Ann Muto

Ann Muto was born in the hospital in the Poston in 1944, but despite this direct experience with the incarceration as an infant, she knew very little about the feelings, thoughts and experiences of her parents and relatives as an adult. In this interview, Ann is clearly regretful that her family did not share more with her, as many pieces of the puzzle of their personal experiences stayed with them until the end of their lives. To help process and heal her desire to know more from her family, Ann turned to attending pilgrimages and poetry writing:

“There are missing pieces in my life, not simply forgotten memories, but unspoken words. 

I wish my parents were still alive and willing to take the step back, to explore what comes up, to share who they were when it all happened. 

They died silent, their stories untold.” 

Can we start with when and where were you born?

I was born on February 21, 1944, in the Poston in General Hospital. In Poston, Arizona, the War Relocation Authority camp.

That's a very interesting place to be born. I'm glad you're here today. Just for more background, could you tell us your mother and father's name and where they're from?

My father's name was Jian Hiroji Kitagawa and he was born on March 27, 1904, in Honolulu, Hawaii. And my mother was Yoshiko Betty Masamune is her maiden name. And then a Kitagawa. She was born April 27th, 1913.

Do you know where she was born?

I think Salinas, California.

So they were both Americans?

Yes, they were both second generation, Nisei,

And so you're Sansei. Okay.

Yes. On both sides.

Did you hear family stories from your parents before Pearl Harbor?

I'm not sure you know, what their lives were like. My mother was very, you know, reticent to talk about her time. You know, the time before. But I kind of pieced together a few stories, which are really interesting. When she died, I went to the Social Security office with my father. And for the death benefits and they would ask factual questions and he was asked, “Was she married before?” And I'm going “No.”  I'm not answering the questions, he is, and he said, “Yes,” which really just floored me because that was something I had never known.

And I asked one of my aunts and she was one that didn't like to talk about stuff either because it's just too painful even today. And she said, yes, she was married to this guy, but he was no good. And I learned somewhere along the way that they did divorce. And then she married my father and you know, again, the arrangement and that kind of thing.

And she was the oldest. So I guess the thing is, they’re supposed to marry in turn, like the oldest married first, that kind of thing. And I don't know where I heard it, but it was like the next sister or the sibling down sister was ready to get married or something. So, you know, they kind of had to have my mother get married, like right away. How true that is, I don't know. But that's the impression. As a kid, I guess you pick up little things along the way. They don't really tell you, but that's the impression I got. And so it was like, okay, now the sister can get married. That kind of thing. But I never knew about it until after my mother died.

That was a real interesting story.

Right. Actually, I hear about that kind of stuff. You know, “I didn't know x about my husband until the funeral kind of thing.” You know, the war buddies came and talked.

Now, as a child growing up in Salinas, that was after the war. My impression was that they were part of the Buddhist church, my mother's family. And that's who we were the closest with. And we lived in the same building with them for a while until they constructed an apartment behind a storefront that my family lived in.

This is after the war?

Right. But, you know, during that time when we all lived together, they had a lot to do with the Buddhist church. And they had the reverend over for dinner and the New Year. They had their own – I guess the mortar and pestle or whatever you call that, the cement bowl.

It was made from concrete?

That's as I remember it. Either he died or, you know, and then you got fewer and fewer people to do that. But it seemed like, you know, they attempted to carry on, a lot of the Japanese culture because of course, my mother's family, you know, mostly Japanese, although my grandfather had a laundry business in Salinas. And so, you know, he had to interact with other, you know, non Japanese people, and in fact, a recent story I heard from my uncle was that when the internment evacuation took place, because of my grandfather's friendship with this man named Tynan, who had lumber companies and other things, he was able to – stored some things in the building. But this isn't before the war. 

And they stored some things in the building. They, I guess they owned the property later on. And they also had another Japanese family friend, I think the name was Masuda and he knew the mayor. So my grandfather was able to store his car and some other household goods on the mayor's property and all of the things that were stored down that property, whereas a lot of the things in the building were, you know, ransacked and things like that. 

I learned about my grandfather having some business connections and some friendships that helped. And my uncle said because you know, he was able to store some things and keep some possessions in a safe place. The other Japanese families called them. How they would, you know, turn on their own people sometimes because they had privileges everyone else didn't have. But he didn't say you know much else about what resulted from that. But you know, my uncle said they were lucky to be able to have a car that's still working. They did own that piece of property and then they had this other piece of property where they built the storefront and the apartment for my family. 

