Tacoma Japanese Language School Oral History Collection

Well, great. Thank you for joining us. This is an interview with Mitsu Takasugi, a Nisei man, who’s 77 years old, who lives in Los Angeles, California. Today is January 9, 2005. My name is Lisa Hoffman, from the University of Washington. Again, thank you for being here today. So, I’d like to just start with a question about your background. If you could tell us when and where you were born, and also a little about your siblings, of when they…

Mitsu:Sure. You know, I was born in Tacoma, Washington, in what’s basically the Japanese area between 15th and 13th. It’s in the parking lot of the Sheraton Hotel now. (laughs) I think I was born actually there, you know, because I didn’t go to a hospital in those days. I think my mother must have called a…uh, what is it…a…

Lisa:Midwife.

Mitsu:Midwife, right. And that’s how I was born, right there. And, uh…

Lisa:What year were you born?

Mitsu:In twenty—1928.

Lisa:1928

Mitsu:Right.

Lisa:And, how about—you have two brothers and sisters.

Mitsu:I have, yeah. I have an older brother, an older sister, and a younger brother.

Lisa:Would you mind telling me their names and…?

Mitsu:My oldest brother…Well, you know, in Tacoma he was known as Iwao, which was his given Japanese name, then he picked it up—picked up the name Terry, and I think here they call him Terry. My sister’s name is Misao, and she goes by that name. And then my younger brother is, his name is Mitsuhiro, actually, but he goes by Robert or Bob. (laughs)

Lisa:Do you remember what years they were born?

Mitsu:Let’s see, my oldest brother, Terry, was born in 1921, and my sister in 1923, and my youngest brother in 1930.

Lisa:So you lived, then, on Broadway? Where…which street was that where you lived?

Mitsu:The earliest I remember, you know, my father had a restaurant on Broadway. What I remember was a Chinese restaurant, but on that map that you showed me, it has a—he had a restaurant before that, which was a Japanese restaurant. And uh, what I (unintelligible) remember is we had a home on Fawcett Avenue…and, uh, we did okay, I think, in the time of the twenties, but then the depression came on and things got very difficult, and my father’s restaurant, you know, had to close during the depression and so forth. Then, things got really hard. (03:11)

Lisa:What did your father do, then, when the restaurant closed?

Mitsu:Well, you know, it was a very difficult time for him. He was a proud person, and, you know, he was Japanese, and he couldn’t get, you know, any decent job or anything. So, he did what he could. Later on, I think he went to Alaska to work in those salmon canneries, and he worked out on the farm and things. Whatever he could find, he did. He did. He also worked, I think, as a parking attendant in one place near the movie houses up there on 9th Street and near Broadway, some place around there.

Lisa:What was the name of the restaurant? Do you remember?

Mitsu:Uh…the Chinese restaurant?

Lisa:Or—

Mitsu:Or, the first one was Iroha, (sp?) and the second one was, um…Nikoro. (sp?)

Lisa:And so, the first one. Was he a cook, or was he—did he manage it?

Mitsu:No, I think he managed it first. He hired a dozen Chinese cooks. Oh, the first one, I don’t know. I wasn’t around then, but the second one, the Chinese restaurant, he hired Chinese cooks to cook for him and he had restaurant going. But I think, if you recall, in 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria, and that… You know, I think the cooks quit because, you know, they didn’t want to work for a Japanese at the time. And uh, so he had to do his own cooking after that, I think.

Lisa:Did your mother help in the restaurant?

Mitsu:Yeah, of course. You know, the whole family was there. But all the brothers and sisters—well they were pretty young then, too, but I’m sure they helped. I mean, I wasn’t (shrugs) any help at all.

Lisa:(laughs) Let’s just go back a little bit. Can you tell me when your parents came to the United States and where they came from?

Mitsu:Well, this I learned much later, you know, is that my father and his brother were here in 1905. And, uh, I think they were working in a lumber mill, I think, in Nanaimo. And his older brother was, I think, killed in an accident. That’s what I, you know, learned much later. And, uh, so I guess they eventually ended up in Tacoma, working in lumber mills. And then they—he started a restaurant, I think. And, uh, that’s how we got to Tacoma, I think.

Lisa:And, how about your mother?

Mitsu:Well, you know, it’s one of those things that they did in those days where they would write to their parents, and the parents would arrange a wife, and they would send pictures back and forth. And so, I think about 1920 or so, I think he went back to Japan and, you know, he married my mother, and then they came back about 1921. And this was just before, you know, they stopped allowing Japanese to come to America.

Lisa:Did your father worry at all about that? (unintelligible)

Mitsu:Oh, he never talked too much about it, and you know, our communication with our father wasn’t that—you know, they were pretty silent most of the time. So, most of the things, if I ever heard anything about past history was from my mother.

Lisa:Were your parents from the same area in Japan?

Mitsu:Yeah, of course. I think they were even related in a certain sense.

Lisa:Where were they from?

Mitsu:Okayama.

Lisa:So, they came back in 19…

Mitsu:’21.

Lisa:And then did they move into the Fawcett house? Where did they go first?

Mitsu:It must have been some time after that, that we had that restaurant. Yeah, and then, you know, we were living there, I think, when my younger brother was born. But you know, when the depression came and things were getting hard on the restaurant, I think they had to move out of that house, and for a time we lived in the back of the restaurant. Again, it’s a matter of moving around, finding places to live. It’s survival, the main thing after that (unintelligible).

Lisa:And so, your dad found various jobs to do and your mom—

Mitsu:Yeah. We had an uncle there, too, at that time, and he was from—he was my mother’s brother, and he had a kind of business of, uh…He had some trucks, and he would deliver things for people when they need to, uh…You know, if they needed wood or something for burning, he would pick them up and deliver it, or…So he had a kind of a business going there. So he helped us out a lot, too. But he went back to Japan in 1936.

Lisa:So did he follow your mother, then after she came to America?

Mitsu:There’s a good story about that. I think, uh, yeah after…What he did was, I think he got on a ship, and he dove overboard in New York City (laughs) and swam ashore. And then somehow or another, he found his way all the way to Tacoma.

Lisa:That is an amazing story. What year was that then?

Mitsu:I don’t know, you know? I mean that was before my time.

Lisa:Okay. And did he marry in the United States?

Mitsu:No, he was called back to Japan because one…something going…one of his…either…I think he had an adopted parent or something who died, and he was called back, and then he got married back—after he went back—in ’36.

Lisa:Did he ever come back to the United States?

Mitsu:No, he never did after that.

Lisa:So did you have any other… Were there any other relatives of yours in Tacoma when you were growing up?

Mitsu:Uh, I had a second cousin, which is my father’s cousin, I think. And uh, they ran that Washington Hotel up on 15th and Broadway. And uh, yeah. He had moved to, I think, some place in Michigan, and he just passed away last year. So, uh, he’s about the closest relative that I knew in Tacoma, Washington.

