy ROTC. In fact, that’s the reason I had to find housing outside of the campus, because Navy ROTC had all of the school housing taken over.

But anyhow, we went to school with the Navy ROTC people, so we spent essentially sixteen weeks, school, sixteen weeks, and so forty-eight weeks were taken up with schooling, and then three weeks in between were the, between semester. So we had, we had three semester years, and what we did was we accomplished a year and a half studies. And those days, each year was a little tougher, in that we had to have forty-eight credits, sixteen credit per semester, forty-eight credit for us. So we were able to graduate in two and two-thirds year. Although I had schooling before that, so I got out in about two years.

Lisa:When did you go in the service then?

Kazumo:I went in the service in ’45.

Lisa:And how long?

Kazumo:I was in for about a year, a little more than a year actually, a year and three months.

Mary:Was that before or after the war ended, then?

Kazumo:This was before the war ended, but by the time I got out, the war had ended. And they actually deferred me for a very short time. I shouldn’t say a very short time, I guess for about a half a year or more, because I was, they felt I was, at least they said they accepted the fact that I was, you know, a year and a half away from getting my degree.

Lisa:So how about if we go back to Tacoma –

Kazumo:All right. [camera zooms out]

Lisa:And um, the produce market, you said you helped out in the market –

Kazumo:Yes.

Lisa:Were you the only one? Was – did you mom also help in the market?

Kazumo:Yes, yes. My mom helped some. She was, she was of course having to take care of the kids, all that kind of stuff, so she didn’t, she didn’t help too much, but where – I’m not quite sure how she accomplished it – most of the time she worked was, I think, when the kids were a little bit older, but, uh… I don’t know if you could – no, you wouldn’t recall, but yeah, you do have some – now strawberries, if you see strawberries now, they’re sort of put in there, although they put the bigger ones on top and then the smaller ones [gestures as if stacking a carton top to bottom]. Well, in the old days, strawberries came in wooden, little, look like baskets [fingers shaped like a basket], and she did like things put the small ones on the bottom and put the nice big ones [gestures as if arranging strawberries bottom to top, from smallest to largest] and making it look pretty. Or making sure that the oranges were piled up [gestures to demonstrate stacked oranges]. She didn’t do any selling, or anything else like that, but she kind of helped in that. She didn’t work too much, at any time that I recall.

We lived walking distance, we lived walking distance from the store all the time. As I say, our stores were on Market Street. And we were living all the way, all around that area [gestures in a circle].

Let’s see, I thought one of the questions has to do with where we lived.

Lisa:Mm-hmm.

Kazumo:I was born, I was born on between 11th and 13th on Fawcett, just about [unintelligible].

Mary:You were born at home, then.

Kazumo:It was, [camera begins jiggling and shifting around of Kaz ] it was in a home, but we, we didn’t, we didn’t own it, we just rented it. [camera stabilizes on Kaz] We didn’t buy a house until we got to the last one, but I’ll get to that. Let’s see, we lived there, then the next place we lived was between 17th and 19th on Market. I remember that house because the thing was on a hill [arm in shape of a slope], you know, a slope like this. The other thing, other interesting thing about that, maybe other Japanese-Americans have had the same experience, but we had a—Jack was his name—but Jack lived with us in our house. I’m not quite sure what his relationship to the house was, but he lived with us in the house, and just sort of separated by a – only the fact that he had a room, but he lived with us and I’m not quite, not quite sure… But he was – I uh, I still, I was very young, but it was, I know that it was at a time when my brother was living, so that would have been – and my brother is three years younger, so I must have been five years old by that time or so, anyhow. But I remember him.

Lisa:Caucasian? Man?

Kazumo:Caucasian.

Lisa:Okay.

Kazumo:Yeah. And then we moved from there to 19th and Fawcett, just down the – I don’t know if they’ve described where the Methodist Church was, but we lived across the street and down a little bit from their Methodist Church. Then we moved from there to between, let’s see, it would’ve been 15, 15th and Fawcett, just about the middle of the block there. And then we moved from there to between Tacoma Avenue and G Street on 18th. So that would’ve been just right above where the Japanese school is. So, and…

Mary:And that was your last… [talking over one another]

Kazumo:We bought that. That was where we – we bought that house.

Lisa:Why did you move so much? [camera jogging around above Kaz’s head then resettling]

Kazumo:I don’t – I don’t really know, except…I know that the last move was because we were buying a house. If I had to guess, the uh, the house that was, that was on between 15th and uh, middle of the block, 15th and 17th on Fawcett, was a nice house, a big house. We lived right next to a Chinese family, the Wings, I don’t know, has anyone mentioned the Wings?

Mary:Yes. Uh-huh.

Lisa:Yes, yes.

Kazumo:Okay, well Wings were our neighbors. And so, the boys, the Wing boys were a very good friend of ours, William was our, the closest one to me, but, I think I spent more time with the older brother, David, because he was a heck of a ball player.

Lisa:Ah.

Kazumo:And, you know, we spent time. I – he taught me how to play baseball, in some ways. He was, he was good enough to be, I think he played for the high school team, as I remember, David Wing. But uh…

Lisa:When you’re—sorry.

Kazumo:So I don’t know why, exactly, why we – and I’m not aware of the fact that we moved more than anyone else moved, but I don’t know.

Lisa:Maybe you remember all the moves, so we’ve heard about more moves from you.

Kazumo:Oh, is that right?

Lisa:Maybe other people forget them, yeah.

Kazumo:Could… Well, I think, if I have the guess for a lot of the families, if they were involved in a hotel business, or something like that, then, of course, they had the hotel and they might… Now if there were, I don’t recall people moving from hotel to hotel, but I do recall a lot of families that moved from the farm to the hotel, or something. You know, if you said, “Well, now where did so-and-so come from…” And I also recall people that had hotels, the family moved back to Japan, a lot of that, a number of them that I can recall. Where someone else came in who was, again, Japanese ancestry. But maybe it was – you know, I really can’t remember that, why we moved maybe more than others.

Lisa:So did you walk to school, then?

Kazumo:Yes.

Lisa:And what schools did you go to?

Kazumo:Well, I went to Central, to start with, and I went to – started Central when I was living at the one on Market Street between 17th and 19th. That’s where I – that’s when I started my first school, Central School. Then McCarver was our second school. And I think by the time I went to McCarver, I think we were living on the Fawcett Avenue, between 15th and middle of… And then by the time I went to high school, most of the time, high school, I think, all three years, I think I was living on the 18th Street. So that, that was a walk right up Tacoma Avenue and… But yes, walked to school all the time.

Lisa:And so that, you went to Stadium?

Kazumo:No, Lincoln.

Lisa:Lincoln, okay.

Kazumo:Lincoln. All the boys, just about, went to Lincoln. In those days, I don’t want to, if I could turn that off [gestures to the spotlight], we considered the guys going to Stadium [stage whispers] sissies! [laughter] Why?

Lisa:We won’t tell Dr. Munekata that.

Kazumo:Why? Well, I don’t know, that’s, you know, but it was because, see, those of us that went to Lincoln went there because we wanted to take shop. We, at that time, wasn’t sure, you know, career?

You know, you may have to, you know, if you asked any of the older people, they would’ve told us that we were going to be back there working in my dad’s produce market anyhow. So we’d better learn how to do carpentry and [blows nose into handkerchief] that kind of stuff. But anyhow…

Lisa:What year did you graduate high school? I’m sorry.

Kazumo:1940

Lisa:Okay.

Mary:And going back to younger days, did your family speak Japanese in the home?

Kazumo:Yes.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Kazumo:Only half-half. You know, sort of, Dad having been in business, could understand a lot of what we were saying too, so… Mom didn’t understand too much. The only thing – Mom was, this is kind of a cute story. Mom came to Tacoma, and she remembered the sign up there [draws a signboard overhead], and it’s “Amocat” [runs fingers from left to right]. Well, that was “Tacoma” for her, because Amocat is Tacoma backwards. Well, you know, in Japan you read this way [runs hand from right to left].

