Interviews
Fully aware of discrimination in America
You know the thing that a lot of people don’t understand is that in our bull sessions, particularly among the officers, how seriously we took our task of being a combat unit. We realized that we would be the first Asian combat unit ever. And that we were all fully aware of - but I won’t repeat here - but we talked endlessly about the inequities of life in America. For example, here in Los Angeles, I don’t care how much schooling you had, I don’t care how well groomed you are, you were, in those days, you couldn’t even get a job as a bank teller. That’s the lowest, maybe you could get a job as a… a girl could get a job as a telephone operator, where she’s hidden in the back room, but not in the front. You couldn’t be…no big corporation would hire you for anything that required you for being in the public.
And so, back in those days, we didn’t have the big supermarkets, but then you ended up working in a food stand or you ended up working in a butcher shop in the back for the Chinese people, or you ended up doing something other than what required...that enabled you to wear decent clothes and a tie. See? There was just nothing there for the average person. In Hawaii, well, you could get a job as a bank teller, but then you would have to work harder than the Caucasian, get less - be paid a different wage. I mean there was no hidden thing about it. There was a double weight scale.
Date: August 28, 1995
Location: California, US
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Joining the army
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Animosity between the Hawaiians and the mainlanders
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
On saving the Lost Battalion
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Coming home to his mother after the war
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Getting a PhD under the G.I. Bill
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Feeling at peace with himself
(1919 - 2015) Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team
Felt no hostility in Los Gatos, California after the war
(b. 1935) Sansei businessman.
Facing housing discrimination in Rhode Island
(1934–2018) Japanese American designer, educator, and pioneer of media technologies
Influence of Mexican culture after returning from camp
(b. 1943) Japanese American transgender attorney
A conversation with a farmer in Kansas
(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor
Dancing in Japan as an American, in the US as Japanese
(1918-2023) Nisei Japanese kabuki dancer
Discrimination in San Francisco
(1914–2015) Nisei YMCA and Japanese American community leader
Collection of artifacts depicting racial stereotypes influences art
(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor
Encountering racial discrimination at a public swimming pool
(b. 1923) Nisei from Washington. Resisted draft during WWII.
His testimony has more credibility because of his race
(1922 - 2005) Former U.S. Army counterintelligence officer