Lisa:Did your family spend much time together?

Mitsu:Not, not a lot, but we knew we were related. That’s about it. And he was, you know, about…a year younger than I was, so I knew him quite well. But, you know, we got separated during the war—after—and they went up that way, and we came down here. So, I haven’t seen him since.

Lisa:Just to kind of go back to the depression, your father found other things to do, and it sounds like your mother’s father helped a bit.

Mitsu:Yeah, my mother also went to work. She went to work for this oyster company, opening oysters with the…[demonstrates scooping] you know, where you get paid so much a gallon for the oysters. That was pretty hard work, I think, but at least it was a way to survive. Then we used to go out in the summertime to work, you know, picking berries and peas and so-forth out in the country.

Lisa:Would the whole family go to do that?

Mitsu:Yeah, you know, in the late ‘30s I think we were doing that.

Lisa:So did you keep any of the money that you made, or was it a part of the family finances.

Mitsu:Well, I think basically, uh, you know, my younger brother and I were too young. We didn’t hardly do any work, but my older brother and sister, they worked quite hard, and I think they just contributed to the family.

Lisa:So, were they going and working for money during the Depression, your older brother and sister?

Mitsu:My older brother, he started working when he was in junior high school. Yeah, and he worked on weekends, uh, what is it, parking cars and that related type of work with the parking lot. My sister was also working at a grocery store of a friend, and they would go there on weekends and help out.

Lisa:Junior high. He was little, but he was parking cars?

Mitsu:Yeah. (laughs)

Lisa:Had to sit up straight to see over the wheel.

Mitsu:Yeah.

Lisa:Did your parents – after the depression did they open a restaurant again? Or get into…

Mitsu:The Depression never really ended for us, because we went into the – we were evacuated off of the coast, and then we went into the camps. So that about ended the…you know. My father, then, he died in camp in 1944. And so we came out, we had nothing in Tacoma, so we didn’t go back. We just came to Los Angeles, ‘cause people told me it was a nice place to go to.

Lisa:I’ll come back to that in a second. I just want to hear a little more about your childhood, your young years…

Mitsu:Okay.

Lisa:…Which elementary school did you go to?

Mitsu:There was a central school, which is administration now, isn’t it?

Lisa:Uh-huh, that’s right.

Mitsu:…up there. You know, I went through that school for six years, then I went to McCarver Junior High for about two years, and then we left.

Lisa:And did your, so your older brother and sister, were they in high school then?

Mitsu:Uh, yeah. Actually, they both graduated in Tacoma. My brother graduated from Lincoln High School in 1939, and then my sister I think graduated from Stadium in 1940 I think, or ’41.

Lisa:We’ve heard that in a lot of families that the boys would go to Lincoln and the girls would go to Stadium. Why was that?

Mitsu:I have no idea.

Lisa:So you also went to Japanese Language School.

Mitsu:Of course. You know, we would go to the regular schools, they would let out about 3 o’clock, and the Japanese Language School started at 4:00 and it went on until around, uh, almost 6:00. So, from 1934 until it was closed, uh, before the war, I was going there.

Lisa:And so, that was…did you start in first grade then?

Mitsu:Yeah, of course.

Lisa:Did you do any of the kindergarten activities at the school—

Mitsu:The what kind?

Lisa:Kindergarten.

Mitsu:I don’t remember going to kindergarten. I think we were too poor to start, so we just started when the schools started, I think.

Lisa:Did all of your siblings attend the language school?

Mitsu:Yeah, we…They all attended it. My oldest brother was, you know, uh…I think he was supposed to be attending, but then he went out for sports at the high school, and he barely attended after that. (laughs)

Lisa:How did your parents feel about that?

Mitsu:Uh, they didn’t object too much. I didn’t hear too much about that. But I think he wanted to play, and they let him. (pause) Well, I don’t think he was the best student in our family anyway. (laughs)

Lisa:How did you feel about going to the language school?

Mitsu:It was just, you know, it was something that we all did. All the Japanese kids went there, and you know, we didn’t take it that seriously either. It wasn’t—we didn’t study that much, but we just attended and did what everybody was supposed to do.

Lisa:Do you think the school was more of a social scene, or more of a studying—

Mitsu:I think our parents wanted us to learn much more about, and become Japanese—uh, take up Japanese culture and so forth, and the principals and the teachers all felt that way, I’m sure. And so, uh, you know…well, after all, our first six years before school, we were mostly Japanese. They spoke Japanese at home, and so it just continued on from there.

Lisa:Did your parents speak any English?

Mitsu:Well, they had a business, so they…It was very broken English. Whatever they needed to do, they spoke it, but it was mostly—they spoke Japanese.

Lisa:So, you would speak Japanese to your parents. What would you speak to your siblings?

Mitsu:Well, after we started school and we learned English, it was all mostly in English after that. Because, you know, Japanese is a difficult language, and it’s hard to express whatever you want to say.

Lisa:So, would you also speak English with your parents, or only Japanese with your parents?

Mitsu:We didn’t really communicate that well with our parents because of that. There was a language barrier, so… Yeah, we could say a few things, but…

Lisa:Oh I’m sorry.

Mitsu:No, go ahead.

Lisa:So, the language school was actually very important in your family for family communication, it seems.

Mitsu:I never really could speak Japanese that well. In fact, I hardly…I don’t know too much about it today. And I went to Japan after that, about a few years ago, and it was very difficult for me to get along. My relative says I spoke like a first-grader. (laughs)

Lisa:What was it like going from a household where you spoke Japanese to McCarver in first grade where everything was in English?

Mitsu:Well, that was difficult, you know. I’m sure the teachers thought we were pretty stupid, because we, you know, we spoke Japanese and they would speak to us in English, and we didn’t exactly know exactly what they were saying. But it didn’t take us long to catch on, I’m sure.

Lisa:Do you have memories, specific memories of how the teachers treated you? Were they kind about that transition, or were they more…demanding about it?

Mitsu:Well, I remember in the first grade or so taking tests in English. And they would speak something, and they would show us pictures, and we’re supposed to pick out whatever it was. And, of course, we didn’t know the English word for it, and so I guess we were pretty ignorant. (laughs) Or they thought we were pretty ignorant.

Lisa:Do you have memories of them treating you that way? That it was about being ignorant versus—

Mitsu:No, I think we learned pretty quickly, though, I think…

Lisa:Kids are pretty resilient.

Mitsu:Yeah, we…It wasn’t that difficult to, you know, once we started school. (unintelligible) I did fairly well in school.

Lisa:Was there an emphasis… How did your parents talk about education and schoolwork, things like that?

Mitsu:Of course, they wanted us to do well, but…they didn’t push us that hard. They were pretty busy, too, trying to make a living.