Mary:That’s right, that’s right.

Lisa:Oh!

Kazumo:So, Amocat was Tacoma for her. [laughter from everyone] So she, you know, I can’t remember now if there’s that big sign up there yet.

Mary:There is a sign, because that was a distributing, distributing company of some kind.

Kazumo:Yeah, it was for canned goods. Yeah, yeah.

Mary:And the University of Washington – Tacoma, they have a scholarship called the “Amocat Scholarships.”

Kazumo:Oh! That’s right!

Lisa:You remember that?

Kazumo:That’s right! They do. I remember saying, I might have mentioned that to you…

Lisa:We talked about it.

Kazumo:The Amocat, Amocat story.

Lisa:So what was that transition like, when you went from a house where it was Japanese speaking to school, public school, where it was English speaking.

Kazumo:Didn’t even know the difference. Because you spent, the rest of your existence was outside of your house. You know, if you helped at the stores, and all that, it was all English. Everywhere else that you, that you’re conver- conversations with other Japanese-Americans was all in English. I mean, I don’t… I think we’ve had more, maybe, conversation in Japanese with other Niseis after I left Tacoma. After I came out to Chicago, maybe, or you know, I can’t really even tell you when, and only because it’s a curiosity item, just about. You know, you come here and you talk to Chizu, for example, and all of a sudden she was start spouting Japanese to you.

Mary:Mm-hmm.

Kazumo:Well, you know. But I, I don’t remember back home, the only time we used Japanese that I know of, is that when we played baseball, and if I was playing with, most of the ga-, I played with some of the Caucasian boys, too. But if, for playing a Japanese, if we were a Japanese team playing against a Eng-, you know American, uh…[gestures]

Lisa:Caucasian.

Kazumo:Caucasian team. Then we might start to use Japanese to do things, like, for example, our bunt sig-, our bunt signal was very easy. Because instead of making hand-signals and all that kind of stuff for bunts signals, we’d just say “otose,” which means “drop it,” see. So that means to bunt, you know. [laughter]

Lisa:That’s great.

Kazumo:So things like that were used. And I guess there are some other terminologies that we might’ve used, but I can’t remember them now. But yeah, there were, when we were playing ball, or something.

See, we, we had the Courier League, and so we played a lot of ball against other Nisei teams, essentially around the whole area there. And in that, in that team, I was on the Busei, Buddhist church team. You know, this gets into some of the questions about church orientation, and all that. But I played with the Busei team. But in Tacoma, after the Courier League was pretty much over, or even during that time period, we liked to play against some of the other – some of us that really liked to play ball – we would-.

So we, we had a group that played, that played against – well, not semi-pro teams, but some, you know, fairly good, good teams. In fact, we remember going up to, what was the name of the lighted ballpark, baseball park, up on, uh, in Tacoma? I don’t think it’s, maybe it’s not there anymore.

Male Voice:Cheney.

Kazumo:They used to play prof, semi-pro, I mean, they used to play Class B ball there. But…

Lisa:Was it Cheney? Was it Cheney Stadium?

Kazumo:The which?

Lisa:Cheney?

Mary:Cheney Stadium?

Kazumo:No, it was before, no after, I mean before, before Cheney. Gosh, I can’t – well, anyhow, I remember playing under the lights, you know? Which we thought was, that was a thrill for us to be able to play under the lights, you know. Because you just don’t do… But to do that, for example, we had a team, and we were a mixture of, you know, the Busei group, and the more of the, the other group was called the Crusaders for basketball, and it was the Nippons, I think, for the baseball. But, so, some of the fellows that I played with were guys like George Omori, or Keji Omori, I don’t know if that name’s come up, but he was a pretty good ball player, I played with him. I played with Min Nakamura, now he was, he played with the Nippons, which was, you know. So we had a mixture of players that were essentially Christian church, Buddhist church, independent, whatever, and we played. There was again an occasion when I played with the team where we had a coach that was, used to be a semi-play ball player, and played with him, and so. So one of things about, you know, whether we even mixed, you know, the question sounds like “did the Christians and the Methodists mix?” Yeah, as far as I [thumped lapel mic] was concerned, we mixed a lot. Now I don’t know what you hear from others, but for me, it was sports again.

Lisa:And just the language question: You said that you were speaking English with other Japanese-Americans, how about when you spoke with other Isei?

Kazumo:Isseis, it was mostly Japanese. I would say with, I can’t remember – I would say just about all Japanese. The only one that might’ve been – I, I spoke a lot with, that might’ve got some English into it, would’ve been Dr. Kuki. And that’s, he was a dentist in Tacoma. But with him, Dr. Kuki, where I spoke, might’ve had a mixture of English into it, would’ve been in Chicago. Dr. Kuki lived in Chicago. And I don’t know why, but I turned out to be one of those boys that Dr. Kuki liked to talk with, I guess. Or tell us what to do, more. [laughter from everyone] Dr. Kuki was a dentist that, he was a tough dentist, in Tacoma. Peop-, people that went to him, they all complained about the way he treated them. [laughter from everyone] Anyhow, he came out here with, he used to tell us what we youngsters ought to do. And I guess I was a good audience.

Mary:[laughter] Well, that means that as a kid you have to kind of intuitively know, this person I speak Japanese to, and this, these people I can speak English to, and…

Kazumo:Yeah, and see even if you start talking, well, like the Dr. Kuki situation, you start talking, if you start with Japanese, because you can’t express it in Japanese, because you don’t know the word or whatever. I, you know, Dr. Munekata may be able to do it, you know, but you’ve got to understand that Dr. Munekata was a darn good Japanese student. But more than that, he married a gal from Japan, so you know, his life is a lot more Japanese-y than I, than my life would be, obviously. You know, there’s reasons for that. And then he had his, his patients were Japanese. So, not all of them, of course, but a lot of them. So, you could understand that his, he would have to – now, the only thing I can say is that even though my Japanese wasn’t good, my days that I retire – after retirement, I was able to go to Japan and make money, using my Japanese. [laughter from everyone] Poor Japanese!

Lisa:But it got better, right?

Kazumo:Huh? But got better? Yeah, it got a lot better. They tell me.

Lisa:Great. So what was it like attending the Language School after a full day at the public school? Did you, were you excited? Or did your parents have to force you to go?

Kazumo:It was partly a force, it was partly a force. I think, you know, I don’t know what others will tell you, but… It was not a big force, it was not a, you know, you sort of did things – when your parents told you to do something, you just, you didn’t say “hey, I’m not going to do it,” or “I don’t think I want to do it,” or, you know, if they told you to do it, do it. There was, and so, I think for me it would’ve been mostly that. If you said, well what if you had something, like sports for example, that, well for me, yeah maybe I would’ve turned out for some of the high school sports. Some of my Caucasian friends were involved, and all of that. But work, you know, my dad had a place. If I could help I wanted to help to help there; I did help. Japanese School. There were other things that I found – I don’t think they were necessarily my priorities – but it’s just that, the right thing to do. I better do it, that type of thing.

Mary:Would –

Lisa:Di- go ahead.

Mary:In your case, you were the eldest son in the family.

Kazumo:Yes, yes.

Mary:Did that carry some more expectations from your parents, do you think? For your behavior and…?

