[The following excerpts are from the transcriptions of the interviews done by Louis Fiset. They relate to Kenji Okuda’s experiences at the University of Washington and Oberlin College, Ohio where he transferred. He also mentions other students he knew at the UW before and after the forced removal.]
Date: August 9, 1995
Place: Seattle, Washington
Narrator: Kenji Okuda
Interviewer: Louis Fiset
KO: I was the first born in 1922, then my sisters followed one and two years later. I was born on Pike Street near the theater district, in the Paramount theater area. Then Dad bought this house on Beacon Hill, south of downtown Seattle. I think my sisters were born there. That's where we lived until we were evacuated. It was confirmed on the radio that Japan had attacked. Then I said I wanted to go to the University. I had been involved with the University YMCA, and a cousin was staying in a room right near where the Friends Service Committee used to have its office, right on the main entrance to the University on 45th. So I came out to the University, walked in, told my cousin, she was a graduate student in sociology at the University of Washington. It was my first year at the University. Then I went up to the YMCA. Can't remember if I stopped in at the Friends Service Committee where Floyd Schmoe was directing. It was on a Sunday, so I don't know if it was open. They had some students living around there, so I may have gone there. Then up to the Y, and there was a great deal of deliberation and discussion as to what was likely to happen.
LF: Among the Nisei?
KO: Both at the American Friends Service Committee office and the Y it would have been mostly with Caucasians, because there weren't that many Nisei. There were a few of us; Gordy Hirabayashi, myself, Bill Makino maybe a few others. The rest were all Caucasians. So there were a number who lived there and we were all discussing what might happen. Would things remain normal or would all sorts of disruptions occur. Then I went home. That night about 7 or 8 o'clock, we were in the house, I think we'd finished dinner, there was a knock at the front door. The fellow identifies himself as an FBI agent. He wanted to speak to my Dad. My Dad's comment was, he was getting rather hard of hearing, What, the PI, the Post Intelligencer wants to meet me. No, the FBI. So the fellow came in the front door. Another fellow was with him, the deputy sheriff. Then, at the back door, 15-20 minutes later two more came. Then they asked permission to look through documents. A lot of it was in Japanese. They wanted to take them to get it translated. Then they asked my Dad to go with them. He went down and they were all assembled at the Immigration center downtown. I donÕt know how many were in the first round on the night of the 7th. Then they said we hope he can get out shortly. You go down and ask. It turned out that none of them ever got out. Most of them were shipped to Missoula, several months later. Then they had hearings on each case as to disposition. I went to my Dad's hearing in Missoula. The points brought up were quite interesting. Did you have lunch on such and such a date with somebody from the Naval ship that had visited Seattle in that period. And he would say, well yes, I didn't get all the details, but maybe it was a fellow prefecturite, meaning the prefectural association might invite him. Well, did you have dinner with Mr. X or Mr. Y in some restaurant on another night, from the Japanese Embassy or from some Japanese government agency? Probably said yes. I met most Japanese who came through. If it was a more formal visit we were invited or we'd invite them as representatives of the community here. If it was just an informal visit, maybe the consulate would call me up and ask me to meet them. So I certainly met them. It was interesting the list of things on the dossier they went through. All having to do with meeting Japanese military, Japanese government people over a period of five to seven years. Then, finally the hearing board said, because of his age we will let him go. That's when he went to Spokane. Not that they assessed the evidence, but because of his age he posed no further threat, so they let him go.
LF: Before we talk about post-Pearl Harbor, you said earlier you began the University in 1941. So you were a Freshman?
KO: No. I graduated in 1939, spent a year in Japan, came back in 1940. So I started the Fall of 1940. So I was starting my second year in Fall of 1941. Except I had moved out of Engineering and was going into Economics.
LF: How did you get involved in Engineering?