Lisa:When you were at McCarver…

Mitsu:Right.

Lisa:Or Central. Sorry, let’s just stay at Central for a second. How many children in your class were Japanese-American?

Mitsu:Oh, there were about half a dozen of us, about six or so, in every class that I was in.

Lisa:Who were your playmates? Did you—

Mitsu:It was mostly Japanese, you know, because…I don’t know. I guess we had, you know, the same backgrounds and things in common. And then we also went to Japanese school, which—so we knew each other much better, and so most of our communication was with other Japanese students.

Lisa:What language would you use then with them?

Mitsu:English. It was hardly ever Japanese.

Lisa:Do you have memories of Caucasian friends?

Mitsu:Well, yeah. Of course we had friends in uh… But, you know, there was a kind of separation, I think, between us. And the times were different then, too. I mean, uh, you know, it wasn’t long ago that-- We always felt that we weren’t wanted in many ways because of the exclusion laws and stuff like that.

Lisa:Do you remember if they were, if the Caucasian children that you played with were part of the German community, or Italian community, or Russian community?

Mitsu:It was a mixture, I think: Italians, Greek, Swedes, and Germans, too, I’m sure.

Lisa:As you think about that—who your playmates were and the feelings of not being wanted and segregation—what kinds of experiences, if any did you have with discrimination and racism, growing up in Tacoma?

Mitsu:Well, for instance, uh, even the Tacoma News-Tribune wouldn’t hire us to deliver newspapers because we were Japanese, and small things like that. You know, we didn’t worry about it, but we couldn’t get jobs like that where we could pick up a little money and so forth.

Lisa:Did you go try the Tacoma News-Tribune?

Mitsu:I was helping a friend of mine who was doing it, but they would never hire us.

Lisa:How about your older siblings, especially your older brother and sister who had already graduated from high school? What did they do? Did they find jobs right away? Or did they go to college?

Mitsu:Well, I think they had the hardest—uh, the most difficult time, because, you know, in my case at least I went to high school during the war years in the camps, and I had just graduated from there, and I was ready—when the war ended—I was ready for college. But my brothers and sisters, well, I’m sure they would have liked to have gone on to college, but you know, I mean we couldn’t afford it first of all at the time, and the years when they would have gone to college were spent in the camps, so they lost that time. And so, when they came out, it was a matter of getting jobs immediately to survive.

Lisa:So, they stayed in Tacoma then, after they graduated from high school?

Mitsu:Yeah, I think so. I don’t know what my sister did. My brother was—continued working for that parking lot, I think, after he graduated.

Lisa:And was that in the neighborhood? Where was the parking lot?

Mitsu:It was, let’s see. Ninth Street goes down to, uh… And there’s an alley between Market and Broadway, and there are some parking lots in there. I think he worked in one of them.

Lisa:Who owned that, was it a Japanese?

Mitsu:It was a Japanese that owned it, and that’s why it’s easier for them to get that thing, kind of job.

Lisa:So, a typical day, then: you would get up early, you would walk to school—

Mitsu:Walk to school (nodding)

Lisa:And then what? Why don’t you tell a little bit about the rest of the day.

Mitsu:Well, I don’t remember too much about it, what we did in school, but of course we thought it was, you know, far from where we lived to the Central School, which really is very close. (laughs) It’s only a few blocks, but we thought it was pretty far. And then we went to school, and we had the classes. We, you know, we had lunch, and it was raining most of the time, so we were having… They was a kind of a basement where most of us spent a lot of time, and we ate our lunch there and so forth, and then we went back to class when the bells rang. And then after about three o’clock, they would let us out, and we would walk all the way from the school to the Japanese School. And we would be playing in the alley below the school. We would play football and so forth, and in the empty lot next to the school we used to play baseball there, and the idea was to hit the ball up to Tacoma Avenue from the alley, which isn’t really that far, but then it’s uphill. (laughs) It’s all uphill. So, uh…yeah.

Lisa:Did you ever hit it that far?

Mitsu:I didn’t, but the older boys would.

Lisa:And so the bases—you’d have to run uphill to base…?

Mitsu:Yeah, and it was rough. It was a plain, empty lot, really.

Lisa:What did the girls do? Did they play baseball with you?

Mitsu:No, the girls didn’t—no. We were separated quite a bit, I think. I don’t know what they did, but they just talked among themselves and played among themselves, more or less.

Lisa:Did you take your lunch to school?

Mitsu:Uh, yeah, to the grammar school, to elementary school—yes.

Lisa:What would you typically have for lunch?

Mitsu:Well, most of the time we had sandwiches, but once in a while we would take those rice balls, and, you know, we thought that was pretty good because it tasted a lot more than the sandwiches did. And, you know, we took a sandwich, and a fruit and so forth, and that was about it.

Lisa:At home, what kinds of food did you eat?

Mitsu:I think we ate different kinds of food, I mean partly Japanese, and then partly we had steaks and things like that, or fish or something. And then we always had rice, of course. So, it wasn’t that different.

Lisa:So much good food. Would you stop at home on your way to the Japanese Language School, or did you just—

Mitsu:No, there was no sense in stopping, because there was nobody there. Both of our parents were probably working or doing something like that, so we went straight from the school to the Japanese School.

Lisa:You say “we.” Who was—Were you with other children —

Mitsu:Well, you know, all the people that were, you know… We all walked along Tacoma Avenue, straight from Central School to the Japanese School.

Lisa:Could you tell me a little bit about the classes you took at Japanese Language School? What did you learn?

Mitsu:I don’t remember too much about it. I think all we did was—there’s that textbook that I think almost all Japanese use, and they just went through that—learning how to read and then writing about that, learning how to write Japanese. But, you know, most of us were playing games. (laughs)

Lisa:In the classroom?

Mitsu:In the classroom, too.

Lisa:What kinds of games would you play?

Mitsu:Well, I don’t know. I mean, you know, we would be talking with friends and I remember something where we used to know all the football teams, and you use the letters of the football team names, and with the last letter you’re supposed to continue on. If, for instance, they said the University of Washington, it ends in “N,” and then somebody would have to say one that starts with an N, like Nebraska or something like that. We kept on going like that. You know, we were…we didn’t really concentrate on studying that much, but we did, you know, learn enough Japanese, I think. It was…actually, there’s a comparison. They tried to teach us Japanese in the language schools that they started in the camps, which is quite different from the language schools that we went to before the war.

Lisa:How were they different?

Mitsu:Well, I think we were more, uh… I’m not sure. It’s… We were more relaxed, and we weren’t so concerned. In the camps there was a lot of pressures on people to, you know, act more Japanese and so forth.

Lisa:What kinds of pressures? What do you mean that people were pressured to act like Japanese?

