CULTURAL BRIDGE PRODUCTIONS
NISEI: A JAPANESE-AMERICAN IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Jimmy Makino's story is fascinating not for one specific experience, detail, or event, but because through him, his family, friends and the communities he has been part of, his story captures the panorama of the Japanese-American experience in the 20th Century: picture brides, truck farms, internment camps, kibei, "no-no boys", the 442nd, citizenship for the Issei, and restitution for the internees. This is not to say that strikingly different viewpoints aren't available elsewhere for any of the events that touched Jimmy's life. There are and we invite you to explore those different and equally valid voices. We would like to thank Jimmy though, for devoting his life in "retirement" by acting as a docent and outreach educator to help others learn from his living history as well as for offering his story so that we may present it here.

In addition to this story, we would also like to direct you to the story of the Yamamotos, two Japanese-American girls who lived in Japan during the Pacific War, and our humble, but growing companion pages of documents and other referential material dealing with Japanese-American history in the 20th Century.


Issei: The Pre-War Years

My wife and I are Nisei. That's second generation Japanese-Americans. My father, Makino Toshio*, emigrated from Kumamoto in Southern Japan, sometime in the earlier part of this century with his brother [* Japanese names place the surname before the given name]. Like many Japanese immigrants at the time, he first went to Hawaii, but left his brother shortly afterwards for the mainland where he stayed for about five years in Seattle. He worked in Seattle doing housework while attending school. One day his employer put my father's hat on his head and pushed him out the door. My father thought he was being fired, but then found out that it was "maid's day" and he was being given the day off. He learned to read and write pretty well for his generation of immigrants.

In 1907, the Gentleman's Agreement was passed between the U.S. and Japan. As part of this agreement, Japan agreed to restrict the flow of Japanese men to America. There was no mention of female immigrants in the agreement, and the restrictions against interracial marriages, both social and legal, led to the proliferation of proxy marriages (kankodan). Marriages were concluded after letters and photos were typically exchanged between the man in America and his bride-to-be in Japan. My mother, Maketa Toshiye, married my father this way. These marriages, though recognized in Japan, were not recognized in America, so the formal marriage ceremony had to take place immediately after the ship carrying the bride arrived in port. The lonely Japanese men in America, in search of a wife were not always completely honest. It was not uncommon for older men to send photos back to Japan that they had taken years earlier, when they were more attractive. And so, my mother-in-law was shocked when she saw her new husband for the first time because he had aged some eighteen years beyond the likeness of the man she had been expecting to see after her long journey from Japan. Women such as my mother and mother-in-law were known as "picture brides".

My parents had first met in the Napa-Sonoma area of Northern California, where my father was working in the hop fields. My two older sisters, Helen and Mary, were born there before they moved to Southern California where my father owned a succession of small stores in the 1920's and 30's. My sister Anna and myself were born in the back of one of these stores where my mother was assisted by a midwife. My mother tried to instill some Japanese values and traditions in us, but I think there was some ambivalence and these lessons wore off as we got older. My sisters and I were all given Japanese and American names. My Japanese name is Yukio, Helen's Japanese name is Harui, Mary's name is Kikuye and Anna's name is Yoshiko. My parents were Buddhists, they burned incense on a counter, but they did not practice any religion actively. I can only remember going to a Buddhist temple once as a child and that was for a funeral. They would also sing some Japanese songs, do the New Year's mochi bit and eat Japanese food. Our family even visited Japan for about nine months around 1924/25, but I was far too young to remember anything of significance about the trip. We had Japanese friends and there was some sense of community amongst us, but it was mostly loose and informal. I studied Japanese as a boy, but didn't excel because I was busy playing around too much. I also took up kendo, a martial art centered around a modified bambo stick used in place of a sword. I reached the level of shodan or 1st degree black-belt (higher numbers reflect increased levels of expertise). In high school, I joined a school organization called the 3 O's, or the Three Orientals because its membership consisted of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean students, but I can't remember anything specific that we did.

