Interviews

1. Ways of Fitting In

2. Introduction to Jazz

3. We’re Still Japanese

4. Nisei Swing Kids

5. The J-Town Jazz Ensemble

6. Sansei and the Redress Movement

Yoshida,George

(b. 1922) Musician

Ways of Fitting In

So growing up in this environment of friends who spoke English and we started speaking English, music, sports, going to the library. The school was providing the, part of the assimilation process -- a lot of it, not part. Much of it. Movies, all provided this input in becoming American. And so it was not only the schools and meeting these kids.

So when I walked to school, it was easy enough to become friends with non-Japanese because we talked about the latest movie you saw, the cowboy movies or whatever, and what we heard on the radio. Newspapers, of course, what little we read in the newspapers. So we became, because of our input from schools, et cetera, radio, it didn't take long for us to be a part of a, a larger group, yes, culturally but not socially, you know.

Date: February 18, 2002

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito, John Pai

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

George Yoshida was born in 1922 in Seattle, WA. Prior to World War II, his family moved to East Los Angeles, CA in 1936. Yoshida was incarcerated in Poston, AZ during the war. Yoshida grew up around the Big Band sound and Swing music and while in camp formed a dance band called the “Music Makers” for which he played the drums. Through music, the internees tried their best to keep life as a normal as possible and forget that they were surrounded by barbed wire. In 1943, Yoshida was drafted into the U.S. Army. He married in 1945 and moved to Berkeley, CA where he taught at Washington Elementary School for the next 35 years.

After retiring from teaching in 1987, Yoshida’s started the J-Town Jazz Ensemble, a swing band of Nisei and Sansei musicians. He still plays the drums, but this time, Yoshida uses music to remember the history of Japanese Americans during a period of great hardship. Yoshida is also the author of a book, Reminiscing in Swingtime 1925-1960: Japanese Americans in American Popular Music. (April 15, 2008)