Interviews

1. Mother's immigration to U.S. as a treaty merchant

2. Ransacking of family home by FBI following the bombing of Pearl Harbor

3. Witnessing father's arrest through a child's eyes

4. Memories of trip to Japan on the exchange ships

5. Living in Japan during the war, preparing for U.S. bombings

6. Witnessing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima

7. Participating in military drills in school in Japan during the war

8. Hearing anti-American war propaganda from a teacher

9. The hardships of life in Japan during World War II

Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto

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

Hearing anti-American war propaganda from a teacher

And another time, I think when things were really getting worse, he, another one I remember so vividly is the one he said -- well, of course, the Japanese navy was so popular and strong. So he would say, well, when they look over the Pacific, the dark-eyed Japanese, the eyeballs are brown, and so they can absorb the light much more than the blue, light blue eyes and so they can see so much more over the Pacific. And he said, The Amerikajins (Americans) are kinpatsu (blond hair), you know, the golden hair and the blue eyes and they're blinded by the sun so they can't see far away. And so, you see the advantage we have.

And here, inside, you keep asking me how I felt. I thought, How stupid. And I couldn't even tell any of my friends this. So it's a very private thought that I thought. How sad. Does he expect people to believe that? I mean, I certainly didn't believe it. I knew enough science or whatever to -- that it just -- you know, something that I just personally could not accept. And I thought, gee, how ugly this must be, truly a desperate wartime situation.

Japan propaganda racism World War II

Date: Aug 3, 2003

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Alice Ito

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei female. Born December 30, 1927 in Seattle, Washington. Lived in Japan for fifteen months as a child, before returning to Seattle to attend junior high school. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, father was picked up by the FBI and taken to the Department of Justice camp at Missoula, Montana. Removed to the Puyallup Assembly Center, Washington, before being reunited with father at the Minidoka incarceration camp, Idaho. Family volunteered to leave for Japan in 1943 on the U.S. government's exchange ship, the USS Gripsholm. Attended high school in Japan, and participated in military and air raid drills. During the U.S.'s postwar occupation of Japan, attended Doshisha University and worked for a U.S. army station hospital library. Returned to the U.S. and enrolled at St. Mary's teaching hospital in Rochester, Minnesota. Denied redress because of expatriation to Japan, but succeeded in obtaining redress in 1996 after filing a class-action lawsuit.

*The full interview is available Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

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