Mitsu:Well, there’s a long story behind that, too, because most of the people from Tacoma, Washington were evacuated, first of all, all the way down to Pinedale, which is outside of Fresno. And then from Fresno, they were shifted up to Tule Lake. And we stayed there continuously from the beginning to the end, whereas a lot of people were separated and they went during what they called segregation, where they separated what they considered people who were loyal from… And, uh, so where we stayed, you know, it was supposed to be, uh, people who are more oriented toward Japan, and the people in the camp then, you know, wanted to put pressure on the Japanese to act more Japanese and everything else. Of course, that pressure has always existed, even in the Japanese Language Schools, too, because the Principal—it was his job to, you know, teach us Japanese culture. And of course he was, you know, quite loyal toward Japan. So, we were oriented that way from the school.

Lisa:How would… You’re referring to Mr. Yamasaki, right? The Principal in Tacoma?

Mitsu:Yeah…the Principal?

Lisa:Mm-hmm. And how would he express that—that pressure—and that idea, that you should act certain ways and act Japanese?

Mitsu:Well, he would tell us, you know, how people in Japan would react. I remember his telling us this story where if you were flying a Japanese airplane and you were going to crash, into who would you crash your airplane? Against the enemy lines, or behind the Japanese lines. I remember one of the students says, “In the middle?” (laughs) Well anyway, he says “You’re supposed to take the plane and crash it into the enemy, of course.” You know, it was the days where—this was long before those, uh, suicide pilots, “kamikazes” and so forth. But there were stories like that, that made us think toward Japan anyway.

Lisa:Were there other… Many people talked about the influences of the Yamasakis on the school in terms of a lot of these morals and the lessons about behavior. What kinds of recollections do you have of those types of stories?

Mitsu:I remember once he called a whole assembly of the school into the auditorium there, and he lectured us, actually. Somebody had written some Japanese graffiti downtown, and he sent a group of kids down to erase it. He said it would bring shame upon the whole Japanese community, and things like that. So, you know he did…uh, he tried to teach us some of the things about not bringing shame on the Japanese.

Lisa:Did you get similar lessons at home? Did your parents have these kinds of rules, or what kinds of rules did you have?

Mitsu:I don’t think we had any real “rules,” but we were supposed to live a certain way so that, you know, you wouldn’t bring any shame on the family, or anything like that. I remember…this is, you know, after we had grown up, like my son-in-law is Jewish, isn’t he. Their culture is based on guilt, and ours is on shame. (laughs)

Lisa:So, how about – uh, back to the language school. Do you remember your teachers?

Mitsu:I remember a few of them. They were, you know, nice teachers, and they were kind and everything else, but, uh they didn’t make that much of an influence on me.

Lisa:Do you remember their names?

Mitsu:(shaking his head) Hardly. I remember the wife of the principal, but, uh, not too much about it.

Lisa:Also, some people talked about some of the skits that they did, or (unintelligible) presentations. Do you remember those?

Mitsu:That’s right. They used to put programs on for the whole Japanese community, and they would come and… My younger brother had—played a big role—and had a play all around him, I think.

Lisa:Really?

Mitsu:At once, yeah.

Lisa:What was the story?

Mitsu:I don’t really remember, but uh… Well, you know, we would get up on the stage and sing or recite something. And I remember once I had to do a…what is it, those, uh Japanese character writing, so you get up in front of everybody and you write something in Japanese with a brush, you know, which isn’t always that easy. And uh, yeah, I did that once, but I was never a part of a play or anything, I don’t think.

Lisa:How did you feel when you had to do that in front of lots of people? Was that something you enjoyed? Were those good memories as a child?

Mitsu:Well, I don’t know. I was pretty young then, and I did it. I was standing there—you know, you’re supposed to stand up in front of—and everybody, they’d hang the whole paper of character out on the wall, and everybody gives you a hand. (claps) And I remember the principal pushing my head down to bow. (laughs) That’s about all I remember from something like that.

Lisa:What memories do you have of the graduation ceremony?

Mitsu:The graduation ceremony? I didn’t graduate.

Lisa:No, sometimes they went from class to class, and at the end of the year they would have ceremonies?

Mitsu:I remember they used to celebrate that, uh, Meiji Emperor’s birthday. You know, he would get up there and read the Imperial Rescript on Education, and it was quite a, almost a religious ceremony. He wore his long tails, and he would bow, and like, you know. It was something. Oh, of course, none of us ever knew what it meant, I mean because you know, it was in very—what is—stiff Japanese language. I read translations of it much later. It’s ridiculous! (laughs)

Lisa:Who would attend those kinds of events?

Mitsu:The whole school. They would call everybody into the auditorium, and it was a solemn ceremony.

Lisa:Would other people from the community come? Would parents come and other adults?

Mitsu:No, it was mostly just the students.

Lisa:(unintelligible), for example your brother when he was in a skit. Who else from your family would attend?

Mitsu:I think our parents would. You know, the whole family would go and, of course, just to watch your own kids, just like we do for our grandkids and everything. But yeah, mostly it was just parents and so forth. There were some things, you know, like just before the war started, they did some strange things. Like, we were supposed to save up foil—aluminum foil—and the reason is they made big balls out of this, and they would send it to Japan. And I guess the idea was to make airplanes or something with aluminum. And, uh, you know, so…and there were, uh…of course, we learned those militant songs that they were singing in Japan at the time. But it didn’t make that much of an impression on us. (laughs)

Lisa:Who organized those activities?

Mitsu:I think it was…I think it came down from the Principal, I think. I mean, he was, you know…I mean he was quite loyal, I’m sure, loyal toward Japan, because that was his job and that was his—what he was supposed to pass on to us. It was just the wrong time to be… (laughs) The wrong place to be, especially when the two countries were at, you know, such odds.

Lisa:Was this something that you… The growing hostilities between the U.S. and Japan—were these things that you talked about at home? Or with your siblings…?

Mitsu:Not a lot. There’s a saying in Japanese: “shikataganai,” which means “it can’t be helped.” And basically that was it. I mean… Of course, they had nothing to do with it. They couldn’t do anything about it, so it was just…it just happened that way.

Lisa:Well, something else I want to ask you about your growing-up time, did you ever participate in any of the churches?

Mitsu:Oh, yeah. Well, my parents did. And remember, you talked about the… Of course, the Buddhists were the biggest group, and then the Methodists. My parents were Shinto. And it was a very small church on the side, and, you know, there was like, uh… I think other, you know, even in churches in America there are statuses among the churches, and I’m sure that existed there, too, the Buddhists being on top, and…you know. But it’s interesting, because I learned later that in Japan they take Buddhism and Shintoism together, don’t they. I mean, for weddings and so forth they go to the Shinto churches, for funerals they go to the Buddhist ones, and they accept both ones. And they’re not separated like they are here. You know, you’re either a Buddhist or a Methodist or Catholic, or something like that.