So they were able to hold onto their property through the war?

Apparently, because that's where we came back and lived. We lived in the kind of warehouse building that housed the laundry. Because there was a little storefront, you know, where you would go and turn your clothes.

But to own property, you had to be an American citizen. So does your sister have brothers too?

Well, she was the oldest and there were actually two brothers at one time, but one brother died when I was 15 because that side of the family had a lot of congenital heart problems. And I'm not sure whose name they used to purchase my property, but you know, somebody's name. Because, you know, the children were all citizens.

So you were able to piece together some sense of history before Pearl Harbor about your mother's side and Salinas. Were you able to piece together anything about your father?

That was a lot more difficult. What I was able to piece together is that my paternal grandparents came over as laborers to Hawaii. And, you know, we were a plantation kind of family for a while. My father – this is where it gets really foggy, I think he was the oldest. He did go to two years of college at the University of Hawaii.But then, I'm told the money ran out, so he had to quit. And when he met my mother, he was working in a produce business or something like that.

And after the war, when he came back, he became a contractor gardener. Because now I learned that in that kind of profession, you didn't have to have a lot of capital to work.

Right.

So he got his lawn mower and trailer and all that. And then he had his, you know, clients that he would serve, and I didn't realize how poor we were. As you know, growing up, my mother worked as well. She was a typist for the credit union. And they did a really good job providing for us given they didn't really have a lot of money and, you know, living in that apartment probably was a real help because the rent must've been, you know, a lot less than they would have had to pay. So most of the information I learned about my father's family was through the youngest brother who we didn't meet until quite, you know, until he was quite a bit older and although they were aware of each other I don't think they were in the same relocation camps.

But they were kind of aware of each other. That family moved to Chicago during relocation and the youngest brother,  and then one of the other brothers there was a big falling out with, he actually went to the mainland and became a dentist, I believe. And he never came back to Hawaii. And I heard that part of the reason they were so, you know, got angry with that brother was because he was supposed to come back and help the family, but apparently he never did. So there was, you know, that brother and then there was another brother..

So if you were born in ‘43, maybe they were married in 42’?

My brother was born in ‘43.

I'm sorry, ‘43. Yeah. And you were born in ’44, so maybe like ‘42 or ’41.

Right. I would imagine that was when they got married.

So they might have even gotten married in the assembly centers or something.

I don't have a sense of that. I think they got married in Salinas. ‘Cause there's a picture of them at the church in Salinas, things like that. So it happened before that. 

Do know from any of your relatives or photos what happened at the assembly centers? 

[They] went to the rodeo grounds. It wasn't until after I worked there, started working at the museum, or volunteering that it sunk in.

But you know, again, my parents and then this one aunt that I'm closest with, were not willing or able to talk about that experience. But my uncle and my aunt who has passed away, they thought it was important that the kids know about this. So, throughout all [my cousin’s] growing up years they would talk about it. There was a point at which I was thinking of practicing with my uncle, you know, when I was going to do a videotape conference. But him being in Salinas and our lives being as busy, I never felt that there was enough time to do it well, but I was able to ask him questions and found out that he was willing to talk about them if he could remember. Whereas my aunt on the other hand was more reticent to talk about.

Yes. Prying these histories out of people without insulting them or making him feel uncomfortable. We just used those fortuitous moments together. Do you know anything about your lives in Poston, even hearsay?

Not much except the facts or information I've learned about camps in general. About how hot it could be and how cold it could be and how dusty it could be. And, while being a writer I've started this little kind of fictional story to try to make sense of some of those times and I'm guessing for my grandfather in particular because he worked so hard, he had always had a heart condition but he worked really hard to bring about that laundry business and to do well. And then as I learned at the [Japanese American Museum of San Jose] museum, in the camps, all the Issei men in particular, probably the women too, you know, everything was taken away from them. They had no power or whatever, so I think it was a real hardship for him to be suddenly demoted to kind of an unimportant person.

And the way my mother was so achievement oriented, another aunt had said how much pressure they put on my mother to do well even though she was a woman, being first born and all that sort of stuff. So what I remember of my maternal grandfather was a really loving, caring person. I don't remember, but I'm thinking that he, you know, was kind of my primary nurturer in the camps because my brother being just a year older, was very sickly.