Kazumo:Uh – I don’t know if it carried any greater expectations, I, I know that, I know that there were things that I wanted to do, I don’t think I felt it as “Gee, I better do it because I’m the first boy of the family.” There were things that I did because I was the kid that was ready to take, you know, I mean, like… One of the things that I found myself doing was, I found myself very much liking money. I like, I like. And so Dad wanted me to do it, or maybe let me do it, but it was, like,… I can’t remember when I started it, but it might’ve been like ten year old. That, or maybe even earlier. All the money that came in the cash register would come home, and I would be the one that would count it, roll it up. On Saturdays, I was the one that carried the money down to the bank. Finances was something that, well, I loved, I guess, because I was doing it without no complaints. Maybe, and I personally feel that that helped me a lot in my mathematical abilities. Maybe there’s something else that, because I know that in mathematics in school, not that I’m trying to say, “I’m great” [mimes putting on a crown]. But every time we had anything to do with contests in mathematics, I’d be the first one – I’d be tops, yeah. I mean, there were, you know, I don’t know the grade school, whether you had the same thing where we used to have all of these problems, or anything else, that you – and who’s the first one to get the answer. Well I’m the first one to get the answer, just about. There’s only one other person that even came close to me I think, Yesp, and she usually came in second. But she was Japanese, Japanese.

Mary:Is that right?

Kazumo:Yeah. [camera zooms out]

Lisa:So what kinds of things do you remember about the Language School? Just maybe some of the teachers, and the classes, activities, things like that.

Kazumo:The, you know, if you say “what do you remember about them,” I remember, uh… The classes, how do I, how do I say it? They, being in regular school, and then going to Japanese school, the class arrangements and everything else like that, I didn’t find that much different. You know, you sat at your desk, and all that.

You, were we just as observant as far as the teachers were concerned? I think we were. We, we, I think we, there was a tendency when I was young to be more playful in the Japanese schools, I think Teddy, Kawasaki now, but Fujimoto in those days, she probably would’ve said Kaz was a naughty student.

And I don’t know whether, I don’t know if she remembers, but we had a math teacher, aside, not Yamasaki-sensei, but a math teacher named Kato-sensei, Kato, and I remember he used to swing his arm around because he was going to hit you over the head or something. [swings arm over head and whacks head] And I was probably the target of some of those more than some of the others. But I remember those things, I remember as far as, now learning, I know that I was not a good student. I didn’t, I didn’t, I don’t think I was quite as conscientious as a student as the others were. There was another teacher, and I remember these teachers because they were the primary teachers for us, now Kato-sensei. The other one for us was Asada-sensei. And she was a lady teacher, and she was the one that paid me a real complement, which I will remember, which is that she, she sort of indicated that there were others in the class that were more studious than I was, and did a better, were better students. But as far as greatness, and she used the term gokket, for me, which is sort of the leader, one that, and also managing, all that kind of stuff. But she sort of indicated, I was, in the class I was the one that was going to be that, which I didn’t even know what it meant at that time, but which I though was a real compliment. I guess there was a certain… Now Teddy is real complimentary, Teddy, Todaia, she’s real complimentary. She says that I was a smart kid, brain-wise I was, but I can tell you that I wasn’t a very good student.

But as far as Yamasaki-sensei, there’s no question he was the leader, and also he was the one that you looked to when you were looking for… Well, I remember an instance, for example, that out, we were playing baseball out on the side there – and I can’t remember whether it was the baseball or what, but I broke a window in the school. But I don’t recall at that time for sure, but I don’t think I was going to tell anyone that I’d broken it. But anyhow, Yamasaki-sensei knew that I’d broken it. And he told me that one of the important things is to be honest. Okay, make sure that you… And you know, that struck me. And I realized that I’d better do that. Even if no one saw me, I should be honest. That kind of thing.

I remember other things like being a contributing citizen. One that, I can’t remember whether he said it in class and I think he did, but it was in some place I remember him saying, “You know, you’re in the United States, you’re a citizen, you better make sure that you become a good citizen, and don’t feel that you’re an inferior citizen.” And he said – now his point to us, now this is when we’re still young, so you know, little things really impress you, but he said, “Now look at your arm” [pulls up his sleeve to look at his forearm], he says “look at your arm, you’re just as white as all the other people out there.” [points to his forearm] Now that wasn’t one-hundred percent true because a lot of the others might have been a little more dark-skinned, because some of the Niseis are darker. In my case, see, I’m very white, I looked at it, especially having compared it to the others around me. “My God! I’m just as good as anyone else out there!” You know, I’m just, I remember that one occasion as being one where that struck me, and this was when I was, I don’t know how old I was, seven, eight, nine, ten, you know. I was, that stayed with me. That kind of things.

Other things about, things you should do, you’re, you know, as far as, make sure that you, what is the quote, what’s the best way to say it? As far as understanding what your parents want, listening to them, those kinds of things. How the family should be, you know. And what your parents are doing, sacrificing, for you. These are the kind of things that, you know, no kid… And I would say that the other teachers did say the same kind of things. But the prin-, Hocho-sensi, the, Yamasaki-sensei, saying that, made a-, I think was one that that really sort of stuck with you.

Lisa:Was there something about his personality? Why do you think that he had such an impact, that his statements had such an impact?

Kazumo:Well, I think the first thing is that somewhere along the line, the principal of a school was… No, that was like God, [raises hands in the air and looks up] you know, I mean, it was someone. That’s understandable though, because I think number one, in Japan, [camera zooms in] the principal of a school, that, that is like, you’re like the mayor of the town, you know, you are it. And so there is that in Japan, now some of that, obviously the way your parents tell you, and all that, makes a difference. But the other thing is that I think, Yamasaki-sensei was, was, he had that aura about him, just he, you knew that he was the boss. He knew that he was, that he was the person. And I have no comparisons to other principals. And I can’t even compare it to the principals of the public schools. You know, I don’t think I had the same feeling of “here’s Yamasaki-sensei, here’s all the other teachers,” [raises one hand up and places it parallel to the floor, and then places the other hand several inches below it]. Versus the principal of McCarver or anywhere else [makes same gesture]. Because, number one, would the… Yamasaki-sensei, he, you know, you were a small group, they were just a certain amount of students, and he was [draws small circle with hands]. Whereas the principal of a grade school, McCarver or whatever, you had lots of, your contacts were with lot, with the teachers, only the teachers and not really with the principal. I don’t know that I ever got called into the principal’s. I sure had contacts with the teachers. So I think that made a difference. As I say, because, and you know, Dr. Munekata, Teddy Todaia, and all of them probably have a better idea of how they felt about teachers. But for me, of the teachers, I didn’t, I never had Mrs. Koano, I never had Mrs. Hata, as my teacher that I can recall, but I, Asada-sensei was the one that I think I was, you know, I feel I remember [door slams] what she told me a lot better than I do the others.

Mary:What about Mrs. Yamasaki, did you, do you remember her?

Kazumo:Not too much, because hers was the early grades.

Mary:Uh-huh.

Kazumo:Very early, and only for a short period that I can recall, so I don’t, I don’t recall hers as much. Even, uh… And as I say, I was not a good student, so maybe some of it is not paying attention, you know? [laughs].

Lisa:So, you told the story of Mr. Yamasaki saying, “Look, you’re just as white as the white people, and you, you know, should feel equal.” Do you remember experiencing racial discrimination, [camera zooms in] forms of prejudice in Tacoma growing up?

Kazumo:In Tacoma?

Lisa:Yeah.

Kazumo:Yeah, experiencing it. But as far as realizing it, maybe not as much. Because you’re growing up with it, but yes. Well, number one, you understood that there were certain places that you couldn’t go to. And there’s a swimming pool but you can’t go there, because you’re not allowed. You knew that. There’s a…I don’t know that you realized it until you got much older, but you realized that there was a little different kind of discrimination, but the discrimination in being able to purchase a house. You know, you realized that the house has to be in your name, because your dad can’t own it. So there were things like that. And there were…there were homes that you knew that people lived in, which were nicer homes. Well, could you go to those nicer homes? Well, I don’t think I realized for sure that you couldn’t go there, but you did realize that, you know, maybe because your parents didn’t have the money, but anyhow, somehow or other, even if you aspired to get there, you can’t get there. You were told that, or you knew that.