We were encouraged by mom and pop to speak English. This way we could be of more help out at the store where the customers were all Caucasians. Only one occasion of obvious racism sticks out in my mind from those pre-war years. I attended Alhambra High School and played football. Most of the boys on the team were Italian-Americans though there were a couple of Mexican boys and there was another Japanese-American in addition to myself. One day our team decided to go swimming at a municipal swimming pool in Long Beach. As we were entering, someone who worked at the pool picked me out of the group and told me, "You can't swim here." My teammates rallied behind me though and said they wouldn't swim there if I wasn't permitted to swim with them and we left.

When the Depression hit, we were affected, but probably no worse than others. Instead of owning a small store, my father now "owned" the vegetable section of a larger market. Being an Issei, he was not eligible to become a citizen of the United States and California had begun passing laws aimed at the Issei so they could not own real property. As a result, he owned the vegetable section at the market, but not legally, and we only rented the homes we lived in before the war. I would go with my pop to L.A.'s City Market, a large market where Japanese-American truck farmers would sell their produce. He would go around the market, make a deal and leave a piece of paper at the food stall. I'd spend much of my time playing with the sons of the truck farmers at the market. Then we'd drive through the market and I'd help load up a truck with everything we bought.

Before World War II, Japanese truck farms were a way of life in the San Fernando-Burbank area, El Monte, and South San Gabriel Valley. These farmers owned two-to-five acre lots on which they grew different crops at different times of the year. My wife's family grew carrots where Studio City sits today. Lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes were raised at a truck farm near Santa Anita Racetrack. Celery was raised at a track farm near Long Beach. Another family raised asparagus, rhubarb and cabbage on their truck farm at San Gabriel Blvd., where freeway 60 now meets freeway 10. The family name was Ito. Jim Ito's family was later interned at Heart Mountain, Wyoming during World War II.

After school, many of the kids my age from these truck farms would go to work on the farms or drive the trucks that connected them to the market. I was more fortunate because my father owned the produce department of a market and when I had to work after school it was only to deliver groceries around the San Marino area.

Aftermath of Pearl Harbor

The hysteria that followed the bombing of Pearl Harbor and was to lead to the quarantine of Japanese-Americans in desolate areas away from the coast was made clearer to me by an event that happened down the street from where my father's market was located. One night, a passerby noticed a red light illuminating a Japanese face in the otherwise darkened store down the street from our market. Being a concerned citizen, this person informed the police who arrested two Japanese-American boys and their father. A Quaker came to the aid of these three jail inmates and obtained their release after making some inquiries and explaining the situation to the police. The two boys, it seemed, tended the store with the father. The Japanese face the passerby saw was one of the boys as he stood by a red light in the store which was attached to a cooler and served as a monitor that the cooler was working properly. This was only one incident in which the Quakers helped out Japanese-Americans during those difficult times.

We had about a month or two to prepare for the evacuation to the internment camps whereas some people in other areas only had a couple of days. We learned about the Relocation Centers through posters that had been posted and word of mouth. Somebody put the word out that we were going to a desert-like area. Many of us bought boots in preparation. Other than that we heard nothing and had no idea what to expect. My father had to leave his business behind for good. One of our neighbors who we rented our house from took care of some of our things. They had a pretty good sized basement so they had some room. We never had that much to entrust to anybody anyway. Some families who "owned" some property were helped out by Quakers who acted as custodians of the belongings of numerous Japanese-Americans.

We had to report to Tulare Relocation Center. We had no idea how long we were going to be at the center. Later, when the relocation camps were built, we were taken by troop trains to Gila Relocation Center in Arizona [Relocation Center was the government euphemism for the internment camps]. Gila was on a Pima Indian Reservation.

Families were kept together in the barracks. Each room was about 20 x 20 feet. I was housed with my parents. My sister, Helen, lived with her husband, Mary lived with her husband and small boy, and Ann, who was married around the time of the "evacuation" lived with her husband as well. We didn't have any visitors - we didn't know anyone in Arizona.

There was a block manager who was in charge of some 200 people. He was the contact person. He'd go to a bigger meeting and then let us know what he'd heard.