KO: My parents wanted me to. That was the pressure among pre-war Japanese, that you had to get an education in a readily marketable area. So it would be either medicine, law was not quite as promoted, but certainly medicine was, you'd become a doctor and be bound to have economic security. Law, maybe not quite so much. Engineering should be more opportunity. Back in the depression years the thought was, well, if you couldnÕt get an engineering job in the U.S., which was difficult because jobs were scarce, and even if available, there was either latent or overt discrimination, which meant your chances of getting a job were poor. But the argument was that you could always go to Japan and get a job if you had to. So, in those areas the parents felt the greatest potential for security lay. So they felt I should make a try at it and I did. So, except for the Engineering English course I took, where the prof and I had a great time and did quite well, the Engineering students were having a hell of a time with simple English construction and writing a story or writing an essay, or things like this. I commiserated with him when I heard some of the students reading their stuff. I wondered how this could come out of a university level class. So I started in 1940, then during that first year was when we used to have very active meetings and a discussion group with the Japanese Congregational Church and the campus YMCA, and the YWCA had offices in the same building. I can remember the first year going to annual meetings of all the YMCA and YWCA groups. I think in the northwest it was Seebeck Washington, a camp on Hood Canal, going out there with discussions, evening sing a longs, etc. I was quite touched that in the second year when we were no longer around, the group at that camp elected me as co-chair or something for the following year. Whether it was symbolic or whether they thought there was any chance we'd ever get back out, I donÕt know. It seems to be the case I was well liked. And I had been elected in positions at the University Y on their student government thing, and able to serve part of it. With curfew it became very difficult to stay. Then with evacuation I had to step down.
LF: Do you recall a woman by the name of Mrs. Paul Suzuki?
KO: I know Dr. Paul Suzuki, and his wife I can picture, but I didn't know very well. They were much older. I should say that much older, but they were the older generation. The interaction was quite limited between even that age group and our age group.
LF: I ask about her because in [Frank] Miyamoto's discussion of the JACL and the evacuation [of Seattle] he talks about the YMCA and YWCA and a contingent of Japanese Americans there who might have provided an alternative to JACL.
KO: I think Mrs. Suzuki was involved with the Y downtown. ThereÕs a University Y and the Y downtown, which is a community Y. So the Y on campus, the director of the YWCA was Ruth Haines, whom I met subsequently and is now living in New York. The fellow running it on his side was, I think, Woodbury. They were very supportive and helpful. But in the group there, there were only half a dozen. There was Gordy Hirabayashi who made his protest and ended up in jail for awhile, about the time even during the evacuation he was still down at King County jail. Then, Bill Makino. Who else were there? Very few women, I recall. Sally [Kazama] had some contact, but was not that active. There may have been two or three others. And all quite young. Gordy had his own agenda, which was to oppose the curfew on which he surrendered to the authorities. Walked in one night after curfew was in place, surrendered, and ended up in a jail cell with Ted Takahashi [C. T. Takahashi], who ran an import-export business and was, not sure what he was in for. That's right, charged with violating the embargo on shipments to Japan, of critical materials to Japan.
LF: Among those of you at the University, what was your attitude toward Hirabayashi and what he was doing?
KO: Gordon I liked. I spend a lot of time closely with Gordon. WeÕd have study groups, discussion groups. Gordy and I were quite close. WeÕve moved quite a bit apart since then. When we meet each other we say hello, but I don't feel any close association like I did when we were at University. He was older. He was a graduate student I think, by then, I was an undergraduate. So in a sense there was an element of looking up to him. I liked what he had to say. Strong pacifist position, which I also came around to, tried to maintain it. But finally got fed up, and rather than arguing with the draft board I gave in, I knew I'd be declared 4-F anyway, so I went in, got my physical. But that was after the war ended. During the war, itself, there was some correspondence where I was arguing CO status.
LF: But you and the rest of the Nisei at the University saw Hirabayashi as doing something that you looked up to.