I, uh, the other part of it is that over a period of times, the older people, but more so the Isseis, your father’s friends and all that, told you that if you, when you got out, you went to high school, you went to college, you said, “Hey I’m really going to do something, I’m going to go to college and I’m going to get that eng-, that chemical engineering degree…” “What the heck are you going to do that for? You’re not going to be able to find a job anyhow. You know, why don’t you-.” And many Isseis, and now that’s kind of a discrimination in a sense, you can’t get a job. But, turning it around, they would tell me, “Why are you taking engineering? Why are you thinking about taking engineering, when at the least, the worst you could do, take business. At least you can use that and run your dad’s business.” You know, that kind of…and I remember those things being told to me by a number of Isseis, many Isseis. So yes, those things you were aware of.

What I, when you, when I really ran across it was more so after war, and then when I, when you came out, and again there you start to find out that there are certain barbershops that really don’t want to handle you, there are certain [clunking and jingling in the background] places that you, well, looking for a place to live when you’re going to go to school, no, you can’t have that.

The other kind of things that you start to realize is that you find stories later, for example, that when, in the Chicago area, working for a company, you go out looking for a home. Well, in the Chicago area, you could find homes, you could buy a home, because others had done it. But I went out to, [coughs] out to the suburbs, this is now 1954 – 1953, 1954 – we started looking for a house out in the suburbs, and in the suburbs, you knew that there was discrimination. You knew that others were experiencing the fact that – but that didn’t bother me, I was still going out there, I was looking. And found a house, in a community that, where there was two other Niseis, but one was there because their parents was working for one of the estates, a rich estate, the other one was, they had a business there.

So I was, but as far as I knew, there was no problem. I mean, they sold me the house, we moved into the house. But later I found out that the builder had gone down to my company, and asked about what sort of a person is Kaz Horita, what’s he like, and all that. That came later. So when you asked the question about how was it when I moved out to Pennsylvania, I might have had something like that, I don’t know, but there I had a real estate agent who was—already knew the situation.

Mary:When you got that message from the Issei about “Well, you’re going to come back and work for your father, or whatever, don’t bother with college,” how did you and your friends react to that? Did you think, did you believe them? Or did you think, I’m going to be something different, or…

Kazumo:Well, see, in my case, I had already made my plans. You know, I mean, as things were progressing that way, and I saw the experience of a lot of others, and I saw the experience of people that … My, my... When I got out of, see when I got out of high school I went to the College of Puget Sound for one year. Then I went to the University of Washington, and I was there when war broke out. So it was only a very short time that I was at the University of Washington, but my plans were that – by that time, at least – my plans were that I would still continue with chemical engineering, but that I would leave Washington earlier, or I would finish Washington, graduate school I would go out, come out to the east. Because I felt that there was a possibility – why did I feel that there was a possibility? Well, number one, it was because I heard that things in Washington, California, Oregon – California particularly – lousy, because there was just too much discrimination out there. But if you moved somewhere else, there was a, you know, you had a chance. And so, I was, in fact I was looking at Wisconsin, already in those days, because Wisconsin was considered the second best chemical engineering school in the United States. There was a, there was a fellow who ran the Wisconsin chemical engineering, I can’t think of his name, I was going to say it’s Hogan, I think was his name, or he was Watson, I can’t remember, one or the other, Hogan or Watson. Anyhow, that was… But I had plans, let’s put it that way. And so it still hadn’t changed my mind.

Mary:And you were at University of Washington when the war broke out.

Kazumo:Right, yes.

Mary:Do you remember, what do you remember about that time?

Kazumo:Well, you mean before that? See, I was in ROTC at that time, too. So I keep telling my friends that if I would’ve – and I’m going to get back to answer your question, but – I was in the ROTC and so if I would’ve stayed in the ROTC I would’ve become an officer, and I would’ve been an officer in the army, but with the way things turned out, not only was I not an officer, but they took my citizenship away from me – this is what I tell the people – that they took my citizenship away from me, but that they said “Well, we’ll take you anyhow.” They took me, went into the service, and after my basics I was shipped up to Fort Snelling, where I was going to become a military intelligence person, but when I got up there, after some period of time, they decided… Well, more than that, they decided, I was stalled in my going towards my language part of it, because I got involved in becoming one of the cadres up there, temporarily, and so I worked for, eventually, a fellow by the name of Captain Lloyd. Well Captain Lloyd had spent time in the theater, the Asian Theater, and as an officer had been shipped back there, and now he was here in charge of the group that, Company A, where they were the ones that trained the officers for the military intelligence.

Well anyhow, Captain Lloyd said, “Kaz, you shouldn’t be here. You should be closer to the technical side of things. You’ve got a technical training, you should be in the tech. I’m going to put your name in for officer’s training for chemical warfare.” So he did that. Well he got a, essentially information back that “We aren’t taking Japanese orien- ancestry people for officer’s training in chemical warfare.” So, but he didn’t give up at that point. He said, “I’m going to then find out where else we can get you.” So he finally got me into Fort Meyer, Virginia, where there is a group that takes you, and with your technical background, they ship you then to somewhere where your talents can be used. And I got shipped to Wright Field and became a part of the Air Force materials testing, where we, what we did was we checked on equipment used by the Air Force, as to how they’ll function. So I got into materials testing where we tested instruments, equipment, etc. under environmental conditions: high temperature, low temperature, and the sand, essentially. You know, how those things would affect the… So that’s where I spent my time, but anyhow, my story got long as to what happened, but that’s kind of how things got… Now what was your question?

Mary:Well, you were at University of Washington, I guess when…

Kazumo:Yeah, oh you asked, you asked about that, yeah. And so I guess, I guess, my long story is that if I would’ve stayed in there I would have become an officer, through that, but now I had a chance to become an officer through chemical warfare, but none of it, I fell out of both ends of it.

Lisa:So do you remember where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor?

Kazumo:Yes, I do, I was in a bowling alley.

Lisa:Oh.

Kazumo:We were bowling. I’m trying to think who else…I don’t think you’ve spoken to…most of…all of…all the people I was bowling with passed away. Ben Ichioka, Ben Tsumada, who else was with us? Maybe Mack Hamiguchi was with us, yeah, I think, none of them are alive now. But yeah, I, we were in a bowling alley, and we heard about it. So all of us, of course, went home. And then we just waited to see what was going to happen.

Mary:Were you in Tacoma?

Kazumo:Yes, I was in Tacoma. I happened to be back home on a weekend.

Lisa:Oh, okay.

Kazumo:And so then, they next day we hadn’t heard what to do, or at least our family hadn’t, so I took the bus and I went to Seattle, back to go to University, and in fact, I didn’t even get to the school, because I was staying with my uncle, uncle and aunt, when I was going to col- university, and Dad called up and said, “You know, I think you’d better get, come home, because we’re not sure what funds, and all that, what’s going—how it’s going to be.” Because they were sta-, they were making it so that maybe non-citizens especially couldn’t use their, take their money out, and all. So anyhow, he said “You’d better come home.” So I then turned around and came home. But I know that I was, my first worry was whether I could get on the bus from Tacoma to go back to Seattle, which I was able to do, then the next question was whether I was going to be able to go back. But again, I don’t recall that I had any real problem, I think that most of my problems was in my head, that I was “gee gosh, am I going to get on the bus?” Because it wasn’t much after that that we got the curfew rules that we were not able to go, you know, go more than five miles, or whatever it was.

Mary:How did that impact your father’s business? The five-mile radius?

Kazumo:Uh, not, his, most of his business was right in town; he wasn’t the one that was going out. Now there was, you know, I can’t remember as far as vegetables that he bought from the farmers; the farmers were able to bring it in, as far as I know. Obviously, I think that some of those things were loose enough that you were able to take care of those things. We, we did a lot of deliveries. In fact, that was where I saw some of these nice houses, and all that. But we delivered the fru- produce that they bought. In fact, I was a good delivery boy. So, did a lot of that.

