Interviews

1. Nisei Parents

2. His family Traveled to Japan in 1940

3. His Memory of August 6, 1945

4. Immediately after the bombing

5. Escape from Hiroshima

6. Other family members not as lucky

7. Returning to Hiroshima in ruins

8. His parents had little hope that he had survived the atomic bomb

9. Reuniting with parents in America

10. Adjustment to American life

11. The moment he realized he identified as an American

12. Overcoming trauma and speaking about his A-Bomb experience

13. On telling his wife he had radiation sickness and his son’s cancer

14. His views on nuclear weapons

Howard Kakita

(b. 1938) Japanese American. Hiroshima atomic bomb survivor

Reuniting with parents in America

Probably around January of 1948, they told us that we had to return to United States to go back to our parents, whom we don’t remember, and leave our grandmother who raised us and saved us from total annihilation. Basically we raised holy hell. I mean we didn’t want to come back to United States. We wanted to stay with grandma. Okay, that was our mentality.

However, with lots of yelling and crying, and so forth, they put us on a ship from Yokohama in March of 1948, destined for the United States. Took us two weeks with a stopover in Hawaii to finally get here. So, two of us, my brother at 11 and a half and myself at 10, we were on the ship all by ourselves.

families grandmothers grandparents Japan parents postwar World War II

Date: September 3, 2019

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Masako Miki

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

Interviewee Bio

Howard Kakita was born in 1938 in East Los Angeles, California. His family took him to Japan in 1940. His parents and younger brother came back to the United States in 1940, to take care of the family business, but Howard and an older brother, Kenny, stayed in Japan.

When the war broke out, his family in the U.S. were incarcerated in Poston, AZ. On August 6, 1945, the Atomic bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. Howard was 0.8 miles from the hypocenter and survived. He and Kenny came back to the U.S. and reunited with their family in 1948.

Howard pursued a career in computer engineering. After his retirement, he joined American Society Hiroshima-Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Survivors (ASA) and has been actively sharing his A-bomb experience. (September 2019)