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Growing up in segregated schools

I grew up in a very humble background: my parents were sharecroppers farmers, our living quarters were unpainted shacks, no running water, no electricity, outhouses – which I thought was normal.

I went to about five or six elementary schools - the earliest ones which were one-room school houses. And they were socially and economically segregated. In Sacramento County, where I spent third or...where I almost flunked third grade, schools were segregated. The Caucasian students went to one school and the Asian…and as far as I can remember we were all Japanese—there were no Chinese, no Filipinos…black–we never even saw one.


442nd Regimental Combat Team armed forces communities retired military personnel schools segregation United States Army veterans

Date: January 3, 2015

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Lily Anne Y. Welty Tamai

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

Interviewee Bio

Susumu “Sus” Ito was born in 1919 in Stockton, California, to Japanese immigrants, Sohei and Hisayo Ito. Like many other Japanese American families in their community, the Itos worked as tenant farmers, sharecropping to harvest celery, beets, and asparagus. Sus Ito grew up with few luxuries.

In 1940, at twenty-one years old, Ito was drafted into the military—before America’s direct involvement in World War II. Initially, he was assigned to a non-segregated Quartermaster truck and vehicle maintenance unit at Camp Haan near Riverside, California. During the war, he served as a Lieutenant in the “C” Battery of the segregated 442nd Regimental Combat Team’s 522nd Field Artillery Battalion while his family was held in the American concentration camp in Rohwer, Arkansas. After World War II, he studied Biology with the help of the G.I. Bill and later received his PhD in Biology and Embryology. A pioneer in his field, Dr. Ito joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1960, and has been professor emeritus since 1991.

He passed away on September 2015 at age 96. (September 2015)

George Ariyoshi
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George Ariyoshi

Ethnic diversity

(b.1926) Democratic politician and three-term Governor of Hawai'i

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James Hirabayashi
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James Hirabayashi

Christian gatherings in homes

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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James Hirabayashi
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James Hirabayashi

Not bringing shame to family

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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James Hirabayashi
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James Hirabayashi

Role of the Japanese American National Museum

(1926 - 2012) Scholar and professor of anthropology. Leader in the establishment of ethnic studies as an academic discipline

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Robert Katayama
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Robert Katayama

Being ordered to keep a diary that was later confiscated, ostensibly by the FBI

Hawaiian Nisei who served in World War II with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

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Barbara Kawakami
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Barbara Kawakami

Racial make-up of plantation camps

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Yuri Kochiyama

Mr. Finch, godfather of the 442nd

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Peggie Nishimura Bain
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Peggie Nishimura Bain

Learning American cooking

(b.1909) Nisei from Washington. Incarcerated at Tule Lake and Minidoka during WWII. Resettled in Chicago after WWII

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Richard Kosaki
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Richard Kosaki

442 soldiers visiting U.S. concentration camps

(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i

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Richard Kosaki
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Richard Kosaki

Teaching at the military language school during World War II

(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i

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Richard Kosaki
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Richard Kosaki

Change in attitudes after World War II

(b. 1924) Political scientist, educator, and administrator from Hawai`i

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Roger Shimomura
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Roger Shimomura

Japanese American community life

(b. 1939) Japanese American painter, printmaker & professor

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Kimi Wakabayashi
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Kimi Wakabayashi

Her early life in Canada

(b.1912) Japanese Canadian Issei. Immigrated with husband to Canada in 1931

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George Azumano
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George Azumano

Downtown in Portland, Oregon

(b. 1918) Founder Azumano Travel

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Kip Fulbeck
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Kip Fulbeck

Lessons learned from The Hapa Project

(b. 1965) filmmaker and artist

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