There were all sorts of things to do. According to an anniversary book that was put together for an reunion of Gila internees, 2805 tons of vegetables were harvested at Gila from September 1942 to May, 1943. From this amount, 1464 tons were consumed by the camp and 1341 tons were shipped to other relocation camps. The chief crops at Gila included: cantaloupe, honeydew, watermelon, corn, beans, tomatoes, beets, carrots, cucumbers, and squash. First, I tried the Works Corps, but it didn't work out. I picked cotton. The bag was eight feet long by three or four feet in diameter. I have short stubby fingers and it was piece work. I only lasted one day. Then I got work at the camp post office which handled more than a half million dollars in stamps, money orders and COD's from August, 1942 to May, 1943. It was an 8-5 job and, in between, I did what I could to have fun like go to dances or the movies. Pay wasn't very good for work in the camp. The wages were set at $12-, $16-, and $19- a week based on skills required for the jobs. Doctors and nurses were the sort that got the $19/week pay. It was no country club, but it wasn't anything like the Nazi concentration camps either. People could buy things from a camp commissary and through mail order. I was only at the camp for eight months though so I don't have that much to say about the experience. We had a camp newspaper which had reprinted an article that summed up the camp experience pretty well. [Notable residents of the Gila Relocation Camp included character actor, Noriyuki (Pat) Morita who was eleven years old when interned; and Betty Miiko Shikata (Miiko Taka in credits) who co-starred with Marlon Brando in the 1950's movie, Sayonara.]

Like I said, I was only in the camp for a short time. When the opportunity was given to us, I enlisted in the service. My dad was quite upset about me joining the service. He had three daughters and only one boy. I had to carry on the family name (known in Japanese as atotori). After I had joined the army, though, my dad finally gave me his blessing. As it turned out, I never had any boys anyway so my family name dies out with me.

We never had any bitterness about the evacuation and the internment camps, we just went with the flow. It may have had something to do both with the fact that our parents were immigrants and Japanese that they taught us not to make waves, that we'd make out.

Sure there were different opinions about fighting for the country. There were maybe a couple of dozen from Gila who enlisted and a couple of dozen who were drafted. A lot of the Issei made senninbari, traditional stomach wraps with 1,000 cross stitches, for those of us leaving to join the service. I didn't keep mine because I didn't think it was right and didn't see any during training. When those of us who had signed up with the service were leaving the camp at Gila, the "no no"s* threw rocks and spat at us. [* "no-no Boys" were those interned Japanese-Americans who refused to sign loyalty oaths during the war. They were called no-no because their answers on two crucial loyalty questions on a government distributed questionaire were "no".]

I knew some "no-no boys" from before the war who were sent to Heart Mountain Relocation Camp. One of the boys I knew was sent up to Leavenworth. The day before he was to be released, he was electrocuted to death in some accident. My father was a quiet man and loyal to the U.S., but some Issei openly supported Japan in the war. My uncle, the husband of my paternal aunt, was really gung-ho for Imperial Japan. His family was interned at Manzanar like my wife's family. He renounced his citizenship and the family returned to Japan. They returned to the U.S. after the war. I don't have much contact with them nor do I know what happened to them in Japan. I don't care much. They left the country I was fighting for.

Kibei were those Nisei who returned to Japan for schooling. My wife's family returned to Japan sometime around 1939. When the family returned to the U.S., a sister and brother were left in Japan. The brother was drafted into the Japanese military and sent to Manchuria where he died. The sister, Sachi, lived in Wakayama throughout the war and saw the pikadon (or bright flash) of the atomic bomb that dropped at Hiroshima. After the war, Sachi married another Kibei, Yukata, who had served as a Japanese language instructor for the U.S. military at the Presidio.

My sisters applied for work furloughs and moved out of the camps to Chicago where they lived for a couple of years. My parents soon followed.

442ND: Go for Broke

I was given a pass to leave the Relocation Camp, but only to report directly to the service at Fort Douglas, Utah. When I was sworn in, there were five of us and we all got separated, but we all survived the war. From Fort Douglas I went to Camp Shelby, Mississippi for training. The original symbol for our unit was a steamboat because we had our training there. Later the symbol was changed to a yellow hand holding a dagger with blood dripping from it. This was changed because many of the soldiers were offended by the racist overtones of the symbol. Finally, the "Go for Broke" design was made in 1942 by one of the soldiers from Monterey.