Lisa:And then when the order came for relocation, what happened and what happened to all the family business, and the house, well and property?

Kazumo:The, when that order came, of course we were, we weren’t sure what was going to happen, but with Bainbridge Island, you know, before us, that really got no time at all, and they had to… As far as business was concerned, Dad, I don’t know that he even really tried, but I don’t, I think he knew that no one was about to buy his business, because why would they buy it? All they have to do was make sure that he moved out and then they’d take over. And so we had both locations, we operated both locations until just about the finish, he sold – and got very little – but he got rid of his inventory. As far as some of the things we had, I do remember that we had a brand-new Pontiac, but he had to sell that at quite a loss, and I can’t remember, I think he paid seven-hundred dollars for it, and I think he must have got rid of it then for a few hundred. We got rid of some – I can’t remember whether we got rid of much more than that, though, because we did store a lot of it with Mr. Schreiber. We also rented out the house, it was taken over, taken by our neighbor, who rented it to one of his family, I think, or something like that. But anyhow, that was rented out. We eventually sold it.

Mary:Was that after the war?

Kazumo:After the war. Yeah.

Mary:Uh huh. And it was in your name?

Kazumo:Yes.

Lisa:So the neighbors were upstanding about it and sent rent--?

Kazumo:Yeah, we didn’t have any damage, you know, on it and we got the rent, yeah.

Lisa:That’s great. There’s a all the bad stories around those arrangements.

Kazumo:Yes, yeah, yeah. We had, I might mention that when the orders came for us to move, one thing is that Dad had a possibility of taking the family out, somewhere out of that zone that... The fire chief of Tacoma was a good customer of ours. And we used to see him all the time. Captain Pentlen was his name. Cap. Pentlen came to Dad and said, “I will escort you, if you want to, escort your family, take them out to Oregon, Idaho, if you’d want to do that.” And Dad thought about it, I guess, but he decided against it.

The fellow that owned the Chinese restaurant that was on 15th and Broadway, the biggest Chinese restaurant in Tacoma, we used to supply him. We used to supply the Chinese restaurants around, with their vegetable needs. So he came to Dad and said he would like to have Dad as a partner to open up a Chinese restaurant in Ontario, Oregon, or one of those Eastern Oregon towns. And again Dad thought about that, but I would’ve been running a restaurant now. [laughter] But anyhow, we again didn’t do that. [camera zooms in then out] In fact, his name was George Wong, I think, that owned the restaurant.

Lisa:The Wong Restaurant.

Kazumo:Well it wasn’t the Wong Restaurant, it had a different name from that – I can’t remember the name any more. But, oh it was, I used to deliver the, I wasn’t the only one, because we had a fellow, we had a fellow that we hired that did our delivery, another fellow. We had, we had quite a number of people that worked for Dad. And anyhow, but I recall delivering – when I did the delivery – where I’d go to the restaurant and bring the stuff in, and they would slice off their pork, you know the chashu, they call it…

Lisa:Yeah, yeah, I know it.

Kazumo:Just, ohhh, it was so good.

Lisa:So good?

Kazumo:They’d give me slices, “Here, have some.” Oh that was so good.

Lisa:Delicious.

Kazumo:I also remember some experience in delivery. There was one Chinese restaurant that was up on Tacoma Avenue, and it was somewhere between 9th and 11th, or maybe 11th and 13th, probably 9th and 11th. I can’t remember the name of it again, too, but what they had was one of these hatches, you know, on the floor. [gestures as if opening a floor-mounted trap door]. And they stored it in that. The basement was down below that. They stored it in there, so they’d pull up the hatch [mimes pulling up the door and placing something in it]. And I remember when war broke out between China and Japan, or there was - back around what, ’37, or something like that. Well anyhow, at that time, I’m delivering, and I’m worried that when I deliver, put it in the basement, the hatch would close on me. [general laughter] Reco- recollections.

Lisa:Yes.

Kazumo:But I do remember that.

Mary:What is your…go ahead.

Kazumo:No I, uh, get way off the story.

Mary:What did your parents do after they were released from the camp?

Kazumo:My parents, uh. First, he wasn’t sure where – I was, I was, well, at that time I was in the service. When he, he wasn’t really released, you know, they were just told they could get out any time they wanted. But he knew that time was coming for him, that he’d better find something else to do. And I was, and my brother was in the service. My brother, by the way, had gone to Washington State College, from camp. So he was in Washington State. And then he was in the service. He went in the service before I did. And by the way, my brother was a pretty good baseball player especially, because he played on the Washington State College baseball var-, he was on the varsity team for that college. But, and then my sister was in Chicago. So my dad wasn’t sure what he wanted to do, but he, I know, in fact I, I went with him – and I can’t remember, I must have had a leave from the service, or something like that, or school or something, I can’t remember exactly what the timing was – but this was very early when the, after the Fujimotos had moved back, and opened up the… Because I remember seeing Teddy and all of them at that time. But essentially, we went back to Tacoma – his idea was maybe he would want to start business again – and so that was maybe his first option. But then he asked the kids, the boys, would we want to go back, start up a business. And all three of us said no. Essentially we were all set on our – I was a chemical engineer, my brother was an electrical engineer at the town, my younger brother was an architectural engineer. Now he was still in school at that time, he was just a, you know, what, not even ten years old at that time, you know, when Dad was talking about moving.

So, having all of this occur, he decided that, well, you, didn’t think he wants to back to Tacoma, but now where does he go? And as an interim thing, and with an idea maybe he’d settle there, he went to Ontario, Oregon. Well why did he go to Ontario, Oregon? We haven’t gotten into that part of the story, but for quite a while, gee gosh, I don’t remember what year but it would’ve been, mid-thirties I would think, yeah mid-thirties, maybe early-thirties, one of the families that was in Tacoma had moved back to Japan.:

(014011):

He happened to be again, this fellow happened to be from Fukui-ken. The area of my dad. And they had a daughter who was graduating school in Japan. His father – her father wanted her to come to the United States, and asked my dad if he would take her, so she became our sister, more or less. And so we had her in our family for a long time. And she had gotten married in camp, and they were in Ontario, Oregon. And so that’s why my dad and mom, and my younger brother, who was still with them, went to Ontario, Oregon, for a fairly short period of time, I don’t know, six months, or something like that. And then, I guess they finally decided, well, might as well go to Chicago, because at least there – Dad wasn’t going to farm or anything else like that in Ontario, Oregon. So, so they, because my sister was still in Chicago at that time, I should say still, but was in Chicago by that time. So then she went out looking for an apartment and they, and then they came out. And so that’s kinda how Dad decided where he was going to go, and so…:

Mary:But there was some thought of going back to Tacoma.

Kazumo:Yes. Yes, if the boys would’ve said, “Yeah, we’ll go back to Tacoma, and start business with him.” Because he wasn’t going to do that at his age without some knowledge that someone was going to take, take over after that.

Lisa:Do you think it was because you had the house there, or…? Because many people didn’t even consider going back to Tacoma.

Kazumo:No, I think my dad felt that… See, he had a, he had a pretty good business, and I, you know, I believe I’m right in saying that of all the produce people – and we had lots of produce markets along the highways and everything else – that Dad’s market did more business than anyone else. He, he had a pretty good business going. And so I think, and, and he felt at that time, he felt comfortable that if he could have even one of the kids saying “Yeah, you know we’ll move back with you and start it up with you,” he felt comfortable that within a few years, you know. But he didn’t want to last – to do that forever.

Lisa:What did he do then in Chicago?

Kazumo:He worked, he worked as a utility person, you know, more clean up and things like that, for a fac-, a plant, a plant for not too long, because – well, not too long, I don’t know, five years or something like that, maybe, a little bit. But I don’t really know exactly how many years.

Mary:And what happened to the things that Mr. Schreiber kept for your family, you know?

