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Hiding what happened in camp

I remember when, when the first...one of the people in our Blo...I think he was a kibei, and he felt really...you know, the Niseis didn't even treat the Kibeis right, I don't think. And, one day, they found his body on the race...I mean on the railroad track, and he was...the train had cut his head off. I mean, but they, they just hushed it up, 'cause they didn't want something like that to get out. But, so there were a lot of things that happened in camp that no one was even supposed to know about.


imprisonment incarceration World War II World War II camps

Date: June 16, 2003

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Karen Ishizuka, Akira Boch

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

Interviewee Bio

Yuri Kochiyama (nee Mary Nakahara) was born in the southern California community of San Pedro in 1922. She was “provincial, religious, and apolitical” until Japan’s December 7, 1941, bombing of the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawai`i led to the government’s mass incarceration of virtually all Japanese Americans. Her wartime detainment in two concentration camps in the segregated American South prompted her to see the parallels between the treatment of the Nikkei and African Americans.

After the war she married Bill Kochiyama, a veteran of a segregated Japanese American battalion, and lived in New York City. In 1960, the Kochiyamas moved their family into low-cost housing in the African American district of Harlem. Her political involvement there changed her life, especially after her 1963 meeting with Black Nationalist revolutionary Malcolm X, who was assassinated two years later. She has since had a long history of activism: for black liberation and Japanese American redress and against the Vietnam War, imperialism everywhere, and the imprisonment of people for combating injustice.  

She passed away on June 1, 2014, at age 93.  (June 2014)

Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto

Participating in military drills in school in Japan during the war

(b. 1927) Japanese American Nisei. Family voluntarily returned to Japan during WWII.

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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto

Hearing anti-American war propaganda from a teacher

(b. 1927) Japanese American Nisei. Family voluntarily returned to Japan during WWII.

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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto
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Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto

The hardships of life in Japan during World War II

(b. 1927) Japanese American Nisei. Family voluntarily returned to Japan during WWII.

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Fujima Kansuma
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Fujima Kansuma

Neighbor took care of hotel business during the World War II

(1918-2023) Nisei Japanese kabuki dancer

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Fred Sasaki
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Fred Sasaki

Anti-Japanese sentiment at the time of World War II

(b. 1918) Issei businessman in Canada

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Ryoichi Kodama
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Ryoichi Kodama

Affect of the World War II (Japanese)

Kasato-maru immigrants

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Pat Adachi
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Pat Adachi

Family life in a Japanese Canadian internment camp in Slocan

(b. 1920) Incarcerated during World War II. Active member of the Japanese Canadian community

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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig
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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig

Lack of political power led to camps

(1924-2018) Researcher, Activist

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Sue Embrey
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Sue Embrey

The Perspective of Youth

(1923–2006) Community activist. Co-founded the Manzanar Committee

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Shizuko Kadoguchi
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Shizuko Kadoguchi

Choice to move east or go to Japan

(b.1920) Japanese Canadian Nisei. Established the Ikenobo Ikebana Society of Toronto

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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig
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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig

Feeling imprisoned at camp

(1924-2018) Researcher, Activist

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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig
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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig

Institutionalization as a bad aspect of camp

(1924-2018) Researcher, Activist

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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig
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Aiko Yoshinaga Herzig

State Department records show concern for treatment of Japanese American internees

(1924-2018) Researcher, Activist

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Francis Y. Sogi
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Francis Y. Sogi

Remembering December 7, 1941

(1923-2011) Lawyer, MIS veteran, founder of Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation

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Francis Y. Sogi
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Francis Y. Sogi

Meeting Japanese Americans from the mainland in MIS

(1923-2011) Lawyer, MIS veteran, founder of Francis and Sarah Sogi Foundation

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