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https://www.discovernikkei.org/en/interviews/clips/689/

Japanese American railroad workers are fired following the bombing of Pearl Harbor

The FBI—my dad, in order to get to his mail job at Great Northern Railroad, had to go under the United Union Pacific, the Milwaukee Railroad tracks. And it was railroad track that came right through into Spokane. Great Northern was a block north of that station, Union Pacific, but Union Pacific was all on girders. And they came in, you had to walk up to the railroad station, and underneath, we had to walk through to get to the employment, railroad. And the FBI says, “No, you can't do that. You can't be caught walking under a bridge, we're afraid you might bomb it.” And so they fired every one of the Japanese, and there were a couple of Italians working there, Felice and Mancheny, Clark, were working there. And they couldn't handle, even with the new, whoever they hired for the mail, the mail was all screwed up, it was going all over the country instead of to the right destination. So after, I think, thirty days, they had to rehire all the Japanese again, so the mail started to run in the direction they were supposed to be going.


discrimination interpersonal relations racism railroads World War II

Date: Mar 15, 2006

Location: Washington, US

Interviewer: Megan Asaka

Contributed by: Denshō: The Japanese American Legacy Project.

Interviewee Bio

Nisei male. Born 1923 in Spokane, Washington. Spent childhood in downtown Spokane where parents ran the World Hotel. Father also worked as a mail handler for the Great Northern Railroad. Attended Lewis and Clark High School and Washington State University. During the war remembers seeing train cars pass through Spokane with Japanese Americans headed to Heart Mountain incarceration camp, Wyoming. Drafted into the army in 1944 and served at the Military Intelligence Service Language School in Fort Snelling, Minnesota and Presidio, California. After World War II, worked as a chick sexer in upstate New York and surrounding region for thirty years. Returned to Spokane in the mid-1970s and pursued a career in real estate. Currently lives with wife, Susie, in Spokane and is an active fly fisherman. (March 16, 2006 )

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Robert Katayama
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Father as prisoner of war in hospital

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