Toshiko Kawamoto

Toshiko Kawamoto grew up the second eldest child to a farming family, with two Issei parents and grandparents who were hardworking people. She carries fond memories of her sweet grandmother whom she remembers greeting every day after school. When the war broke out, the family was sent to Heart Mountain, where her older brother was drafted into the army as a paratrooper. After the family left Wyoming, they resettled for a time at a town at the Idaho-Oregon border, as Toshiko’s father worked in the potato and onion farming business. One of her most vivid memories was standing up to an insufferable bully at school, who would tease her constantly on the school bus. But after her father gave her advice on what to do, Toshiko was never bothered by him again. 

After the war, Toshiko’s family held on to some longstanding property around the Bay Area, proof of their deep roots to farming and cultivation, like the Los Altos Nursery which operated for 49 years. Sadly, Toshiko passed recently on December 21, 2019. Grace and Toshiko begin the interview by recalling the original land that her grandfather bought in Los Altos that was later the nursery.

He bought a five acre, my grandfather, in Los Altos. But he could not buy it, but a man helped him buy it. And I don't remember the name of that man because I remember him talking about him all the time. And then we finally found out his name was Smith. But that, too, we don't know for sure. It might have been just the name that he attached to this Caucasian friend he met. And after he found this five acre property, he used that man to help him get it. So when his first born was a citizen, he put the property then in my uncle's name. So that made it his land, which is a one block of country, five acre piece, which was unusual to be able to purchase and own. And we still have that today in Los Altos. However, back in 1996, which is five years ago, it came to the point where we had a nursery -- Los Altos Nursery--shrubs and trees and things. They had the nursery operating for 49 years and that's between my father and his two brothers. 

But because my father wasn't a citizen, then it came to being my two uncles and my brother until 1996. So I worked there in the office. And we grew up on that five acre land at first as a farm raising strawberries, raspberries in between the rows of peaches. We had peach trees. So I would say they used over four acres of land for farming. And then my father built a small house so he can bring my mother from Japan because he went to Japan to get married and brought my mother back. So now my mother is still living there at that house until she got injured. And right now she's in a nursing home. 

How long did she live in this house? 

Since 1924. And the house is still there.

Oh gosh. And when did she move out of this house? 

Well, I was living with her because she fractured her arm. Year 2000, she fell and fractured her arm. So I went to live with her and I'd go home home here during the day, water my yard, pick up my mail and do things like that. And then I'd go back every day and stayed with her overnight. So she's been in a nursing home now since May. 

Amazing, amazing. 

And she still remembers a lot of things when we talk. 

She lived there for 77 years. 

And the house is still standing. It's old, but, you know, it's home to our mom. 

And this property is still in the name of your family? 

No, unfortunately, they sold it. And they're building homes on there now, but they maintain a portion of that property. 

Now, you were born in Calexico?

Yes my father was farming. Near Brawley, California, down south, it's supposed to be very hot. He went to farm there with his cousin. And while they were there, farming I was born in Calexico. 

So are you are Sansei? 

My father is an Issei because he's still from Japan. And I'm the next generation so makes me Nisei. 

Your father's side of the family can you tell me where they're from in Japan? 

They came from Mie-ken, the city of Kuwana. That's where my mother's from, too. Because my father went home to get married and brought her here. 

Well, can you paint me a picture of what life was before Pearl Harbor was bombed? 

Well, before Pearl Harbor, being we farmed strawberries and peaches between the fruit trees. You know, we'd go to school every morning but before we went to school, my grandfather taught us to work. And so we'd have to go out work for a while. We'd weed or we'd help water. We watched the water irrigation. And then after that, they get back in the house and changed our clothes and went to school. And we'd get out of school I think even in those days around 3:00. And we'd walk, oh maybe two blocks, two country blocks back to the five acres and we change our clothes and go out to work. 

My grandmother was such a sweet lady compared to my grandfather, who was really, you know, like a samurai. Tough. And my grandmother was so sweet that she'd meet us when we were almost at home. And she'd say, "Hurry up, change your clothes." And when she'd greet us it was so cute, she used to have a little butterball, a little candy wrapped, and she'd have it in her hand and she'd meet us. And I could feel that candy in my hand. And I remember my grandmother for that, because it was something that you cherish in your memories.

What did she say in Japanese, do you remember? 

Oh, she says, she always used to say, "Kiyo doudeshita?" How is it today? And very soft spoken. And we'd always reply, you know, "omoshiroi," which is fun. Or "yokatta" means it was good. And she would just grin when we would say that. And then she'd always say, "hayaku hayaku" she says. "Change your clothes and get out there and work 'cause ojiisan's gonna call you." And never failed he would if we didn't get out there and we used to work until dark. And obaasan would cook and had dinner ready for us. And we sat down and ojiisan got the first serving the whole costume or gohan or misoshiru. And that was just our lifestyle. 