I arrived at Camp Shelby about a month or two after the Hawaii boys and nearly all the non-com positions were filled. I was one of the few who joined the service after being interned who was made buck sergeant (three-stripe sergeant) during training. I guess it was because I could get along with both the Hawaii boys and the mainland boys. I had learned to speak the pidgin English spoken by the Hawaii boys pretty well from speaking with my sister, Helen's husband George. George was born in Hawaii and had worked maintaining one of the machines they used at a sugar plantation before he came to the mainland. Helen and George had been married for several years by the time the war broke out. At twenty years old, I was also older than most of the mainland boys and the Hawaii boys were typically from twenty-one to twenty-four years old. At first, there was a lot of tension between the Hawaii boys and the boys from the mainland, but we soon learned to get along.

If you went on pass during training, you signed out. Along with signing out, you got a pro-kit (prophylactic kit) which you returned when you came back. Some of the things that came about came about. You'd have to ask some of the guys that went what happened. I didn't do anything. A group of us would go up to an internment camp in Jerome, Arkansas on leave. We were treated very well by the people interned there who would put in for a lavish meal for us. I began corresponding with a beautiful girl at Jerome. After awhile, I realized she was pretty young so after the war, I looked her family up in the records of those who were interned at Jerome. That's when I learned she was only fourteen years old. Oh well, there was no harm, I had only corresponded with her anyway.

I had several pen-pals I guess. They were girlfriends of my buddies, friends of their friends, and friends of my sisters. It was something to do. Chitchat. It was also a way to keep up on what was going on. Pen-pals were really just that and nothing more. I didn't even meet one of my pen-pals until 1953 when I went on a vacation to Hawaii with my wife.

One day at Camp Shelby, I was called into the Colonel's office. I reported as ordered and gave him a "highball" (salute). He asked me if I thought the troops were ready for battle. I couldn't understand why he was asking me of all people, but I guess he was just trying to find out the morale of the men from amongst them.

Eisenhower didn't want a Japanese-American unit. General Mark Clark of the 34th Nebraska-Iowa, Red Bull Division did. The 100th guys were older than the 442nd because they had all been in the National Guard in Hawaii before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. They took heavy losses at Monte Cassino and were combined with the 442nd. Since both units had an A, B, C, and D company, the 442nd's were broken up into other companies.

What is war like? For starters it is quite a shock. You don't really get used to it, but it doesn't bother you quite as much after a while. We did see a number of Germans, well some were wounded, but most were dead. It didn't bother me as much as when I saw some of our boys on the ground. I thought, "Oh my goodness, it could be me." Everyone was scared and afraid. We lived through it.

I go to schools on occasion to teach students about Japanese-American history through the outreach program at the Japanese-American National Museum. We talk about Issei, Nisei, and Sansei (1st, 2nd and 3rd generation Japanese-Americans). Sansei are too busy working to care about history, but Yonsei (4th generation) seem to be interested in their background. At one particular school, a boy kept asking me how many people I killed in the war. He was persistent. All I could tell him was that there is a lot of "bang, bang, bang" and what they call harassing fire. I don't know if I killed anyone. You shoot, but you don't go up and look at the soldier and see if he's dead. You shoot and later advance and see dead soldiers where you were firing. We didn't put a notch somewhere when we shot someone or check to see if they were dead.

I can't tell you a clean chronology of events that happened when I got to Italy, but I'll tell you what I remember. First of all, the list of engagements I was involved in was short: Civitavecchia, Grosseto, Belvedere, Cecina, Pisa, Florence, Pasina, Arno River and Leghorn. At Gila, each block had 200 people, but you only knew 15 or 20 of your neighbors. In the army, your company consisted of 180-200 men, but you really only knew the 36 or so guys in your platoon. As things happened the group got smaller - as we contacted enemy. Here are some stories of the guys I fought with or knew about:

George Jones. You'll notice in my pictures at Camp Shelby that there is one fellow who is as white as anyone. George Jones was a happa (mixed race, half-white and half-Japanese) from New York. He was from the "free zone", they weren't interning Japanese-Americans back east so I don't know why he joined up with the rest of us.

"TJ" Fujiwara. There was another happa who fought with us. His name was "TJ" Fujiwara. He was half Puerto Rican and half Japanese. He was a nice guy, but looked mean. Every platoon had a sniper, and he was ours. It takes a different kind of guy to be a sniper. When you're pinned down with someone taking a bead on you (putting their sites on you), you don't want to move so the sniper steps up and takes the enemy out. One night, we were on patrol. You want it to be quiet when you're on patrol, but there was a dog who kept barking incessantly. TJ took out his knife and said, "I'll be right back." The dog wasn't barking when he returned.