Lisa:Why do you think the Buddhists were on top? What made--?

Mitsu:Most of the Japanese were Buddhists. They had the biggest congregation, the best—the biggest church, I’m sure.

Lisa:Where was the Shinto Church?

Mitsu:It was on Tacoma Avenue, near 15th. It was very small.

Lisa:Did you go there for services or Sunday school on weekends?

Mitsu:I went there because my parents made—you know, took us there. Of course, they did everything in Japanese, and we didn’t understand a thing. It was just, uh… You know, at least we ate afterwards, and we played with friends afterwards. And so we attended at times, but, you know, we didn’t understand the reason for it.

Lisa:Your friends, your playmates—did they tend to also come from the Shinto Church, or were they--?

Mitsu:You know, when I went back to Japan, I found out my relatives are mostly Buddhists, but my mother and father…they had very close friends, we helped them a lot when they were on Broadway at that restaurant. In fact, the people were across the street from them. And I think they influenced them and converted them to the Shinto Church. And that’s how they got involved, I think.

Lisa:Were you aware of the other churches? Did you know where they were, and--?

Mitsu:Of course. I knew where the Buddhist church was. You know, they used to have programs and movies in their places. And then, uh, I knew where the Methodist church was. In fact, I was in the Scouts for a short while there, and they started at that Methodist church, and then later they shifted over to the Japanese School. That’s where they met. And they were starting a, what is it, a drum and fife corps. You know, with something like that. (imitates fife fingering) And, so we took part in that for a little while, for the Boy Scouts.

Lisa:Would you go to the activities of the Buddhist church? (unintelligible)

Mitsu:Not really. I was never a part of the Buddhist church. And, um… Only to go see movies or something in their auditorium.

Lisa:If you think about your social life as a child and your siblings, were there any institutions there—the school, or the church—around which your social life revolved? Or was it more a neighborhood, or…?

Mitsu:I don’t know if we had that kind of an organized social relationship. We just hung out with our friends. And most of them lived fairly close together. You could always get, you know, friends together to get a baseball game up, or something like that. With the neighborhood kids, we would play kick the can and things like that.

Lisa:Which church did your friends go to?

Mitsu:Of course, a few of them went to the same church as me. But I guess most of them were Buddhists.

Lisa:I have a question about the influence of the Japanese Language School in Tacoma, because what’s interesting about Tacoma is that it’s unlike a lot of the communities in California. The language school was not started by the Methodist Church or the Buddhist Church. It was non-sectarian, and it was actually started by a parents’ association—a parents group—that decided there should be—

Mitsu:Oh, was it?

Lisa:--a language school.

Mitsu:And they hired the Principal to come from Japan, huh?

Lisa:Yeah, well, I think actually they hired Mrs. Yamasaki first.

Mitsu:Oh, really?

Lisa:She was trained as the teacher.

Mitsu:And he was not?

Lisa:Not… Well, he was very well educated, but he was… they were up in Seattle and brought from Seattle.

Mitsu:Oh, uh-huh.

Lisa:But do you… I guess my question is: In what ways do you think, if at all, that it mattered that it was non-sectarian in terms of the role that it played in Tacoma?

Mitsu:Well, I didn’t know anything about it, and I didn’t even think about whether it was sectarian or not. I didn’t know that the other schools were sectarian. So, we just attended. Well, I guess that’s how it should be. (laughs)

Lisa:Was it… Do you think that the language school played any kind of role in community building in Tacoma for the Japanese community?

Mitsu:I don’t think there was that much communication between the city and most of the people in the school. We were pretty much isolated in the Japanese Language School there, and I guess… there wasn’t that much communication between the races, in fact, I don’t think.

Lisa:A number of people have said this to us, that it was a very segregated city.

Mitsu:Uh-huh.

Lisa:And one thing that I’m trying to kind of understand is… Was the segregation because of overt racism and discrimination, or was it because the Japanese community tended to (unintelligible)—

Mitsu:I think it’s both. You can’t separate the two, because, you know, I mean I remember the Chinese were excluded completely, and then the Japanese kind of replaced them to some extent, and there were also the same kind of feelings toward them. And then, because of that—and also because they come from the same country and they have the same customs and so forth, they tend to group together just like people tend to do today. And so, I think it was both, rather than just one or the other.

Lisa:As a child, were you aware… Did people tell you about the exclusion of the Chinese? Did you know…

Mitsu:I knew there was one Chinese family in Tacoma, and I always wondered why there was only one, you know, when there were many Chinese in America. But they had been excluded, I think, from Tacoma. But I think most of that I learned later on, and, uh, from history and so forth.

Lisa:So, if we move up to 1941 and Pearl Harbor, what memories do you have about hearing about Pearl Harbor? Did you have any conversations in the household about it?

Mitsu:Of course, we were all surprised when… You know, we were… It was a Sunday morning, and we heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. And, uh… You know, I mean, I think to some extent we also felt a little guilt, too, because, you know, we were associated with Japan. In a sense, we were in a difficult situation, because here is the country where my parents come from attacks the country where we’re living in. But, you know, we didn’t think too much about it. We kept living the way we always did. Except, then, they started to…uh… The laws came in, like the curfew, and we had to be in the house by eight o’clock, and we couldn’t travel…yeah. I remember coming home from a Scout meeting. I was in my Boy Scout uniform. It was about a quarter to eight, and we were supposed to be home by eight o’clock, and the Tacoma police stops me and says, “You’d better get on home.” (laughs) I mean that was harassment because it was before eight o’clock, and here you are in a Boy Scout uniform. You wonder why they would do such a thing.

Lisa:How old were you then?

Mitsu:Twelve or eleven. Eleven. No, no, wait. I’m sorry. I must have been about fourteen.

Lisa:Was your Scout troop all Japanese?

Mitsu:It was all Japanese. It was Troop 60, and it was started first in the Methodist Church. And then, I think the JACL kind of wanted to expand it some more, and so they got a bunch of us kids that were about twenty of us, and included into this Troop 60.

Lisa:(unintelligible) fond memories of the Boy Scouts?

Mitsu:Well, it’s not as fond as… (laughs) You know, I mean, I read about the Boy Scouts today and how they exclude the homosexuals and stuff like that, and I wonder about some of their, you know, what is it… A Scout is trustworthy, loyal, friendly, courteous, kind, and all that kind of thing. So, I’m no longer a…you know, I don’t support the Boy Scouts as much as I would have.

Lisa:You said that even you’re fourteen, and you were aware of this—I don’t know, I mean these words, and maybe you can tell me if they are the right words – maybe an internal conflict when Pearl Harbor happened. When you think about your identity at that moment, do you have memories of how you imagined it and your place in the world at that moment?