How about your parents in this picture? 

They were there. They were there. So I was second born. I have an older brother. His name is Ben Tsutomu. And my second brother's Fred Osamu, and my third brother's, James Makoto. And then I had one sister, Betty, Chiyoko. But I had no hakujin Caucasian name -- everybody got one but me. And I just became Toshiko.

Since you were born in '27, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, you were 14. 

14. Because we went to camp in May of 1942 to Santa Anita. That was a horse race place, you know. We lived in stables, slept on bags of hay that we had to make our own mattress.

Were you able to actually sleep? 

Well with the smell of manure and no privacy 'cause we're living in stalls with one overhead light. 

I don't understand if you actually was able to sleep because I've heard of people telling me the straw sticks every which way. And it's noisy because it's shuffling around. So between the smell, the sound and all those sticks sticking behind you and you can hear anybody coughing.

Oh, yeah! Because there's no--it's just a stall.

Right. So could you sleep? 

Well, I don't remember having any problem. I've always been a good sleeper. Yeah. But we had cots, you know, those folding canvas cots, army cots. They were just large enough for a body. So a big person would be very uncomfortable. 

So it's a cot that's supported by metal parts or a wooden part?

They're wooden. But they were sturdy. And then we ate in mess halls. Had to stand in line. You know, mess halls. We had to wash in the community laundry room. But we were there for three months at Santa Anita, and then we were put on trains. I don't think they used those trains in years but they shuffled us in those trains with shades down. We couldn't look out to see where we're going. We had military MPs, military police on each train.

Were you scared of them?

We were because, you know, you see bayonets, guns, you know, 'course me being almost 15. It was okay but like my four year old brother he would just cling because it's hard to explain to a four year old what's going on because of the war. They didn't know what war was. 

They didn't really have to evacuate us but they said that it was a protection. But you know, we never did anything as a race. We didn't knock over police cars and break windows. But still, it was government order. We just have to go. It was shocking when they told us we couldn't leave our homes for five miles right after Pearl Harbor. We had to have all our shades down in the house and we could not leave beyond five miles.

Did that limit your grandparents and parents ability to work? 

Well because we were farmers. Oh, we had to take our berries into a pre-cooling plant where they had refrigerators so they could put 'em on trains and whenever, freight cars. It was within five miles, luckily, so we weren't restricted. 

Do you remember December 7th, 1941? 

Yes, we heard it on the radio. And we couldn't, you know we couldn't understand, number one, the bombing. But now that we're older, we read histories. Japan and America couldn't agree on many things. And I'm sure that it was going to happen, you know, and it was a sneak attack, as they called it. But that's war. Just like in any country where they have wars. 

Do you remember listening to the radio? 

Oh, yes. It was a bulletin. And then a lot of the noise or interviews and things were coming from Hawaii, could hear the air raid sounds in the background. It was very frightening. And my father was so, what do you call it, traumatized with it, he didn't know what to tell us as to what war and why Japan did that. And of course we couldn't--he couldn't answer the questions either. Although I know they were reading Japanese newspapers. But there was a bad relationship, something that happened between the government. So it was, they blamed Japan for the sneak attack, but that's like any war. It's enemies. 

So you remember as a 14 year old sitting around the radio listening to this news bulletin. 

And then we were warned we couldn't keep cameras or old pictures. And the sad part is, you know, in the panic, as you might call it, a lot of us destroyed our cameras and pictures. Members of the family in Japan, just for fear. But my father then told us, we just shouldn't be too rushing into things like that. So we do have some old pictures of relatives in Japan. So much fear developed with a sudden attack. 

But do you remember burning or destroying your photos? 

No, my father thought things over and as we sat around eating dinner, he'd always say, we all have to be cautious. Don't do anything that the police would, you know, take you away or do things. He was very--he informed us to be calm and to listen and to do what was ordered. So we left May 25th I think from San Jose where they told us to report, so our neighbor took us. 

Well, by then you were already 15. 

So we were at Santa Anita for three months and then on to Heart Mountain.

Do you remember life at Santa Anita? 

Well, we were restricted, too. My father, especially, being a girl. He always told me, "You just stay on this block." And I pretty much stayed around. 

And do you remember if the stalls had enough room?

No, no. We barely fit in there. 

So you just squeezed all these cots into the stall. 

However, you could arrange. But they covered up a lot of stuff. The worst part is smelling the manure. And you couldn't help 'cause you know, droppings. And the mess hall, we'd have to line up, a long line up, and we sometime have to go into another area because they had makeshift dining room. And they built those real fast. That's how we stayed for three months until we got to Wyoming. By that time they were building barracks and we lived in barracks. 

