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Interviews

Henry Suto

(1928 - 2008) Drafted into both the Japanese Imperial Army and the U.S. Army.
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My father’s business in America (Japanese)

(Japanese) My father’s… My father’s business. Well, it was this restaurant called “U.S. Café,” and it was actually a European food restaurant. There were no such things [back then] as Japanese restaurants, as we have nowadays… (laughs). It was open 24 hours a day. I heard from other people that around the time of World War I…actually, after the war, there was a boom in customers and business was thriving. There were some funny stories—like once they were so busy that the cash register was overflowing with cash, so they had to bring over an empty beer box to toss the money into. Well, that’s how busy they really were. But thereafter, the boom slowly went, you know, down, down, down… By the time I left America, apparently the business wasn’t making much at all. That’s probably why my mother made the decision to return to Japan then. Yes.

Minot North Dakota restaurants United States

Date: June 17, 2008

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Yoko Nishimura

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Henry Eiichi Suto was born on February 5, 1928 in Minot, North Dakota to Issei parents. After the death of his father and younger sister, his mother returned to Japan with Henry and his brother. Henry was 7 years old and since he knew little Japanese, he worked hard to learn and try to fit in with his classmates. When he was approached by his teacher to sign up for the Japanese Army at the age of 17, he accepted—knowing he wouldn’t be able to afford to go to college. After basic training, he was 1 of 34 selected to train under a special unit, which he later found out was a “suicide” unit to man a one-man torpedo boat. He was in this unit when Hiroshima was bombed and was one of the first soldiers to arrive with aid, thirty-six hours after the bombing.

When the war ended, he returned to the United States and lived with an uncle after his mother passed away. He enrolled in Belmont High School, but 3 months later was drafted into the U.S. Army to fight in the Korean War. He was trained to become an interpreter and was taught the Korean language at Camp Palmer. He was to go to the front lines in Korea to interrogate, but while on their stopover in Japan, he was asked to stay to serve as an interpreter there instead.

He returned to the U.S. after being discharged from the army and went to Los Angeles City College where he majored in foreign trade. He found a job at the Otagiri Company and worked there till his retirement in 1993.

He passed away on October 17, 2008 at the age of 80. (January 30, 2009)

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