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Grandparents were incarcerated in Jerome, Arkansas

So when he came back to Honolulu, my grandmother applied to voluntarily evacuate with her husband. So you had 1300 people from Hawaii who were actually tapped by the government to go to the concentration camps. You had another 1000 people who voluntarily joined them, the families. All in all it was 2300 people who went. Anyway, at the end of December, my grandfather went on a separate ship, my grandmother and the children went on another ship and they met in San Francisco. This is where it gets fuzzy because when I checked the records downstairs in the museum that says where he went to camp, they showed him in Tule Lake, but I’ve never found anything that said he was in Tule Lake.

So now my aunt tells this story about them having to go by train to Jerome, Arkansas. Because all of the train were coming from east coast to the west, every time a westbound train came they had to get off the track and wait for it to pass by. So a trip that would have taken like three days normally took a week. And she said she had never seen her father cry but he was literally in tears the whole time. But he was telling the kids that Japan is stupid, that there was no way they would beat the US in war, and that the kids needed to believe that the US was still the greatest country in the world. That’s the story that kills me.


Arkansas concentration camps Hawai'i Jerome concentration camp trains United States World War II World War II camps

Date: April 25, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: John Esaki

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

Interviewee Bio

Robert Fujioka was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1952. He attended the University of Michigan earning a BA degree and earned an MBA from the University of Hawai'i. He has been in the banking industry since 1974 and currently serves as Vice Chair, Japanese American National Museum Board of Trustees, a Trustee of the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation, and the First Hawaiian Bank Foundation. (November 2018)

George Ariyoshi
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George Ariyoshi

Prom during the war

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

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George Ariyoshi
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George Ariyoshi

Being fair

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

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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi
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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi

Day Pearl Harbor was bombed

Former First Lady of Hawai'i

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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi
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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi

Working in the pineapple fields

Former First Lady of Hawai'i

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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi
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Jean Hayashi Ariyoshi

Tree planting

Former First Lady of Hawai'i

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Kazuo Funai
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Kazuo Funai

Japan vs. the United States (Japanese)

(1900-2005) Issei businessman

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Eric Nakamura
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Eric Nakamura

Skateboarding at Manzanar

Giant Robot co-founder and publisher

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James Hirabayashi
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James Hirabayashi

Life in camp as teenager

(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

1920 labor strike

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Barbara Kawakami
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Barbara Kawakami

Bombing of Pearl Harbor

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Barbara Kawakami
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Barbara Kawakami

Helping soldiers

An expert researcher and scholar on Japanese immigrant clothing.

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Mas Kodani
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Mas Kodani

Fun at concentration camp

Senshin Buddhist Temple minister and co-founder of Kinnara Taiko.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Yuri Kochiyama

Father as prisoner of war in hospital

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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Yuri Kochiyama
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Yuri Kochiyama

Patriotism versus loyalty

(1922–2014) Political and civil rights activist.

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