Kazumo:You know, most of that, because now we weren’t going back, some, some of that was, I can’t, can’t remember whether – her name was Teru, and this la- this gal who used to live with us – but she might have taken some of those things, and stuff. But I know, and I really can’t tell you exactly what they did, how they got rid of it. I, since I was away from them so much, but when, the only time I got back with Dad a lot was when… When he moved to Chicago, and I in turn got out of the service, Dad and I spent quite a bit of time looking for what we could do. So then we bought an apartment building, not a big one, and then we looked for another one, and bought another one, so I, I was spending time with him, you know, bus- kind of business type. And, and again he had, because I was the oldest son, you know, I, I had – a lot of his funds were tied with my name.

Lisa:Well this is kind of a broad question, but as you know, Tacoma’s Japanese language school was non-denominational. And a lot of the other schools on the West Coast were started by either the Buddhist Church or the Methodist Church. So as you kind of reflect back on the language school in particular, when you were growing up, do you think that that mattered in any way, what kind of role did the language school play in the community, and in your life?

Kazumo:Well, I think, you know, I really didn’t realize that the other cit-, towns, cities like Seattle and them, was org-, you know, the sponsoring group was a church, or something like that. I, I, I read that, and so then I asked Grace, for example, she’s San Francisco, my wife. And, you know, there’s some orientation that way. Seattle had an orientation that way, but what, what difference does that make? I don’t think I sensed any real difference. In fact, you know, now thinking back on it, I think we, it was very beneficial for us that it was not church oriented. I think it gave us an opportunity maybe… See, because when you think about it, here, here’s the town, 800 total population, you know that was at the end. Now I realize that before that it was up to 2000, and 2000-something. But it was, it had cut down to where it was about 800 or so. And to have qualified teachers for all of that, seems to me that the fact that we had a single entity, rather than a Methodist Church, a Baptist Church, and a Buddhist Church, having its own classes and all that, it was a big benefit to us. I mean, we got a better education, I think, because of it, I feel.

I, there was some kind of, in your questions, whether there was any – not conflicts – but what, people that belong to the Buddhist Church and the Methodist Church, you know, how, how friendly were they, and all that. You know, again, for me, I, I, --and I believe it’s true for most of the people--that we didn’t really care about the difference. We really didn’t know the difference. And, in fact, in my case, I have to admit that I’m a very poor religious person. I, when I lived in 19th and Fawcett, which was my younger years, I was going to the Methodist Church. And all of a sudden, someone who’s very, very involved in the Methodist Church since that time, but was at the Buddhist Church, Mask, Masaji Toki, has that name come up at all?

Lisa:Uhh.

Kazumo:Toki. He’s, he’s a, he’s, uh, very popular, and someone that has done a lot. [sirens begin in background] He’s in Cincinnati, but Masaji, is his original name, but Stogie, everyone called him Stogie. But anyhow, Stogie and I were buddy-buddies. He was going to the Buddhist Church, and I was happened to be going to the Methodist Church. He says, [sirens end] “Kaz, why don’t you come to the Buddhist Church? We’ve got movies over there! [laughter] You know, during classes and all that, we have movies.” And I said, “Yeah, maybe I’ll go.” So I, I went to the Buddhist Church. Well Stogie, a few years later, he’s, goes to Methodist Church. So you can see how I, you know, I, I kind of flipped around. But then I became a pretty, I became a good Buddhist Church citizen. Not a religious citizen, but a good citizen, because I was active in the activities, my sports was with the Bu-, the Busei group, and all of that. And I have to say, that’s not just Kaz Horita, a number of the-. But, all during my school years, all during my time in Tacoma, my friends were just mixtures. I mean, I, I had a, I played a lot of baseball with George Omori, he went to the Methodist Church, he, he was, but a good buddy. My early years, with Mas Jinguji, he was Methodist. But again, lots of my good friends, again, were Buddhists, and that, I mean, well of course with the Budd-, playing ball together and all that kind of stuff… So you know, I personally found, I don’t know that I even realized that until I read it.

Lisa:Well you’ve also commented on how Tacoma seems unique in that the people have kept in touch, and there have been reunions, so we’re trying to kind of understand why, why that’s the case. What it was about the community there that has kept people so connected, and is there anything in particular about the language school that has created that?

Kazumo:Some of it could be the language school, mainly because, again, it was the language school, but I think, I think one of the big reasons for it is-. And I, I, this is kind of interesting, because at one of the reunions I made a presentation or a speech, which in fact was taped, but what I said was, you know, it’s great that we’re here, and all that, but one of the reasons why we are here, I think, is that we – our population wasn’t that big – we had knowledge of, even only by name, of all the families around there, and for, for a reunion, all of a sudden we became a family. And so that when we said, “We’re going to have a reunion,” all of a sudden the family was going to be together.

Now contrast that to the other community that I know pretty well, which is Seattle. Seattle can’t have a reunion or… because, well, why? Because there’s groups. In Seattle there’s groups, because they’re so big. Eight thousand people, you obviously have groups. And so it’s hard to have – now if Seattle, if one little group says, “We’re going to have a reunion,” well the people there belong to such-and-such a church, or something like that, I think you can accomplish it. But they can’t accomplish a big one. Tacoma can, and I, my theme on that was, and I had many people that came up to me, “Kaz, you’re so right. By gosh, we’re a family.”

That’s a-, back where we had our first reunion in 1977, the fellow who’s the editor of the Pacific Citizen, which is the newspaper for the JACL, he says, “Kaz,” Harry Hodae, is his name. But Harry told me, “Kaz, Tacoma was one of the first cities to have a reunion. In fact, if not the first, I think there’s some small communities ahead of you,” but we were really the first, you know, fairly major group to have a reunion. And Harry said, “Kaz, why don’t you write something about that reunion.” So I did write an article, and I talked about, number one, here was Tacoma that got together. And one of the nice things about it, I said, “You know, we have many reunions.” We had a Nakamura family and a Nakamura families got together. The Kubo family, they came from New York, you know, and this is not, see a family is not necessarily just that single parent, ‘cause there’s cousins and stuff. They’re all family. The Nakamura, there’s one family, and there’s another family, and there [demonstrating on fingers]. But that whole group, they got together, they had a reunion here, a family reunion. And I wrote up all of this, and how great it was. And again, I got, number one, the editors thought it was fantastic that I wrote the thing, but more than that, people in Tacoma, they wrote to me and says, “Kaz, thank you for bring-, putting this article together, because that was great, you know.” So I got complimented on that. But I think, going back to the question, I think part of it is we’re just the right size. I mean, if you had, if you, if we were much smaller, if we were only 200 people in it, you know, well you could have a reunion, but it’s not like having that--. We’ve, the first reunion I, that, that, I think, you know, because we were inviting people from the outer areas like Fife and all that, I think we had about 600 people in that first reunion. It was a big group. I don’t know, I mean people in Tacoma know better than I do what the number was. There was a big group there. Yeah, but so to get back to that, that’s the reason for it. But we are a family.

And I think, and we’ve tried to keep, you know, one of the things that…and this probably, I, I hurt people like Dr. Munekata, and maybe Teddy, because one of the things that’s happening now is when we have a reunion, it’s hard to, we just don’t have the manpower to get a big reunion anymore. I mean, there just aren’t people to handle the preparation, and all that. So then it becomes small. So now it’s becoming more if, when we saw we have a reunion, like this last one that we had there, we just had a few people there. And they become a smaller group. It doesn’t bring in the whole outside. So it’s becoming smaller. But only because we just don’t have the ability to get a big reunion. There’s no one that’s going to lead it. You need a leader. [general laughter].

Mary:One, one of the things that you’ve talked about as we’ve kind of been doing this, is the results of the language school and how that’s carried on into the future. What do you think about that?

