Oh! Poston, Why Don't You Cry for Me?: And Other Stops Along the Way

By Paul M. Okimoto

The internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was a landmark in American jurisprudence. One hundred twenty thousand Japanese, the majority of whom were American citizens, were forcibly removed from the west coast of the United States because of their race. I was one of the 120,000 internees, but was only seven years of age when interned and ten when I returned to California. I was too young to fully appreciate the historic scope of the incarceration of American citizens simply because of their national origin. This awakening came later. My parents were able to keep me from fully realizing my situation, and protected me from the feeling of helplessness that would have come with a better understanding of what had happened to us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465395924

Paul M. Okimoto

Paul Okimoto’s story of world travels is inextricably linked to the rebellion of his father, Tameichi, who refused to follow in the footstep of his uncle, a high ranking general in the Japanese Army. Tameichi’s determination to study despite extreme poverty nearly led to his death from tuberculosis. A Christian missionary nursed him back to health and persuaded him to enter the ministry. He accepted a church post in San Diego, California shortly before the outbreak of world war two - the seminal decision of his life. The irony of the decision to emigrate to the USA: his family of four children and wife was sent to an internment center at the outbreak of WWII, an event that Tameichi never learned to accept as just. Tameichi’s four children reacted to the internment in different ways. Ruth, the only daughter, reacted strongly against the incarceration in Poston, while Joe and Dan, the youngest siblings, have no memories of their internment. But Paul, the eldest, resisted the urging of his father to pursue a high profile career and chose to pursue interests that afforded him the chance to see as much of the world as possible in the post war era. His eleven years of higher education did not bring him a prestigious career, but did afford him a wealth of experience that he shares in this book.

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Oh! Poston, Why Don’t

You Cry For Me?

107652-OKIM-layout-low.pdf

And Other Stops Along The Way

Paul M. Okimoto

Copyright © 2012 by Paul M. Okimoto.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2011960454

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4653-9591-7

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4653-9590-0

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4653-9592-4

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

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107652

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1 Isseis

Chapter 2 Coming To America

Chapter 3 The House We Lived In

Chapter 4 Internment Camps

Chapter 5 The Cicada And The Telegraph

Chapter 6 The Stride

Chapter 7 Getting Ready For Judo

Chapter 8 Soccer

Chapter 9 Camp Fires

Chapter 10 Saga Of Mikki And George

Chapter 11 442Nd And 100Th Battalion

Chapter 12 Letter From Janet And Susan Hardwick

Chapter 13 Akira, Tell Them It’s Wrong

Chapter 14 The Return Home

Chapter 15 Compensation And Emotional Rigidity

Chapter 16 Oh Poston, Why Don’t You Cry For Me? I’m Here In Arizona Not Because I Want To Be

Chapter 17 The Debate

Chapter 18 Events That Influenced Me

Chapter 19 The Pk And Promiscuouis Interdigitation

Chapter 20 Random Thoughts And Stochastic Events

Chapter 21 Mon Oncle Sam

Chapter 22 Pvt. Jim Gardner

Chapter 23 The Date

Chapter 24 First Trip To Japan

Chapter 25 My Muslim Friends

Chapter 26 Racial Stereotypes

Chapter 27 My Four Sons

Chapter 28 Seymour

Chapter 29 Next Time We’ll Win

Chapter 30 Cabbies

Chapter 31 Sir Shinkichi

Chapter 32 The Creation Of A Legend, (Or Pamplona Re-Enacted)

Chapter 33 The Samurai From Bordeaux

Chapter 34 Souad Massi

Chapter 35 To Russia With Love

Chapter 36 The Teutonic Tempest

Chapter 37 Stops Along The Way To My Career

Chapter 38 Der Wanderer

Epilogue

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to:

—   the memory of my parents who brought me to America, and to the following medical doctors whose humanitarianism is exemplary.

—   my brother Joe Okimoto, who never strayed from our parents’ hope that he dedicate himself to the service of mankind through medicine.