Mitsu:Well, we never really thought that deeply. Of course, we always knew we were different from everybody else. As far as identity goes, actually I didn’t realize I was American until actually, you know, I was living in Sweden. This is much later, after the war, when I was doing my post-doctoral fellow, and I took a year in Sweden. And living there, and, you know, I was thinking like an American and there were Japanese scientists there, too. And so, you know, I didn’t think anything like them. I was thinking like an American, so that’s when I really started to think, you know, I was American.

Lisa:What year was that?

Mitsu:That was much later. It’s been…1960… Late sixties.

Lisa:What happened at school, then, on Monday after Pearl Harbor? Were there any assemblies…?

Mitsu:Nothing happened. It just went on as usual. I don’t think anything… You know, I guess… I guess… You know people stopped talking about…when we came by sometimes, but I don’t think there was any incident that really sticks out in my mind after Pearl Harbor. There used to be a song. What is it? “You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap,” or something like that. And I remember there was a colored kid. He was the only guy that defended us, (laughs) which is kind of interesting.

Lisa:Was that on the playground, or was that at school?

Mitsu:It was at school.

Lisa:With other children?

Mitsu:With other children, yeah.

Lisa:How about at the language school, then, that Monday after that happened? Were there any assemblies?

Mitsu:I don’t remember that, you know. I’m sure the school must have continued after Pearl Harbor. I remember that because I saw the first sign of the, you know, the Exclusion Act that Roosevelt signed about--. They posted it up, well, these posters on telephone poles, and I saw it right near the Japanese School. That was quite a bit after Pearl Harbor. It was about in February of ’42 or so. So, uh, yeah. But I don’t remember what the Principal or anybody—well the Principal was gone, wasn’t he? Didn’t they pick him up the day or the day after Pearl Harbor?

Lisa:Yeah, they started to pick up (unintelligible) community.

Mitsu:Yeah, right. But, you know, life went on.

Lisa:How about when the relocation orders came? What happened then?

Mitsu:Of course, as I said, remember the Japanese always say you can’t do anything about it, so they just go along. Yeah, it wasn’t, you know, the happiest time because you had to sell everything. We didn’t have much, anyway. And get rid of everything, and take what we needed with us. But we were registered at the Japanese Language School by the JACL. There must have been some kind of a conflict between the adult population and the new youngsters—young people coming up, newer members of the JACL, because the members of the JACL helped point out who were the dangerous people in the Japanese community. And they must have pointed out the Principal, because he was probably the leader of the—well one of the main leaders—of the Japanese community in Tacoma. And all the people who got picked up must have been, you know, they were identified by the…these young guys that got, uh… And they had an advantage because they could speak the language, and there was quite a bit of problems with that afterwards, in the camps and so forth.

Lisa:Who were the other leaders? Do you remember?

Mitsu:I don’t really remember anyone else, other than the Principal. He was sent to a… What was it, Montana…or? Did he die in camp? He died, huh? Oh, that’s a shame.

Lisa:Then I think there was – Mrs. Yamasaki was in Tule Lake, so they had a—

Mitsu:With two daughters?

Lisa:Yes.

Mitsu:They had two daughters, I remember.

Lisa:--had a ceremony when they got (unintelligible)

Mitsu:And they went back to Japan after?

Lisa:After, yeah.

Mitsu:After the war.

Lisa:Why do you think the Language School was used as a site for registration?

Mitsu:I don’t…I don’t know why it would be, except it was an obvious center for most Japanese, and it was accessible, and we all went there to register. It was registered not by the government, but the JACL.

Lisa:So, people had to leave through Union Station. What memories do you have of getting to the station?

Mitsu:There’s an interesting story there, too, because we all had to take our things down, whatever we could carry, and go down, walk down to the Union Station, and we got on a train. We didn’t know where we were going at all. And a soldier was stationed on every train, and we all were put on the trains, and then they’d start to move. And it was becoming night, and we—the last I remember we were going through Portland. I was looking out the, you know… Well, actually they had pulled all the shades down because they didn’t want the lights to show because of the war, but we could see out, and you could see it was Portland. So we were going south. Well, actually the Union Station is now a courthouse, and a few years ago they changed it from the station to a courthouse. And my younger brother, who is a federal judge, he was called up there, and he gave the initial talk on that when they opened it. So there is a kind of an interesting story around that, too.

Lisa:No kidding. So how old was he when he left through Union Station?

Mitsu:He was, I think, eleven. He was eleven, and, uh… So he doesn’t really—he remembers less than I do. I told him—I think you guys got in contact with him to talk to him, but then he was pretty busy, I think. And I tried to get him, but, uh… I tried to even get you to talk to my older brother, but he refused, you know. I don’t know why, but he wouldn’t.

Lisa:Some people…(unintelligible)

Mitsu:I don’t think he wants to go back over it. I mean, I don’t think it was his happiest moments in Tacoma, Washington, because, you know, he had to go to work from the time he was very young.

Lisa:So, you went to Pinedale and to Tule Lake…

Mitsu:Right. And stayed there until the end of the war.

Lisa:…and you got your full high school education there.

Mitsu:Right. Well…right. Tacoma used to have a half, uh… What is it, classes that started, you know, in January, and I was one. So it was a midterm kind of thing, and so I was caught in the middle. And so, I spent about, what is it, we spent about three and a half years in camp. So I spent a half… I caught up a half year, and so I got out a little early.

Lisa:What do you remember most about camp life? Maybe another way to phrase it is: What is your best memory and what is your worst memory, too?

Mitsu:Well, of course the best memories are we had all our friends were right there, and we could always get, you know, a basketball game together or a baseball game. We played a lot of sports, because there’s nothing much else to do. The worst moments were after the segregation. There were lots of pressures put on by the inmates themselves, and there were also from the administration of the camps, too, you know, and they tried to uh, what is it… Well, of course they had to separate those who they said were loyal or disloyal, depending on a questionnaire, you know, and so I think it put a lot of pressure on the people.

And I think my mother was afraid that they would draft my older brother into the army, into the military, and she didn’t want that at all. That’s why we probably stayed in Tule Lake. And, uh, well, we were too young for that, so we didn’t have to worry about it, but, uh… They started Japanese language schools in the camp, and they were trying to teach up to become real Japanese subjects and so forth. I kind of, you know, rebelled against it. In fact, I quit the Japanese school, which was pretty hard to do. But I was going to the high school, which was, you know, it was a saving factor in my life, because at least I started to study in high school. But, you know, that the pressures that the inmates of the camp put on others, you know, depending on loyalty—that was very unpleasant.

Lisa:Why do you think you rebelled?

Mitsu:Well, it was an incident. I was kind of an arrogant kid, I suppose. I was sitting in the back of the class, sharpening my pencil with a knife, and the teacher comes and says, “Stand up.” And he slapped me across the face, and I never went back. So, that’s what, you know, incidents like that have a big effect on your life.