Sgt. Nori Sekino. You know, guys in the military use a lot of profanity. There was this one guy though, Sekino, who never swore. I never even saw this guy get mad. The worst thing that came out of his mouth was "shucks". That's the kind of guy he was. He was quite a Christian. Everyone in G Company knew Sekino. He was the platoon sergeant and when he had to give us orders that were passed down from above through him, there was no quibbling. Everyone knew he wouldn't pick on you. Sekino had his heel severely injured during the war and received a purple heart.

Okamoto Tomiso. In one battle, I picked one of my men, Okamoto Tomiso, to go flank right. I was just behind him as we ran forward. There were heavy incoming mortars and one hit him directly. I was more fortunate. My rifle was torn to pieces so I had to get another, but I was left in one piece.

Kim. There was a Korean fellow named Kim with the 100th battalion. While he was in the hospital, he said, "I gotta get outta here because the 442nd is moving on." When he was all better, he got reassigned, but not with his guys. He was a rifle company officer. While in battle he was making a charge and looked behind him to see nobody was following. He thought there was a problem and tried again. This sort of thing would never happen with the 442nd. He told himself, "I gotta get out of here."

Rocky Mariyoshi. Rocky Mariyoshi was the most highly decorated soldier from Company G and he was also in the third platoon, but in a different squad than mine. His nickname was Rocky because he was built like a rock. He worked out with barbells all the time. He even had his weights sent to Italy with the kitchen equipment. He was so concerned about his men he got sick. He ended in the hospital. He left the hospital without being discharged and went in search of his company. Somewhere along the way, while asking around "Where’s G Company?", someone told him to "follow the wire." When he came walking up on us he had two captives. He had followed the telephone wire and ran into a machine gun nest while doing so. He took out two Germans and took the other two captive, loaded them up with his gear and continued to search for his platoon. He received more medals than anyone else, but we're still trying to get him the Congressional Medal of Honor.

July 4, 1944. Hill 140 near Civitavecchia.

We were attacking a machine gun nest. I had a grenade launcher at the end of my rifle and shot it at a German soldier some 20 yards or so in front of me. He fell down, but there was no explosion from the grenade. In all the excitement, I must have forgotten to pull the pin from the grenade before I fired it!

Kei Tanahashi. I'd guess that ninety-five percent of our officers were white. Most of the oriental officers were medics. Well, we were told that we were going to get a Japanese officer. This guy went to OCS (Officer Candidate School) at Fort Benning, Georgia. His name was Kei Tanahashi. He was my platoon leader. Each platoon had three squads of twelve men. I was the squad leader of the 2nd squad in the 3rd platoon (a rifle platoon) of Company G. Tanahashi was in charge of our platoon.

Four of our guys, Tsugiyasu Toma, Bill Nakamura, Kei Tanahashi, and Sgt. Urabe were killed at Hill 140, scattered left to right by one machine gun. Urabe was on my left. Toma and Tanahashi were in front of me and Nakamura was on my right. Toma's left arm was torn up real bad. I put a tourniquet around it with some sulfa drugs. We didn't have painkillers and the medics only had morphine. Toma was complaining about his back. He had a little hole on his lower back. He was also complaining about his neck. He had a large hole where his shoulder met his neck. I think the machine gun fire got his arm first, then spun him around and a bullet enter his back and exited his shoulder. I didn't see him get his so I don't know, it's just my theory. Tanahashi was hit in the stomach. I helped take off their shoes and put them on the litters that took them to the back and never saw either of them again. I have a V-mail that Tanahashi censored and signed June 29th/30th. Just a few days before he was killed.

When we reached the machine gun nest several of our men shot into it and no one came out alive.

We were held up by machine gun fire another time at Hill 140. I was sitting with about five others feet-to-feet. I had a 536 radio and was yelling for the mortars to fire at the machine gun nest. We never got any response. This lasted throughout the day and overnight. When the sun began to rise, I asked for a runner. David Ito ran 400-500 yards up a hill and then turned and signaled for us to follow. When we reached the top of the hill, we saw the rest of our battalion which had pulled back through the dark of night!

