Interviews

1. My father’s business in America (Japanese)

2. School life in Japan (Japanese)

3. Identity (Japanese)

4. The horror of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing (Japanese)

5. Feelings upon listening to the imperial rescript (Japanese)

6. Returning to America after the war (Japanese)

7. Enlisting in the U.S. Army (Japanese)

8. Working tirelessly after the war (Japanese)

9. What I wanted to pass down to my children (Japanese)

10. Father owned a café in Minot, North Dakota

11. Japanese in Minot

12. Didn’t speak Japanese until moving to Japan

13. Being enlisted into the Japanese Army

14. Wasn’t told he was being trained for kamikaze bombing

15. Experiences in Hiroshima after the A-bomb

16. Reaction to the Emperor’s surrender

17. Worked for the occupation force in Japan after the war

18. Fitting back into American life

19. Speaking about his wife

20. Comparing basic training of US and Japanese Armies

21. Helping youth in the community

Henry Suto

(1928 - 2008) Drafted into both the Japanese Imperial Army and the U.S. Army.

Identity (Japanese)

(Japanese) You know, well, I look back now on those times and… you know how people talk about their motherland, or homeland, right? Well, let’s see, of course that has to be my six, seven years spent in the US—the six or seven years after being born there, right? But then I went to Japan, and went through elementary and junior high school there. So there’s this, you know, the education, the environment that I grew up in and such [in Japan]. So actually, if asked whether identify myself as American or Japanese—at the time, I’d have to say that I saw myself as Japanese, and didn’t consciously identify as being an American.

…It’s called dual-citizenship—I had both American citizenship and Japanese citizenship. So the Japanese would say to me, “You’re American,” but since coming to Japan and living here, I felt, and my mother likewise felt, that we would never really be going “back” to America. I think we had a stronger feeling toward completely identifying ourselves as Japanese.

identity Japan

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)