So, you know, after we came back to Salinas, my grandfather was really sick because of his heart conditions. But he worked out in the garden and he created this miniature Japanese garden with a pump in there, a stream or something. I don't know if it worked well ever, but he was always working on it and so that was partly his outlet. You know as a lot of people did, he carved those birds. Carved and lacquered. Birds in camp were another outlet.

Do you have any of those birds?

Yes I do.

That's a nice memento. Well I'm glad you had a loving, caring maternal grandfather. I can just imagine your parents being frantic, trying to make sure that your brother was going to survive.

Yeah, And my father worked in one of the mess halls. So, I mean, fortunately, he did have a job as usual, I guess. You know, the women were left with a lot of the care.

Some people grew up with the sense that camp was fun because whatever they heard was only fun things. What was your impression about camp when you were growing up? 

Well, the only times I clearly remember them referring to camp as I was growing up as a child was this memory about my aunt. We’d go from Salinas to visit my aunt in L.A., two aunts in L.A., a lot, almost every year. We’d be walking in Japantown down there, and then my aunt would say, “Oh there's so-and-so from block,” you know.

And the building, and that kind of stuff. And, you know, it's like seeing old friends, they would kind of go oh yeah you know, and all that stuff and then that would be it. And they wouldn't say much more after, you know, they would have that encounter. So those are my clearest memories. Hearing the word “camp.”

For me it wasn't until I was going to college at UC Berkeley that I was assigned in Asian Studies or something, of course, too and I guess I said, well, okay, I'll write about the Japanese Americans, you know. And I went to interview this lawyer, Fred Abbott* in San Francisco, and he I think he was the first one that told me about the concentration camps and he loaned me a book about it. I mean it was a real eye opener.

So you were in disbelief that your parents had sort of withheld that information? 

Oh, I mean it was a pretty tumultuous time anyway. Yes. Because that was, you know.

Martin Luther King —

Right. And the war. And soon after I got married, I had a daughter. So there was a lot going on. So I didn't actually push them really hard. And, you know, I gathered up enough information to write the paper but you know I always knew there was probably more.

In the ‘60s, you found out about all these things happening. You got married. By the ‘80s your children were teenagers or in their twenties even, depending on which part of the decade. What did you think about the redress movement?

Well, that was interesting because we would read articles in the newspaper and stuff like that. But my brother was a lawyer, he became a lawyer. He actually worked with a group of lawyers on the redress. I can't remember the name, they got a landmark case. I don't know the Constitution. 

But they would joke about how much money we're getting and all that kind of stuff. And I think for myself, it was like the apology, the letter of apology was as or more important than the money. Because you know that just kind of comes and goes but that sense of you know, shame and the sense of “We must have done something wrong,” you know, to be put in camps like that even though you know they couldn't say specifically. In the history books they say now that there was never any proven case of sabotage or whatever else in the whole, you know, population of Japanese Americans would maybe alleviate some of that shame. But then by then, you know, my grandparents and my parents were all deceased.

So they never got to see that.

Yes. And but again you know my aunt, she still, you know when we, when I try to ask her stuff it's just too hard for her. So I would imagine that would have been true for my mother too. But it was kind of cute. She found some photos recently, in that era. And she brought them out and she could talk about that. I just never know how much to ask. She said it would just be too hard.

I would like to end the interview here. Unless there's something you’d like to say?

Well, you know, there's one of the poems that got published.

Would you like to read it?

Sure, why not? So this is the poem called “Missing Pieces” and this is how it goes:

There are missing pieces in my life, not simply forgotten memories, but unspoken words. 

I wish my parents were still alive and willing to take the step back, to explore what comes up, to share who they were when it all happened. 

They died silent, their stories untold. 

This pilgrimage helped me with my healing, and by hearing the accounts of others, I am able to assemble a story that could have been theirs, that could be mine. 

Those are the missing pieces that I need to make myself whole.

Wow. How was it writing that?

Well, my poems are always for myself. I never write them too well. Occasionally I do for, an event or something. But I write poems to deal with feelings and emotions that come up because, you know, they get very uncomfortable. So, you know, I'm always glad when even, you know, a long time afterwards when I reread it, that it says what I thought it said, or it reminds me of something I had felt or thought or experienced. So it still feels true to me.

Interview conducted by Grace Megumi Fleming. JAMsj thanks Grace for allowing the museum to archive and share these oral histories