In one battle, the medic stood up and walked into the fighting with a red cross flag. All the gun fire stopped and the two medics from both sides treated their guys. That's the way the medics were. They carried two pouches, scissors and that flag, nothing else to protect them, but they were there when you called one. The chaplains were the same way, they put their duty before themselves. [Protestant chaplain, Masao Yamada, from Kealakekua, Hawaii was the first Japanese-American to become chaplain in the U.S. Army.]

There was this one fellow, "Onion," who lived in San Marino near me, was sent to Gila (59-3-C), and served in G Company, the same as I did, but I never knew he was in our company until after the war. Onion got his name because he was called ani san (elder brother). Somehow this was bastardized into "Onion" and the name stuck. He was a funny, jovial sort of guy who never took things hard, but boy he sure had bad luck. Private Min Ishida, "Onion", was killed on April 23, 1945, just weeks before the Germans surrendered, by a partisan's errant shot that found its way to his head.

Souvenir hunting. We were told not to take items from the enemy because they could be booby-trapped. Everyone wanted an Iron Cross, but only the German officers had them and they'd run like heck so it was hard to get one. The P38 was popular too, but it seemed that everyone who got one ended out getting shot down the road. I know of two or three guys who were shot after they got a hold of one of these guns. It got so no one wanted one anymore. I got a regular .38 off of a machine-gunner we overran. These guys were still warm and there was blood all over the gun. Later, I chipped away the blood to clean it up. I was separated from the gun just like the others before me.

It was about 9:00 pm, on July 12, 1944 near Pastina, Italy. There were 60mm and 80mm mortars flying from both sides. 60mm mortars were carried by the infantry. One guy carried a base plate and the tube and another followed behind. The 80mm were carried by support in jeeps. A 60mm mortar could be fired accurately from 200 yards away.

I was hit by enemy mortar fire. I called for a medic. Pulled something from the back of my right leg. Like a pencil in diameter, it was about three inches long, and hot. I pulled it out and threw it away. Then I felt the blood oozing from my wound. I can't remember being in pain. I was more mad than anything else. It wasn't a very bad wound, but I didn't take care of it so it festered and got much worse.


GILA NEWS-COURIER SUPPLEMENT

"Dear Editor,

"I'm just another proud member of the 442nd and a former resident of Gila. I left Gila in June and since, have been with the 442nd to this day. I was working in the Rivers Post Office and I'm still working for Uncle Sam. From the day I left Gila for duty, Dad has been sending me the News-Courier, so that I would keep up with the camp news. I received a few yesterday but they were about two months old but being my old camp news, I read them with interest and to me they were news. I noticed two or three articles about relocation and I'm in favor of it 100%. From what I've seen out east, I'd like to make a try at it as my home, that is when I get back. My 3 sisters and their families are and have been out there for over a year now and they seem to like it very much. I have been encouraging my folks to go east and make a try at it so by the time you get this, they might be gone.

Jim in Hospital Gown, Rome "After all, we are here, fighting for just that right to be equal as any one and be able to go and do as we please. Already, we've had many boys that are gone and many who are war casualties that have paid dearly for what they think is right. We've done this much so it's the people's turn to do their share. I don't say or mean, that a person should just go out blindly and try to relocate but at least plan for the future because the camps won't last forever. I'm sure my sisters would be only too glad to help anybody out. They've already had many people come to their house and stay for a short time and then move to their own place when things were all set. One of my sisters lives in a nice district, attends the church there and is liked by all the neighbors. One of her neighbors writes to me even though we aren't acquainted. Their children play and sleep at each other's house and are real playmates. Well, I guess I've said enough and I hope I've put over my ideas and thoughts to you.

"I'm in a hospital but expect to be out shortly and be back in this outfit. I'm fine except for a slight wound. I got the injury in one of our battles."