Kazumo:Well, again, look back. Eight-hundred people, and you say, well what, what’s happened? I may be wrong on this; I may be prejudiced on this, but I feel that that group, we’ve had a lot of successes, peop-. Some of it could be timing, because now, you know, the one thing that war, and the fact that we had to move out, has made it so that I don’t know if all of those same people would have done the same thing, you know, having had a different environment in the whole--. But anyhow, I look around and I say, look, look at all these people. There’s people that have become doctors, there’s people that have become a court judge, there’s people that have become professors, there’s…and, and the, big business, all of these things… From 800 people, I think that the success rate, if you want to call it, or a success percentage, has been great. Well what’s the reason for this? It’s certainly not 100% because of Japanese school, but I think a lot of that has to do with just the way we were educated. Just our background, just edu-, uh, the need for becoming educated, need for-, and how important those things are.

And you look at, for example, one of the questions you asked is, well, how do you get to that kind of a feel? Well, for me, one of the things is who do you, who did you look up to? And that question is-. And I looked up to, my dad told me to look up to, but I also did look up to, people-, the first one is Seiji Konzo. He be-, he was the professor, and he was one of the primary movers of air conditioning, all that, heating systems and all that. He went to the University of Washington – this was very early – he, he’s one of those that’s twenty years or older than I am, or something like that, I don’t know exactly. But it just so happens that Seiji Konzo family lived right next door to us when I, when we lived on 15th, between 15th--. Konzos were our neighbors. And they had two daughters and a son. I really didn’t even know Seiji Konzo, because he was already college and past when I was a kid, young kid. But still, I heard Seiji Konzo. Mrs. Konzo, his mother, used to work for my dad. But anyhow, he was, I looked to him, I said, that’s the kind of thing, somewhere along the line, if I could do it, I wanted-. I looked at, and now this is closer age, people who were maybe five years before me, or something. But I saw three, all three of them about the same age, one was Dr. Tomaki, he became a doctor, he be-, and it just happened he was in Pennsylvania. Juro Kubo, Gerald Kubo, he became, again, he was an engineer, he also became a professor in engineering. Highly rec-, considered, highly considered. Then the other one was Clifford, he was Iwao in those days, but Iwao Ueda.

Now Iwao’s mother also worked for us, my dad. And, uh, but he went to, first he went to Wisconsin, and became a literature major, but then he decided to become a doctor, and he became a doctor. He eventually ended up down at, what’s, what’s the big operation in California, the medical...

Lisa:San, San Francisco?

Kazumo:Yeah, but he’s outside of San Francisco, but he worked for that – oh my gosh. [scrunches up forehead with right hand in frustration] The organization that has all the healthcare and everything…

Lisa:Kaiser, yeah.

Kazumo:Kaiser. Yeah. But he worked for them. But, you know, and he was--. But those three were great students all high school, and everything, I mean you heard about them. And they were people that I looked up to, I know, during my younger days, you know, just looking at them, knowing what they did, saying that’s, and my dad told me, that’s what I better do. Be like that. So that’s, that’s the kind of, I think all of those, though, was the scholarship, the…getting, you saw them, even in Japanese school, you know, the Tomakis and all them, you know, I looked at what they were doing. Now they, they weren’t, I don’t know whether they were fantastic Japanese school students. I think though, they were--no question--leaders, they were people that, they weren’t bad students, I’m sure, but, they--. I don’t remember them being super-duper in Japanese. But, but something about Japanese school, and, and Yamasaki-sensei, I’m sure, had lot to do with bringing them up.

Background:[various muttering noises and clicking]

Kazumo:That’s where I see them.

Mary:Yeah.

Male Voice:Should pause this, start another tape?

Lisa:Okay.

Kazumo:Oh boy--. [Looks at watch]

Male Voice:Okay. [constant conversation in the background, continues for a while]

Lisa:So-.

Kazumo:You-.

Lisa:So what, if anything, have you told, or would you like your children to know about growing up in Tacoma?

Kazumo:Growing up in Tacoma.

Lisa:And the language school.

Kazumo:Yeah, uh, I find that very difficult to reply to now, I wish they knew everything, you know. [background conversation ends] It’s one of the things where I feel that that’s one of my failures, not being able to, be able to talk about, you know, what... Childhood, your, what kind of things did you do, what kind of things meant to you? How was Grandpa? What was Grandma like? All of these things are things, something that I believe most parents have had the problem. I, uh, and I’m not replying this in a very good way, but I live in a retirement community. One of the nicer things that I’ve seen was where one of the ladies there wrote a book about her, her and her husband’s, just the whole life. Starting with the kids, the kind of things they went through, how they went through, how Mother pulled them through a puddle or, you know, things like that.

I, I don’t know, you would have to go through fifteen sessions like you’ve got going right now to be able to do that, and to do it right. And you’re just talking Japanese school, but you know there’s a lot of things I wish that I could leave for the records and all the things that I went through, my JACL things, my things during my work years, the kind of things that I felt very comfortable with. And so if you say “Now what part of in the early years in Tacoma, what kind of things-.” You know, I think if I had to leave something I would want to do what life was like, let’s say for my father, my mom, their suffering they went through. The kind of things they went through so that they understand what, you know, their background was. I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to do that well, but it’d be-.

There’s, there’s some things which I have. For example, I think I mentioned to you that the Wheaton History Center wanted my World War II times, what happened to us and all that. But of course in that history that they’d interview, I went through something just like this, but not as quite as elaborate [waves towards the camera and lights], or not with a fantastic super-photographer here that Steve is [points at Steve and laughs]. But I know that I, I’ve got a videotaped history in the Wheaton History Center about my life. But we did get back into my earlier life in that thing. Maybe there should be a lot more of those [laughs].

But yeah, I think, you know it’s just not that, it’s…even during the kind of things, I find that the kind of nice things that happened during my consulting years, just in my last, after my retirement, is great. I mean, what I learned just going to Japan, about my ancestry, why, you know, things happened there, the kinds of things that happened there. The kids ought to know that, but I, very little of it they know, that I’m gone, they know that I’ve been on business, they know, but they don’t-. How many parents do that? How many? Very few, I think. You know, in my retirement center I asked them “How much do-.” “They don’t know anything about us.” Very few of them get a chance to-.

The, uh, but there is a, to me there in an interesting point there, I find that the, the women, the girls and the mothers, they do a much better job of passing things along than the boys, I think as a general thing. Because maybe they’re together more. Even, even when they’re, well, I see that at where I live.

The mother-daughter combination is a lot, lot greater than the father-boys. Now there, I’m not going to say there isn’t any, because there is, but, but, so many of – once, even the father, who’s the one that takes care of dad, it’s usually the daughter. It’s the daughter that comes when… I’m not… There’s something wrong with us men, Steve.

But, I didn’t answer it very well, but it’s, I wish that I could tell them a lot more about the kind of things, you know you tell them about in Japanese school and where did I bu-- wreck my elbow. Well, I wrecked it playing baseball on the side of the Japanese school there, and second base was a stone that big [holds hands apart below the camera], and I remember there was right next door to the baseball field was a house with a fenced-in area and it happened there was a dog there that got loose once in a while and came chasing boys and, you know, chasing kids, and you’re liable to get bit, and that kind of thing, I remember those [laughs].

Lisa:Do you remember a dog named Queenie? Some people have told us about a dog named Queenie.

Kazumo:You know, I, I don’t. No, I don’t, because I don’t remember the name of the dog that-.

Lisa:Okay.

Kazumo:But Queenie I don’t remember. I do remember the alley well, the alley that was right there behind the school.

Lisa:Yes.

Kazumo:That was our football field. And we used to-, it was just a narrow [shapes space with his hands], so every time you went off to the side you went down the hill [drops hand imitating sliding down a hill]. I remember that, those kind of things, but, uh…

Lisa:Well you also know that the building is de-, is no longer there.

Kazumo:Right.