So you moved to Wyoming in August? 

No. It was about early part of September. But you know, when we have reunions and it's just I don't know how--we were so guarded. It was really, you felt very isolated. 'Cause over in Heart Mountain, too they had those tower guards were the MP was standing up there with bayonet and gun. And to me, I feel like they didn't have to have that gun with the bayonet. 

There was a man shot and killed. Didn't understand the language, probably. 

Is this an incident happened at Heart Mountain?

Uh huh. I think most camps had some incident because, you know, older people, they don't understand and they didn't obey when they say "halt," probably. He wasn't gonna escape I don't think, I think he was just looking at the area. 

Now some people can't talk about it, but never bothered me. I think people should talk about it. You know, there's nothing to hide. There's no shame, it was government orders. 

Well people seem to have different reactions to it, and they're afraid that it doesn't match other people's. I've talked to people who said, well, actually, it was a good thing for me. You know, they'll say, well, "We got off the farm, we got to travel." And if they resettled briefly out Midwest, they said, "Well, I would have never been able to go to Minnesota or Chicago, New York if it hadn't been for the camps. And maybe people feel uncomfortable because there are different opinions. I don't know. 

No, but I think it's good to, people have to express their opinions. And I don't hold it against anybody who speaks that way because that's their feelings. And I think people should express their feelings. To me, I felt like, well, we have to go. We've got to abide by the rules. And we did. My father taught us that. 

How did you feel when you first got to Heart Mountain? 

Well, it was so strange that, you know, here we are off the train, we were put on a bus and know we could only carry two things. And we get off the bus and there's MPs again and they direct you, well, what are we gonna do? If you went to Heart Mountain you'd think, where are the trees? There wasn't a tree in sight. We were way out in the boonies, as the expression goes. And there were huge sagebrush rolling around when it was breezy and it was, and you just wonder, where are we? You know, we were so isolated. And to me, it was like gosh, do they have to put us way out here? There was no buses or no trains, you could never even want to escape. 

So we were in Wyoming, we went in September '42. We went out to Idaho in first part of '45. My father went to farm, work with the potato and onions. See my father could get a leave to work in agriculture. So being farmer background, he left first. And then we we went. And then my older brother was drafted to the army. He became a paratrooper, Ben was a paratrooper. My brother Fred joined the Navy after the war. 

Right. But Ben was of draftable age during WWII?

Well right at the end as we were leaving camp. 

Now, since we're talking about the draft, can we back up and talk about the loyalty questionnaire?

Oh yes, we all had to answer the loyalty question. Which we feel is so unfair. I don't know if you've ever read it. 

Yes. Questions 27 and 28 especially. 

Yes. So my husband was a senior at San Jose State in '42. He had just, I would say, three weeks of college to finish to get his degree, which he did not at the time because we evacuated May of '42. And I had one tremendous, how would you call it? I got a phone call in 1996 from the president of San Jose State. And he asked that I be part of the commencement exercise because they're going to give me my husband's posthumous diploma. This is the Monday before Saturday's graduation, I sat there and I was so choked, I couldn't answer him. And I was so excited and surprised and emotional. And so I said, yes. That I would be honored to be accepting his posthumous diploma. 

You had five days to prepare this speech. 

So Monday, I cried. I was happy. I had such mixed emotions. I called my children. And I just couldn't believe what was happening. And I was so happy. And I got to do this right. So I call my son in Hawaii. He called me the morning of graduation, which was Saturday and he says "Mom, you go up there. And you speak like you're talking for Dad." He says, "Talk slow and don't cry." Oh, what an order. And I remembered that. And I wrote several the speech over several times. And I said, I've got to make it sound like him. So I wrote it over and over again.

But Dr. Caret made such an introduction for me. He mentioned that there was no way to atone the damage done to these principled men who fought for constitutional rights--being in a prison or a camp or a concentration camp behind barbed wire fence and asked to come and fight for the country. But my husband said people didn't know. My husband tried to volunteer when the war broke out.

After a short break, Grace asks Toshiko if she felt any discrimination after coming home from camp. 

I did feel discrimination when I got out of camp, went to Idaho, and we lived on the Oregon side of Snake River, so I had to go to school. So by address, I had to go to the school in Oregon. So I rode 18 miles on the school bus to go to school where my brothers crossed a bridge with a bicycle, went to Weiser High School in Weiser, Idaho, which is the potato capital. We went to work during the summer 'cause we got out of school in May and June and we went to work in potatoes and onions like 3:00 in the morning before the sun came up. And then we would finish work by noon. 