—   Eric Salminen, a classmate of mine in Belgium, whose boyish good looks, athleticism and a full quotient of joie de vivre would—I thought—distract him from completing the rigorous six years of medical schooling in Belgium. I was wrong. Eric has served with distinction in the US Army Medical Corp and maintains his joie de vivre as well as his earnest commitment to medicine in civilian life.

—   Frank Staggers jr., scion of an illustrious medical family; he is a drug abuse expert and tireless physician among the dispossessed in Alameda county, California.

—   Larry McCleary, pediatric neurosurgeon with a polymath mind who studied theoretical physics and yet finds time to write technical books on medicine. He is also involved in organizing ski trips every year for children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases.

—   Sol Weingarten, a friend for half a century, whose wisdom and dedication to psychiatry is matched by his brilliance in another field—theoretical physics. His astounding success in treating violent criminals is based on his completely new view of physics.

I come from California

I’m a Jap evacuee,

I’m here in Arizona, not because I want to be.

Oh, Oh Poston

Why don’t you cry for me?

I’m here in Arizona

Not because I want to be.

This song was sung sardonically to Stephan Foster’s tune, Oh Susana by Japanese American high school students in Poston to express their outrage at their illegal internment.

PROLOGUE

The internment of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War was a landmark in American jurisprudence. One hundred twenty thousand Japanese, the majority of whom were American citizens, were forcibly removed from the west coast of the United States because of their race. I was one of the 120,000 internees, but was only seven years of age when interned and ten when I returned to California. I was too young to fully appreciate the historic scope of the incarceration of American citizens simply because of their national origin. This awakening came later. My parents were able to keep me from fully realizing my situation, and protected me from the feeling of helplessness that would have come with a better understanding of what had happened to us.

My life has always been out of step with the hopes and expectations of my parents. I wish it were due to artistic non-conformity, but it would probably be more accurate to say that my free spirit derives from being the first born son in a Japanese family, with the special privileges and expectations that go with it. The privileges were gratefully accepted, but the expectations were rarely fulfilled. Too young to fight in World War II or Korea, but too old for Vietnam, I was able instead to study in America and in Europe and to travel and witness striking transformations in much of the world scene. Blessed with stern but loving parents, a supportive wife, healthy, happy children and interesting and caring friends, I realize how lucky I’ve been. I’m very, very grateful for it, knowing how easily it could have turned out otherwise. Not very apt to brood over the past and generally unlikely to hold grudges, I strive to avoid the trap of victimization when thinking about our internment during WWII—a facile option until one considers the history of Native Americans, African Americans and others who have suffered much more than us—or to think that my life has any more significance than that of others. But as though to make up for all this, which should have led to a quieter, more tranquil life than average, I have always been restless and have never felt fully at home, without truly knowing why. I was once scolded by my Sunday school teacher for not making my father’s job easier by being a better example for my playmates—a criticism that set my teeth on edge. This parochialism helped feed my desire to flee from home as soon as I could. Or perhaps it was my parents’ continuous push to be No. 1 in my class. Whatever the reason for my restlessness, seeking its cause has become the impetus behind this book.

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CHAPTER 1

ISSEIS

This work recalls the journey of one Japanese-American’s experience—one may say, fortunately, an atypical journey—at an interesting juncture in our history. It is not a treatise on the Japanese immigrant experience, nor is it a dissertation on the Internment issue. Anyone seeking a more academic discussion of the Japanese American issue is advised to read my brother, Daniel Okimoto’s book American in Disguise, or Professor Greg Robinson’s books that delve more deeply into the sociological issues underlying our experience. Mine is simply a narrative of one schoolboy’s experience in an internment center and his subsequent life experiences after Poston as seen from the perspective of the final phase of life.

Exclusionary Clause in American immigration laws effectively stopped the flow of Asian immigrants to these shores in 1924. This piece of discriminatory legislation—a strong slap in the face to Japanese leaders who thought they deserved special consideration by the United States for launching the war against Russia at Teddy Roosevelt’s secret behest—added fuel to the right wing movement in Japan at a critical junction of modern Japanese history. Its impact on the lives of my parents, friends and relatives was strongly repercussive.