Lisa:And it’s been demolished, and there’s lots of talk about memorials and what can be done, and we just wanted to give you the opportunity to kind of voice – if you have an opinion about what you think should happen, and the way it should be commemorated, and the community should be commemorated.

Kazumo:I, you know, I, in my, that’s one of your last questions [paging through a stapled stack of papers].

Lisa:Yeah.

Kazumo:And what I did [sitting forward, out of camera] was I, I said well wha, wha, what would be the target of that message that you would, you know, [camera pans over to Kaz] have with a memorial or something like that? And your question says [camera zooms out to show Kaz reading from the papers], “How do you think the building site should be memorialized after the demolition?” And here’s, here’s kind of a what I’ve said, the, the, this is not, you know, put together in something that you could present, but I’ve, I’ve said something along this line:

“Here stood the Japanese language school. During pre-World War II, many Japanese immigrants and their citiz-, citizen offsprings lived in this vicinity. Hundreds of students, after public school hours, attended school here. They learned about their ancestrial country, as well as the language. They also learned how to be better citizens of the country of their birth. Having scattered across the United States after their imprisonment, and settling in far-off and near states, and near states, the former students of the Japanese language school have achieved goals dreamed of during, during those early years. Some gave their lives for the country during the war. Others have succeeded in their careers in industry, as entrepreneurs, in management, the medical field, into professorships and high-education establishment, court judges, etc. The City of Tacoma can be proud of the history of this area and its people.”

So I, you know I just kind of thought that that would be the theme of what might come up as you put it together.

Lisa:It’s wonderful and very eloquent. I hope we can take a copy.

Kazumo:[Laughs and holds it out to the audience] You, you can have this whole thing, the only trouble is we haven’t gone through it with, I don’t know, you may have some questions. [Rereads his paper] I, I do, this last question I had a hard, what are they asking this for?

“Do you have any other memories or thoughts about the Japanese language school, of growing up in Tacoma, that you would like to share?” And I say, yeah, my memories, looking up and seeing Mt. Rainier, that was great. And the other one is, you brought the daffod-, looking out to the field of daffodils, I can’t remember, I mean I can’t forget that. But those are things that I wrote down before you brought the daffodils [laughs], so that was great.

I, I don’t know, I don’t know that there’s any secrets here, I’ve, what I’ve done is I got your questionnaire, and so I said, “Well, now, how do I best address this?” So then I said, “Well I just go ahead and answer them.” Well, my writing is, as you noticed, very lousy, so after having scribbled, I decided that I wasn’t going to able to read the scribbling anyhow, in responding to you, so what I did was I took your questions and I kind of spread them out. And then I just sort of jotted down stuff. So, for example, in your first question, I say, you ask the question, “Where were you born?” (unintelligible) and also you said, “Do you have siblings? Age, name.” Not only did I put down the name and the age, present age, but I also said how old were they when, when Pearl Harbor occurred.

Lisa:Oh great, thank you.

Kazumo:You know, things like that. And so, I don’t know if you-.

Mary:Oh yes, for sure.

Kazumo:You’re welcome to-.

Mary:And you know another thing, while I’m thinking of it, I don’t know if you still have a copy of the article you wrote about the reunion for the-.

Kazumo:I do.

Mary:Cit, cit, citizen.

Kazumo:I do.

Mary:That would be great if we could have a copy of that.

Kazumo:You could, you could have a, yeah, I can send you a copy of that, because I’m sure I have it, it’s probably, it’s many years ago, so, 19- what, 77?

Lisa:Yes.

Kazumo:So we’re talking about a newspaper, the Pacific Citizen paper is what I’ve got, you know. And I could, I could send you a… Yeah, I could, I could send that to you. I don’t know what else-.

Lisa:You know, the, a copy of that oral history that you did about your war years with the Wheaton Historical Society would also be very interesting to us.

Kazumo:Okay, well, now that they would have to, uh… How easy is it to make a… You know, I’m trying to think. I have the videotape of the presentation that I made to the reunion.

Lisa:Oh.

Kazumo:And then again, but that’s, that’s on a tape. And the other one, the one for the History Center, is also on a tape. You’d have, you’d have to make a copy of that, though.

Mary:Well, um.

Kazumo:How-.

Mary:I mean you could send it to us, but it would also probably be, maybe one of your kids has a VCR and a DVD and they could-.

Kazumo:They could do that easy enough, I guess, I, they could make copies. Somebody could make copies, yeah. I was wondering if-.

Mary:I mean we could certainly do it, but if you didn’t want to mail them to us and be worried about them, you know, going missing or something.

Kazumo:Yeah, I could see what I could do.

Male Voice:Yeah, that would be better if you could do the copy-.

Kazumo:Copy? Okay.

Camera man:But if you can’t, then we can handle it and we’ll just (unintelligible).

Kazumo:Well no, I don’t have equipment to copy it. I, you know, I have video, but, CD same thing.

Mary:A lot of, I don’t know, you can have that done commercially too, can’t you?

Camera man:Yeah, you can take it to some kind of business that does that sort of thing.

Kazumo:Yeah, I would imagine, yeah. Yeah, I haven’t even tried to look into it. I don’t know whether I, you, you may listen to the three different things and say, “By God, this one doesn’t match up with that, and that one-.”

Mary:We’re going to check you out [general laughter].

Lisa:No, it add to the richness, so-.

Mary:He said he was 83, and now it turns out that he’s-.

Lisa:(Unintelligible)

Kazumo:Yeah, he’s an old man. Don’t worry. We’re all going to live until we’re a hundred at least now, you know. You know that.

Lisa:Great.

Kazumo:So you’ve got, you’ve got to plan your life now, be able to take care of yourself.

Lisa:That’s right.

Kazumo:‘Til you’re a hundred years old.

Mary:Well my brother, my, all my grandparents died in their nineties-.

Kazumo:Oh.

Mary:So my brother said to me, “Well Mary, we’re going to live until we’re 120,” and I said, “Well you’re right, unless we die first” [general laughter].

Kazumo:You, you know that, gee gosh, this is a heck of a lot of years ago, but I went to a conference and the fellow that spoke at the conference was someone that was predicting the future. And he claims he did this, a lot of this with a computer, but anyhow, his, he said that people, by the year 2050 or somewhere in there, would be living until they’re 120, 130, 140 years old.

So now, if you’re going to live that long, what you will do is have three separate marriages. And the first marriage is to produce your offsprings. And your second marriage is to have a great time, because that is when you’re really going to be in your prime, and be able to do all kinds of things. Then your third marriage is after you get to the point where you can’t mo-, get around too well, and now, you know, it’s your last mar- life. And so I was telling some of the people in the retirement center about this book and what I read, and how it’s going to be three marriages, and they said, “You know Kaz, I think that guy was right. Because,” he said, “in this retirement community where I live, there’s quite a number of them that are on the second marriage phase,” which is really the third phase of this story. But yeah, we’ve got, we’ve got a lot… We have a situation where they can’t come into our retirement community unless they’re married.

Lisa:Oh?

Kazumo:And by gosh, we’ve had quite a number, and our community is only in the, we, we have 226 units, no, I’m sorry, 245 units. But it’s interesting where we have quite a number of them—maybe ten of them, not, maybe not quite that many—that, wanting to come into our community. They’ve gotten married right before they got into our community [laughter]. In fact, we had one where just recently, where two of them came in separate, they got married to get, live in another unit, so they-.

Lisa:That’s funny.

Kazumo:But that’s you know, so when I told the story, “Kaz, I think the guy’s right!”

Lisa:Well we want to thank you so much for participating and being supportive of the project, and talking with us today.

Kazumo:You’re, you’re welcome.

Mary:Thank you.

Lisa:Thank you.

Kazumo:Okay, well-.

Lisa:Great.

Kazumo:As I say, you can have a copy of this-.

Lisa:That would be wonderful.

Kazumo:I’m not sure that-.