While I was going to high school. I felt discrimination by this guy. Not to give a name 'cause who knows, somebody might be a relative. But rode the bus every day 18 miles to go to school in Oregon. And anyway, as I'm going to school everyday, I'd be harassed by this one guy in the back of the bus -- wore a cowboy hat and cowboy jacket and cowboy shoes. Thought he was big guy, you know, and you know how they used chew paper and spit it out? He used to spit those paper wads at me and he's sitting in the back but he'd move on the other side and, you know, try to target me and it'd keep coming. And I thought, oh well, this guy's not--he's a kid yet at heart, you know, just playing around. But it got to be very annoying when he comes from the back and put a pencil across the seat and rub my back. And it's so annoying. And he thought it was funny and I didn't pay attention. 

So finally one day I say, stop it. And the bus driver, I saw him. I wanted him to hear me. So I said, "Stop it." And so he put his head up. He noticed that the guy was harassing me. Yeah, as you might call it, harassment. And I took it. And I went home one night and I told my dad about while we were eating dinner. And he says, "When you get the right time, slap him in the face." I said, "Oh, gosh, dad, I couldn't do that." And I said, okay. So I listened to him. But they kept going on maybe once a week, maybe once in two weeks. Until one day between the dirty paper wads, that were being shot at me from the side and being poked. I got the strength enough and I thought, well I'll wait 'til he gets behind me and when he did sit behind me and I let him rub that pencil. And I thought, well, I'll get the attention of the bus driver. I said, "That's it." And I went this way and I hit him right in the face. The bus driver slammed on the brakes, told him to get off and walked 15 miles. We were about three miles. I was out of school. He walked home. I never saw him on the bus again. And at school, he would see me, he turned around and walked the other way. He didn't think I was going to do it, but I had it so built up in me and I remembered what my father said. And this is weeks later. But it was the biggest relief because the bus driver noticed. 

He had been noticing it all this time. 

I'm sure he did. 

But today was the day to take the action.

I mean, I hit him so hard [laughs]. He didn't think I was going to do it 'cause I was so quiet about it. But, you know, people that agitate you don't play up to them and talk to him. I ignored him until I told my father and my father told me, "Hit him." 

Well, that seems to me like the way that Japanese-Americans waited to the right time to start the redress movement. You know, there were attempts even in the late '40s for redress movement. And there was that small restitution in '51, I think. But the climate wasn't right. You know, when civil rights movement occurred in the '60s, that fueled up some people. And by the '80s, time was right. And I remember one woman who was asked, so what fueled you to work in the redress movement? And she said, I was mad. 

Well that's what made me hit him in the face after my father told me 'cause I was so angry, I was. And up to that point I was holding it back because I thought no, I don't want to make a scene. 

Well, I feel sorry for people who have to go to their graves without having been able to express their anger.

That's very true. And, you know, like me, I was surprised I even did it. But I was so angry, like you said, it was so built up in me, you know. And so people tell me today, you know you used to be quiet. I said, not no more [laughs]. I stand up for my rights. 

Some people say the redress movement really helped to exonerate them, they've been vindicated. Do you think that's true for you?

Yeah. I know there's critics that said we shouldn't have received it. But on the other hand, people that made sacrifices for those three years: professionals, teachers, doctors. Well, my father, too, in farming. It was important to be a farmer. I don't feel bad accepting it.

Well, do you think it helped to take some of the shame away?

Yeah, I think it was a nice thing that the government--I mean, it wasn't easy for them to agree to do this either. I mean, there was a big decision for the government because not only the amount of people, although some had passed away. But I think, it does help. I think it did to me. I thought, well, that was a nice gesture. I appreciate it. I was grateful for it. 

If there's one message you can give to the young people now who might hear these stories, what would it be? What could they learn? Is there something relevant for them that you'd like to tell them? 

Well, the way I felt about our generation, the Niseis, and that's making a pretty broad statement but I am part of this Nisei. Maybe some of the older Niseis are in their late 80s. Of course, I'm 74. I admit it. Like I say to the kids, between the wrinkles and the gray hair, I can't deny it. But I think that we were the sandwiched generation. Our parents told us, gaman. And we listened to the Isseis because they went through a lot of hardships that we only know because we lived with them. So we didn't rebel. We the second generation. But I credit the Sanseis because I have met a lot of Sanseis, people that work for the newspapers like Kenji Taguma, who really are supportive of what his father was as a resister. And I really give credit for their reparation, the group that helped get our apology. And I think they should know history, history, what we went through.

And now that this is coming out, there will be a lot of history, but we're part of the the ancestry of being Japanese American. And I think that the Sanseis are doing a great job. And I hope the Yonseis will pick up and to continue to hear what history we made as Niseis, military or otherwise. 

So your main message is to know the history.

Right. Ask about it, read about it. Be a part of it. They are a part of it. They're Japanese Americans. And to be proud to be Japanese American.

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