I am an Issei (first generation), which is to say that I was born in Japan and emigrated to the United States. However, because immigration from Japan was halted in 1924, I was a rarity in our society in that most of my friends of my age were Nisei (second generation Japanese). From the experiential standpoint, I considered myself Nisei, not Issei. Third generation Japanese are called Sansei. Kibeis were born here but educated in Japan.

In a very real sense, Japan’s modern history began with the Boxer Rebellion in China. Japan had begun its mad dash toward modernity following Commodore Perry’s unwelcome intrusion into Tokyo Bay in 1852 and the subsequent Meiji Reformation. Japan decided to join in with a dozen western nations in subduing the Chinese rebellion in hopes of sharing the spoils of war and securing the natural resources of Manchuria. However, Western allies were so astonished at the efficiency of the Japanese army that they decided not to allow Japan access to Manchurian coal and iron ore, but awarded Manchuria to Russia. This action led eventually to war in 1905 between Japan and Russia and ultimately to a settlement—manipulated by Teddy Roosevelt that ironically garnered him a Nobel Peace Prize. Japan took control of Manchuria and soon thereafter Korea. Liberal politicians in Japan had little chance of gaining control of the government in the heady years following the Russian war and the march toward an eventual confrontation with the United States had begun.

My father, Tameichi Okimoto, was born in 1904 near Hiroshima in the province of Yamaguchi where his parents eked out a bare existence on a tiny farm. His mother, who was from samurai stock, was bitterly resented by her mother-in-law and eventually forced to leave the family when Tameichi was only six months old. A woman’s role in Japan was—and still is to a considerable extent—a burdensome one. Having a daughter-in-law is often payback time for the mother. The impact of this perceived rejection by Tameichi’s mother had an impact upon Tameichi that can scarcely be overstated. His father remarried and the new wife bore him several children. The jealousy and rejection by his stepmother forced Tameichi’s sister to take over the responsibility of caring for him. She cared for him dearly, but died at the age of ten, dealing him yet again another severe emotional blow. Finally, because his stepmother treated him so harshly it was deemed advisable to send him to Taiwan to live with a maternal uncle.[1]

Tameichi’s uncle treated him with a modicum of tenderness, but his closest friends were native Taiwanese who allowed him to join in native games. They played tag daily in the ocean a kilometer or two off shore. He learned their language and customs.

It would not be a stretch to say that the nurturing he received from his uncle’s family and the friendships he established with the native Taiwanese children probably saved his life. He excelled in school, swam in the ocean daily while playing tag with his pals and absorbed the leisurely lifestyle of the native villagers. He learned to swim using a freestyle crawl that was popular in those days, with his head and part of his shoulders held high out of the water. I used to chuckle at the inefficiency of his stroke that involved holding one’s head completely out of the water, but he claimed that it was essential for the early detection of sharks. In the summer Tameichi and friends would spend hours playing tag in the ocean.

In the marketplace of his village, he watched in fascination the way natives dealt with their lack of refrigeration. Fishermen brought in live fish that were quickly sold. Unsold fish were discarded at the end of day or used as fertilizer. Water buffaloes were brought into the marketplace and their legs were placed in holes in huge blocks of wood and locked in place. Buyers would point to the part of the animal they wanted and the shopkeeper would carefully cut out the desired piece, avoiding arteries that would cause the water buffalo to bleed to death prematurely. It would bleat piteously for about three days until finally the loss of blood brought about a welcomed death. He never forgot their pitiful bellowing as they slowly died. Although it lacked abominably in humaneness, it was an ingenious method of dealing with the lack of refrigeration.

His mastery of the Taiwanese language was comically demonstrated to me when I heard him swear in an unknown language when he accidentally hit his thumb with his hammer while making a sofa in our Relocation Center, Poston, Arizona. I was skeptical of his explanation that the expletive was mild, not profane—that even school teachers used it, but I noticed that he rarely used that expletive again whenever he was in my presence.