Lisa:What did your parents think when you decided not to go back to the language school.

Mitsu:I’m surprised, you know. They didn’t make much of a fuss. But I was going to the high school, and I was doing much better in high school then. But they were putting pressures on like my younger brother was going to the Japanese school, and they wanted him to quit the… He was going to the English school as well, both of them. They wanted him to quit the English school. They put pressure on him. And, uh, he was quite opposed to some of those people—the teachers that were putting those pressures on him.

Lisa:Your father or your mother? Who was opposed to the teachers?

Mitsu:Huh?

Lisa:Who were opposed to the teachers?

Mitsu:My younger brother, because they tried to get him to quit the English schools.

Lisa:Oh, so the teachers were trying to get him to quit.

Mitsu:Yeah, well, there was a whole group of… In fact, they almost started a military group in the camp, but you have to realize… It started out as an exercise group in the mornings, and, you know, they would get up and do their exercises, and before long the group took over the whole thing. And they would march around the camp, you know, shouting like a military group. They even used bugles at times, so it was getting rather unpleasant by then. And then there was a conflict, you know, between who was to control the camps and so forth.

Lisa:What did your brother end up doing? Did he stay in the Japanese school and the English school?

Mitsu:I think he did. And then the war ended, and so, you know, it was over, but he did go to both. I quit the Japanese school after a while.

Lisa:Where did your family go after the war?

Mitsu:We came straight to Los Angeles.

Lisa:Why?

Mitsu:Well, we had nothing to go back to in Tacoma, first of all. I think that’s one of the best things that happened to us. (laughs) Go back to Tacoma, because I doubt very much I would have gone on with any education and so forth. I mean, I think even today, probably, the young people have to leave Tacoma to get a job, don’t they?

Lisa:Do you think there was a lot of economic reasons—

Mitsu:Economic reasons and so forth, yeah. There are very few Japanese in Tacoma, I think. Except—this is an interesting thing. My son-in-law, the one that lives on Mercer Island, he’s a radiologist, and he works in Tacoma. He drives all the way to Tacoma every day. (laughs)

Lisa:Is he of Japanese descent?

Mitsu:No. I don’t know what he is.

Lisa:So, your family felt that Los Angeles had more opportunities, or did you have friends here…?

Mitsu:Well, I don’t know, really. We had nothing to go back to in Tacoma. And, uh, I guess my mother, then—because my father had died—had talked to friends, and they said that Los Angeles would be a good place to go to, and, uh it was that kind of a decision. And they wouldn’t let my oldest brother out of the camp immediately, so the first ones in our family to come out was my sister and myself. So we came to Los Angeles. We got on a train in Klamath Falls and came all the way down to Los Angeles. We had nothing. We stayed at, uh…what do you call those, uh I forgot. What’s that church on 8th and…

Lisa:(unintelligible)

Mitsu:Here in Los Angeles. There was a basement there that they would let us sleep in.

Lisa:Was it a Buddhist church?

Mitsu:No, no. It was uh… I can’t remember.

Lisa:Salvation Army?

Mitsu:No, no. It was one of those quite liberal churches.

Lisa:(unintelligible)

Mitsu:Yeah, anyway… I can’t remember the name of it, but we stayed there for a week, and then you go to the WRA and they got you jobs and so forth. And my job was uh… When I went in there, they said somebody wanted a schoolboy. So… You know, I wanted to go to college, but then uh… So I went to look at the job. It was near ‘SC, Southern Cal, and so I worked there for a while. I got enough tuition, and I started at ‘SC.

Lisa:What did you do in your job?

Mitsu:I was a schoolboy. You wash dishes after everybody…It was—I hated it! (laughs) It was… And then you clean the house, and wash the cars, and all that kind of stuff. And so…

Lisa:How about your sister? What did she do?

Mitsu:Let’s see… She did a similar type of thing, because, you know, when you first come out of camp, there’s nothing. You have no home; you have nothing, and so you go to work in the home, and you do that. She did that for a while until she had some friends, and then, uh, she left that job, and I think she went to do some sewing, you know, those sewing factories in downtown Los Angeles. Where you turn them out by the… But that closed up eventually. But, eventually, she got a better job as a secretary.

Lisa:What happened to your other brothers? When did they come?

Mitsu:Well, when they closed Tule Lake, and they let my—of course, they had to let my brother out—and he came in 1946, which was about a half year after the war was over.

Lisa:Why did they hold him so long?

Mitsu:I don’t know. I have no idea. I mean, you know, they kept a lot of people and they wouldn’t let them out until after the war was over, uh, way after the war was over. And, uh…

Lisa:And everybody came to Los Angeles?

Mitsu:Yeah, we all came down to Los Angeles.

Lisa:So, you went to college.

Mitsu:Yeah.

Lisa:What did you study?

Mitsu:I was in science, anyway…the biologies, and then, uh… Well, I had to drop out of ‘SC eventually, because I got rheumatic fever, and I was sick for a while. And then, when I got well again, I first went to Los Angeles City College, then to UCLA. And I got a teaching credential at UCLA, and I was teaching for a while, but I couldn’t… It was too much. I burned out very fast. (laughs) And, uh, so I went to the University of Oregon on one of those fellowships that they had, and I got my master’s there, so… and I said, “Might as well go on,” and I came back to UCLA, and I got my doctorate at UCLA Medical Center in immunogenetics. So, that was, you know, it was very nice, because I had a good life after that. (laughs)

Lisa:And then after that, you went to Sweden.

Mitsu:After I finished my post-doct—er, um, my doctoral program, I went to Sweden for a year. You know, by then I had a whole family with four kids, and we all went together, and it was a great experience for all of us.

Lisa:Where did you meet your wife?

Mitsu:At UCLA. Uh, when I first started there, you know, I met her on the lawn in front of the education building there. And, uh, you know, it was eventually developed, and we got married after I finished school.

Lisa:Is she of Japanese descent?

Mitsu:Yeah, she was.

Lisa:Did your parents give you any rules, or--?

Mitsu:Who to marry?

Lisa:Yes.

Mitsu:Of course, my mom did that. But you know, I never listen…(shrugs and laughs) I was… I must have been rebellious or something. But, uh…she was able to control my older brother. You know, she wanted to choose who he was going to marry, and so forth. And eventually, she sent my sister back to Japan, and she found somebody, and so he went back to Japan, married her, and came back here. But I didn’t do that. (laughs) I found my own wife.

Lisa:Was it important to you to find somebody that was also Japanese, Japanese ancestry?

Mitsu:I don’t know, you know. Uh…it’s got a… At that time—it was still the early ‘50s, and we had just come out of camps about five years earlier, and we’re still hanging around a lot, mostly with Japanese—and, uh, so it was pretty natural that I’d… And even in—at UCLA—there wasn’t that much association between the races, I don’t think. And so, our chances of finding somebody was always closer with another Japanese, but we were married for 24 years. She passed away very early of cancer. She was 47 when she died, which is about 25 years, thirty years ago, or something like that now. And so, yeah, it’s been like that.

