Interviews

1. Coming to California

2. Learning Japanese with the MIS

3. Meeting Hamako in Japan

4. Miscommunications

5. Writing Letters

6. Meeting Mr. Amano

7. Marriage and Returning to US

8. Reception of Hamako by family

Harry Schneider

(1916 - 2013) Member of the U.S. Military Intelligence Service

Meeting Hamako in Japan

And I got on a trolley and went to Kamakura and I saw the area there a little bit, and then when I went to get back on the trolley it didn't come, it didn't come. And there were a crowd of Japanese and a couple of soldiers—American GIs—were in this crowd waiting for the trolley and my wife, Hamako was...she had just come from having her eye operated on, she had some trouble with her eye. And she had a patch on it and she looked kind of weird, but I was eager to use my Japanese language so I spoke up to her anyway and at first she was very, you know, stand-off-ishy because good Japanese girls from nice families—which she was from a very high class family there—but I guess she was interested that I could speak the language.

armed forces military retired military personnel United States Army veterans World War II

Date: January 26, 2012

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki, Yoko Nishimura

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

Interviewee Bio

Harry Schneider, (b. 1916), was a member of the U.S. Military Intelligence Service stationed in Tokyo. Although Harry was not Japanese, he initially was recruited for the M.I.S. training program in San Francisco because of his administrative skills, but then was motivated to learn the Japanese language with the other Nisei soldiers. He married his wife, Hamako, in 1948 soon after the end of WWII. At the end of the War, special legislation was required for an Asian “war bride” to be admitted to the U.S. In 1950 Harry and Hamako married again at the Japanese Consulate in Tokyo so that they could be one of the first couples allowed to enter. Harry passed away at age 97 in June 2013. (June 2014)