Interviews
Overcoming trauma and speaking about his A-Bomb experience
After I came back from Japan, this is back in 1948, my mother would tell me that I used to wake up in the middle of the night screaming—nightmares. And I had difficulty with some of the food items. Anything that had a tinge of red like spaghetti with marinara sauce, a pink orange or pink grapefruit, I had trouble with that, rare meat. Anything that reminded me of the carnage that I witnessed as a child. So I had trouble eating and swallowing those items.
But as time went by, by 1955, 10 years after the A Bomb, things seemed to have dissipated. Since then, I've been able to talk about it. Although some subjects I get into sometime gets me a little bit choked up. But I could discuss this things, perhaps with less emotion than some of the people in the audience because I've done it so often and maybe I’ve become hardened to it. So yes there’s some difficulty, but it’s not unbearable.
Date: September 3, 2019
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Masako Miki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
Explore More Videos
Thoughts on relationship between Japanese Peruvians and Japanese Americans at Crystal City, Texas
(1937 - 2021) Teacher
Father interrogated by FBI, but not taken away
(1925 - 2018) Nisei educator from Hawai‘i
The political effects on Nikkei during the war (Spanish)
(b. 1950) Nisei Chilean, Businessman
Avoiding the Japanese military
(1914-2004) Nisei Bonsai master in the United States
Decision between becoming a minister or musician
(b. 1949) Musician and arts educator and adminstrator.
Performing in the first Asian American play, "The Monkey Play"
(b. 1949) Musician and arts educator and adminstrator.
A Dutiful Son
(1918-2012) Fought the constitutionality of Executive Order 9066.
The horror of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing (Japanese)
(1928 - 2008) Drafted into both the Japanese Imperial Army and the U.S. Army.
Reception of Hamako by family
(1916 - 2013) Member of the U.S. Military Intelligence Service
Memories of Poston
(b. 1930) Half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States.
Arriving at Poston
(b. 1930) Half Japanese and grew up in both Japan and the United States.
Writing a novel on the 442nd
Jewish Japanese American journalist