Although he appreciated the nurturing support of his uncle’s family, upon graduation from high school, he immediately went to Tokyo to pursue higher education that became an obsession to him. Being penniless, he was forced to work nights as a night clerk in a small hotel while attending classes in the daytime. His maternal uncle, General Morinaga, who was a member of the faculty at a Japanese military academy and mentor to student Chiang Kaishek, tried to persuade him to take up the military as his career as had his cousins, but Tameichi refused, choosing rather to pursue education. However, shortly thereafter he was drafted into the army and served in the signal corps until a serious bout of tuberculosis forced him out of the service. Again penniless and now desperately ill, he was taken in by a Christian missionary who nursed him back to health and converted him to this new faith. At the urging of his mentor he enrolled in a seminary and began his preparation for the ministry.

Many times throughout his life I wondered what his true interest was in life. He literally spent hours everyday in studying scientific and intellectual matters that had little to do with religion. He was interested in knowledge for its own sake, but his sense of obligation to the missionary led him to devote his life to Christianity.

In contrast to my father’s home situation, my mother, Kirie Kumagai, was born in a poor but happy farming family in Fukuoka prefecture of Kyushu island. She was the favorite child of the family and did so well in school that she was encouraged to pursue higher education—a rare privilege for women in rural Japan. After graduating from a teacher’s college, she taught grammar school for a while, but yearned to open her own school. Her father who was extremely supportive of her education feared that over-education would frighten off potential husbands. They clashed over this matter, but eventually she won out and traveled to Hawaii to pursue her goal of a graduate degree.

Her father passed away while she was in Hawaii, thereby precipitating a strong emotional crisis in her. She held herself responsible for his death. She dropped out of school and returned to Japan for his funeral and for a period of respite to decide what her life goals were to be. One day, she chanced upon a small group of Christian missionaries who were singing in the streets of Fukuoka City, inviting all to a church service. She was attracted to the optimism and hopefulness of the Christian message and converted to this new faith. She was so taken by this new religion that she committed her life to its message. To this end, she enrolled in a seminary in Tokyo where she later was introduced to Tameichi; marriage was the end result.

In the summer of 1963, seven years after my mother’s death, I visited the Kumagai clan in Kyushu on my way to Europe and received a royal welcome by all my relatives. I was introduced to neighbors in the valley of the Kumagai clan as the chonan, or the eldest son of Kirie-san. I was surprised how well known she was in this area. Even the Buddhist priest who knew my mother well, burst into tears and said Now I can die peacefully, having met the chonan of Kirie-san. (I heard this phrase several times on my visit, leading me to wonder what it was about me that evoked so often this macabre phrase.) He led me to her gravesite at the temple that contained a lock of her hair sent him by my father.

Upon graduation from the seminary, my parents were assigned a church in Shinagawa district of Tokyo where I was born in 1935 and my sister in 1936. In an amazing stroke of good fortune, a church in San Diego, California requested a Japanese-speaking pastor. My parents accepted the offer and emigrated to the US in 1937. Thus, at the age of two years, had the first step of my lifelong travels begun.

One hundred twenty thousand Japanese immigrants and their children, the majority of whom were American citizens, were victims of an egregious violation of their civil rights when they were forcibly removed from the west coast of the USA at the outbreak of WWII, simply because of their race. Homes, careers and personal property were lost or destroyed because this precipitous action did not allow them sufficient time to prepare for the evacuation. However, people of my youthful generation were blissfully unaware of the enormity of this constitutional insult.

Japanese were not the only Asian immigrants to experience the heavy hand of prejudice. The Chinese in particular were subjected to degrading treatment ever since they were brought here in the 19th century to work on the continental railroad and to perform dangerous and back breaking tasks in the gold mines of California. The ridicule, persecution and even assassinations of the Chinese that took place, from San Francisco to the Mid-West during their first century in America strain credulity. But my father never regretted the move to the US. He was convinced that America offered the best opportunity for educational advancement and a better life for his children. Furthermore, the denouement of Tameichi’s sojourn in America was vastly more complicated than one might reasonably expect from the brief above description of his early life in Japan. He was emotionally scarred for life by being abandoned by his mother. He felt suffocated by his lack of command of spoken English, despite being a prolific reader and possessing a voracious appetite for knowledge. He willingly tolerated the daily humiliation of working as a gardener for snobbish wives of naval officers in Coronado, California, or for upper crust women in Pasadena. (George, trim back the lawn a bit further this week. George, get rid of this trash for me when you go to the dumps.—Tameichi was too difficult to pronounce.) They were oblivious to the fact that he could read Hebrew and Greek, was skilled in calligraphy and was extremely knowledgeable in history and science. The only time they showed any hint of interest in his life was when they read in the local paper that his son, Joe, was an All Star football player at Pasadena High School and had received a scholarship in 1956 to Dartmouth College and later to Harvard Medical School. Or when his youngest son Daniel had received a scholarship to Princeton University in 1960. Otherwise, he was as invisible as the shrubbery on their well-manicured lawn. He performed his mind-numbing chores with an unwavering eye toward making a better life for his children.