Lisa:After growing up in Tacoma, and then being into camp, and then coming to Los Angeles, did you feel a difference in Los Angeles in your experience as a Japanese-American…?

Mitsu:Not at the beginning. You know, after you finish school, and you’re…you have a doctorate, then it is much easier. Uh, but…like when I finished my teaching credential to get a job, I couldn’t get a job in the outlying school district—only in Los Angeles. You know, and in one of the tougher places of the city. I mean, I just, you know… And I did very well in school, so that wasn’t the reason, uh, but I couldn’t.

Lisa:Or maybe it was because it was post-war. I don’t know. Or…

Mitsu:I guess there must have been some, because, you know, I mean I didn’t hardly get a—I didn’t even get an offer for a job when I finished. There was…it wasn’t even open. On the other hand, my wife, you know, she eventually went back to school and she got her teaching credential, and…but this is much later, in the ‘60s. She got a job in Beverly Hills, teaching elementary school, so it had opened up quite a bit in that period. But, you know, in the ‘50s it was still closed.

Lisa:Have you talked with your children and grandchildren much about your childhood? If you have, what kinds of things have you told them?

Mitsu:Well, you know, I remember when I went to the University of Oregon for my master’s, we drove up to Tacoma, (laughs) and drove through Tacoma. I’m in shock, because here I had left under such circumstances, and they were laughing away at what I was saying! But I did try to do some of that, to show them about my childhood and so forth, but, uh… But to them, it’s, you know, it’s past history. It doesn’t mean too much.

Lisa:How about your grandchildren? Have you talked with them?

Mitsu:Yeah, well…of course. You know, they’re mixed, aren’t they? Because they’re part…well, they’re part something and they’re part Japanese, so at least…but, uh… They know a little bit, but not a whole lot. And then once in a while they get a school assignment, saying they want to learn about the evacuation, and so they call me up on the telephone and they start interviewing me. (laughs)

Lisa:So, if there were a couple things that you would want your children and grandchildren to know about, let’s say, Tacoma in particular, what would it be?

Mitsu:I don’t know if I can think of anything that’s related to Tacoma, because after all, that was only 14 years of my life. Most of my life has been spent outside of Tacoma. I, I guess there must have been good times, but it was a pretty hard time, too… Well, they always wonder why I can’t spend my money freely like they do. (laughs) You know, but we grew up in the Depression, and we just can’t do that. It’s just engrained in us now. And so, we have differences in communication there, I think.

Lisa:Are there any things about the language school and the lessons that you learned there?

Mitsu:My kids haven’t—didn’t go to Japanese language school. They don’t speak hardly any Japanese anymore. It’s too bad, in a sense. I regret that, but then I don’t know what you can do about it.

Lisa:Some people talked about some of the moral lessons that, the ethics that they learned at the language school. Do you have much memory of those impacting you as a child?

Mitsu:I don’t think I’m any more moral than anybody else. I mean… But, I don’t know. I remember the Japanese used to influence things like morality, but it’s all related to their…uh, what is it…where they thought they were different, and their superiority and so forth. And…you know, but they’re like everybody else, really.

Lisa:How about when your brother went back to Tacoma to give the commemorative speech for Union Station? What kinds of things did he want to express there?

Mitsu:I’m not sure. I’m sure you could get his talk from him if you asked him, but I think he spoke about leaving, how he left Tacoma with the family and going down into Union Station. Of course and how he…it’s kind of ironic how he comes back as has to give a talk at the opening of this, uh, you know. But…

Lisa:It’s wonderful that he was able to do that.

Mitsu:Yeah, it is interesting. It’s nice that—I’m glad they asked him to do that. I’m sure it made him feel much—quite…quite good.

Lisa:So, you know that the language school building has been torn down now…

Mitsu:(nods)

Lisa:…and so one of the things the University administration is trying to do is to figure out a good way to memorialize it; and they’re talking about a garden, a plaque, and maybe some educational materials (a storyboard or something), and they’re talking about memorializing the school building, and the school itself, but also the Japanese-American community in Tacoma. Are there any things you would want to make sure that are a part of the memorial or things that should be remembered?

Mitsu:You know, I don’t really think that way. I’m a scientist; I think ahead rather than backwards, or try to, but as you get older it’s a little different. Most of what you remember is backwards. (laughs) But it is nice that they’re going to have the University there, isn’t it? But I don’t know how people are going to run from class to class. You have to go uphill and downhill…

Lisa:It’s all on a hill, you’re right.

Mitsu:…and it’s going to be tough.

Lisa:Well, you have those memories of having to walk to school up and down, so…

Mitsu:Right. (laughs) You know, we used to use—when it snowed—we used to slide down on sleds on those hills. (laughs) And with cars coming across! (laughs)

Lisa:So you never hit cars?

Mitsu:No. Well, we never heard of anybody hitting a car. Of course, you know, traffic was much less when it snowed.

Lisa:How about, as we’re talking about the snow, and something we didn’t talk about before, a lot of people went on outings—

Mitsu:Oh, yeah! I remember the school used to have an outing out towards Spanaway or some place like that, and they would rent a whole field and then put up a whole—oh, kind of an athletics, you know, circle where people would run races and so forth, and they would divide the whole school into red and white, you know, the Japanese colors—red and white—and then we’d compete against each other. And, uh, so…it was a kind of an interesting thing to do.

Lisa:Did you always go? Were those fun events?

Mitsu:Yeah, of course. I think they rented a bus, and they would take—everybody would get on the buses and go out to these places.

Lisa:And Point Defiance or the beach (unintelligible)

Mitsu:Of course we went to Point Defiance, and the zoo, and we went swimming there. I don’t know if you still can. (laughs)

Lisa:It’s cold.

Mitsu:It is. It always was cold. We used to go out swimming near Steilacoom. Somebody owned, you know, a beach lot there, and we used to go there quite often.

Lisa:People talked about that and said sometimes they would stay overnight.

Mitsu:Is that right? Yeah…

Lisa:Yeah, sometimes. So, are there any other things that I haven’t asked about today that…memories you have or stories that you want to make sure are part of the record.

Mitsu:Well, I think I’ve told you most of the things that I can remember. Uh…it’s so long ago. And, you know, people wonder whether there’s been any progress been made, and there has been. It’s quite different now than it was then, I think, in terms of race relationships and so forth.

Lisa:Well, great. Thank you very much. I’ve enjoyed this. It was a really wonderful day with you and I just want to thank you for sharing this with me.

Mitsu:Well, I don’t know how important it is. I mean, I don’t know what you can get out of it.

Lisa:Well, the thing that’s so wonderful…