Sgt. Jimmy Makino
Co. G 442nd Inf.
A.P.O. 464 c/o Postmaster
New York, New York


Every morning, two fellows went by me in the hospital corridor, where I was bedded down with a large group of wounded soldiers, on their way to breakfast. On about the 4th morning, one of the fellows gave me a "hi" sign. The next morning, the same thing happened again and my friend asked me if I knew him. He was shocked because the guy was an officer and officers didn't mix with EM (enlisted men). The officer gestured to me to follow him. As I went and turned the corner following him, I saw there were only two men, officers, in the room - rank has its privileges. He told me that he was with the 135th Infantry and they had "kicked our boots" at Pisa. We had been chasing Germans out of the area and his unit relieved us. When his unit came up to relieve us, they had asked where our holes were. As you’re moving up in a battle and you’re getting hit by an artillery barrage, you want to start digging for protection. Our guys, being Japanese and smaller in stature than the white guys, didn't need very big holes. It turned out that he was from Southern California like myself and we even knew some of the same athletes from a college in Glendora. His name is Bill Hastie.

It took so long for my wound to heal, I began seeing litters arrive with wounded soldiers who no longer had heels on the bottoms of their shoes. This told me they were fighting further north, in the mountains of Italy and even as far as France. By the time I healed up, I was too far behind and got orders to return stateside.

Chicago. After the war ended, I went to Chicago where my sisters and parents had moved. I was only in Chicago about a half a year. It was cold and dirty, but I felt accepted there. I met a guy who shared my love for motorcycles who was all crumpled up and used two crutches to get around after surviving a civilian airplane accident. He had an 80 cubic-inch Indian motorcycle with a side-car. He rigged up an automatic starter using a car battery that he stored in the side-car so he could still ride without using the kick starter. One day, he says, "How'd you like to go to Canada?" On our way back down from Sioux Saint Marie where we saw locks like they have at the Panama Canal, we met some veterans riding army-issue motorcycles in Milwaukee. I found out that there were as many as 2500 army surplus motorcycles for sale to veterans. There were 200 or so in Illinois. I bought my first motorcycle, an Indian Scout, in 1940 and loved to ride motorcycles. I bought one of the army motorcycles for about $230-$240. They were still in crates waiting to be shipped overseas before the war ended. They were covered thick with Cosmoline to protect them against the salt ocean air on the voyage overseas. I had to rub off the Cosmoline, take off the gun rack and put on the handlebars. I left the shield on and drove it to California. It took about two weeks at 40-50mph.

Some thing change, some remain the same

After resettling in San Gabriel in Southern California, I began a career at AT&T that lasted for thirty-eight years. During that first year, one of my co-workers took a look at me and said, "I'll be goddamn if I gotta work with one of them after I've been fighting in the Pacific." I calmly told him that I was a soldier in the European Theater. Then I asked him if he had ever brought his gun up to his shoulder, squinted down at the site and fired at someone. "No," replied the man, "I'd just shoot to cover the area" (-so the enemy wouldn't raise his head up for fear of being shot). Well, I said I didn't know if I had every shot anyone. One time when we were on patrol, we came across some Germans at a farm. They were walking back and forth and we had a bead on them. We were ready to shoot if they discovered us, but nothing ever happened.

Life didn't improve rapidly. My father, like many other Japanese-Americans who lost everything to the hysteria of the war, began a new profession. He started a gardening business that eventually grew strong enough to keep him employed for an entire week. Landscape gardening became an important enterprise for Japanese-Americans after the war. One of my friends had Glenn Miller's widow as a customer while another became the groundskeeper for Dodger stadium.

My mother and father went to classes in the 1950s and got their citizenship. I think it was one of the big stepping stones in their lives. It's pretty bad that what you worked for all your life is taken away. I regret that Congress did not pass restitution until after my parents had died. My grandson just attended his high school prom recently. Things have changed for his generation. The doors are wide open now. Here's one example. You'll recall the truck farmer, Jim Ito, and his brothers David, whom I fought with in the war, and Tom who my sister married? Jim, had a son, Lance, who grew up to be a judge and presided over the celebrity trial of O.J. Simpson.

Just after Christmas, 1998, I was trying to help my mother-in-law find a place to rent. I had just left a luncheon I had been invited to along with some other veterans of the 442nd by a Jewish organization. Veterans of the 442nd have always been remembered because it was our guys who opened the gate of Dachau Concentration Camp. I knocked on the door of a place where I saw a "for rent" sign in my neighborhood, the neighborhood I had been in and out of all my life. The woman who opened the door shut it after saying, "We don't rent to your kind!"


Copyright CULTURAL BRIDGE PRODUCTIONS, All Rights Reserved.