In reflective moments he admitted that it was better for most Japanese that Japan lost the war. Farmers, who made up the bulk of the immigrants and were near the bottom of the social hierarchy in Japan, were historically exploited by everyone above them, but benefited enormously from the land reform measures imposed upon Japan by MacArthur’s crew. Nevertheless, he recognized the artificiality of grafting democratic institutions onto the Japanese political system. Japan had—and still has, he said—a long ways to go before becoming a true democracy.

In 1904, the year before my father was born, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first powered flight in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. In 1969, three months before my father died, he and I watched in fascination the television broadcast of Neil Armstrong and his crew walking on the surface of the moon. The almost unimaginable technological advances of the twentieth century had their dark side as well: 165 million people died in wars and pogroms in the bloodiest century of human history. This terrible contradiction was never far from Tameichi Okimoto’s consciousness and he carried it with him his entire life.

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Father            Mother

CHAPTER 2

COMING TO AMERICA

Spots of time

Somebody was carrying me on her back in traditional Japanese fashion as snow was gently falling outside our house in Shinagawa, Tokyo. I don’t remember if it was my mother who was carrying me, or my cousin who had journeyed from Kyushu to see us off for California in 1937. I was about two years of age. This memory stands out in isolation—I can recall nothing just before or after this incident. William Wordsworth described such memories as spots of time. I remember feeling warmly comfortable and secure as snow fell gently in our backyard.

My second spot of time a short time later was on the deck of the Japanese passenger ship, Taiyo Maru, which brought us to San Pedro, California. The First Mate was explaining how a shiny brass instrument on the deck functioned in transmitting the captain’s order to the engine room crew below. It was sunny on deck; my father held my hand as he nodded, Naruhodo… naruhodo (Is that right… you don’t say). I was later told that my mother and sister were below deck, suffering from sea sickness.

My third spot of time was in San Diego a year later when I was 3. Our home was situated at the corner of Newton Ave. and 30th Ave. My brother, Joe, was about to be born. My father brought my sister and me to 30th and Oceanview Blvd to watch a parade, replete with a brass band, strutting drum majors, boy scouts and Marines, all marching smartly to John Phillips Sousa’s music. I had a hard time seeing anything, so my father hoisted me up on the shoulder of his towering 5'3" frame. My sister begged for equal treatment and got hoisted onto his left shoulder. I was impressed by his strength in being able to carry both of us at the same time. When we returned home which was about two blocks from the parade, I overheard my father telling my mother that the American government was trying to ready its people for war. I sensed my mother’s skepticism at his views. This was a time when pacifism was the dominant mood in this country.

My fourth spot of time was in 1939—my first day in kindergarten at Logan Grammar School. I was terrified at being left alone with rambunctious kids who spoke a strange language and were not in the least solicitous about my welfare. In fact, George Mukai recently told me how my spunky sister, Yoshiko, offered to accompany me to kindergarten when she saw me crying. This did not sit well with me. To be out-braved by a girl in Japanese society was particularly onerous.

Within a few days I finally made a minimal adjustment to what I perceived to be hostile surroundings only to discover that I had to make yet again another adjustment when we moved a dozen blocks away to 30th and Webster Ave. Stockton Grammar School, my new school, was predominantly African American. Fortunately, Frank Davis, my neighbor who was an extremely bright kid and who later became a successful medical doctor in Los Angeles, took me under his wings. He even learned a few Japanese phrases to make the transition easier for