KO: We went into camp in late March [April], I guess. And about May, June we were permitted to organize events. We had church services with ministers from outside given permission to come in and lead the services. Then they set up a room where we could meet people wanting to come in and visit with us in the meeting rooms. They couldn't come into the camp, themselves. People like Floyd Schmoe could come in and visit. We were given permission to invite anybody in that we wanted to have for discussion or listen to. And we invited, maybe Woodbury or someone made the contact, the Dean of Business at the University of Washington at the time, Dr. Preston. A fuddy-duddy if I had ever known one. Conservative as all get out, who had gone to attend a meeting of business school deans somewhere in the Carolinas. On the trip he had travelled around the U.S., probably by train, visited a number of big cities and gave a talk called, "America at War". He talked about what he saw. Somebody must have gotten concerned because I have a one page letter in which I explain that he did not say anything that disparaged the war effort, he did not say anything that in any way hinted that Americans were not in support of the war effort. Somebody must have asked me what did he talk about with the implication that was this a subversive talk. I just have a copy of this memo I wrote. I don't even know who I sent it to. Then I came back to Seattle early, after they opened up the West Coast again, which was February or March of 1945. I came back quite early, one of the earlier ones back. Looked around for a job. The only one seemed willing to hire, without problems, was Harry Bridge's Longshoremans Union. So I went down and applied for a job.
LF: I'm trying to think of organizations in the community that might have stepped forward.
KO: The thing is that a lot of, I don't know about the Junior Chamber as I donÕt know who was in it, but the senior chamber, the more important people would all be in Missoula by this time. Then you have a few academics, like Frank Miyamoto, who was at the University of Washington, but more or less outside the Japanese community. He studied the Japanese, but he didnÕt have that much interaction.
LF: I have a list. What I have here is the headquarters at Camp Harmony. This is who these people are.
KO: (views list)
LF: For the most part were these university people?
KO: No. They're university graduates, some. The only people from the university, Dike Miyagawa is a union officer, business agent for a union, as I remember. Masuo Uno used to be a truck driver. Merrie Mimbu, I'm sure had gone to university. John Okada, don't remember. Maki was at the university. Nobi Ike was probably studying at the time, student at the University. Dick Takeuchi, probably a student.
LF: So some of them were UW people with undergraduate degrees, some of them weren't.
KO: Some had undergraduate degrees, some had probably never been to college. So that wasn't a factor. They were known through their athletic endeavors. God, Takeuchi, I think his Dad was involved with one of the Japanese language papers. Various connections where they would be known. Maybe they played baseball together.
LF: Yes, I'm hoping she'll share this experience with me. Sally Kazama, of course, was involved in that, too. She was one of the clerks.
KO: They're all getting involved now. JACL is quite involved by this time, out of San Francisco, with representatives from all the chapters. Oh, Nobutake Ike, he ended up back east working at the Library of Congress, I think, as a specialist on Japan. Oh, the curfew didnÕt come until March. That's right there was also a Japanese Students Club which had a building on 15th where they also had living quarters. Japanese Student Club, something like that. A number of Japanese students, particular those from out of town, lived there.
LF: Did most Nisei from the Pacific Northwest go to the University of Washington?
KO: Yes. A few went to the University [College] of Puget Sound. Again, a very few to Washington State. Of course the colleges were non existent at that time. What they were normal schools, Western Washington, which was normal, and Ellensburg Normal, these were teacher training. And the private school, I guess the tuition was considerably higher, such as Seattle University, if you were Catholic. But generally, the bulk of students around here went to the University of Washington at that time. Four hundred [435] out of an enrollment of nine or 10 thousand [8400]?UW Students Waiting to Transfer to Other Colleges from the Camps
I was one of the last to get out to go to college. Because once the WRA took over they tried to expedite departure for midwestern and eastern universities. I was one of the later ones out simply because of the "black mark" on my record for whatever the reason, which had to be looked at rather than just automatically approved. And there was a guy who was even later than I was who came out to Oberlin. The best he could figure was that his name coincided with or was the same name as the gambler in L.A. They probably thought he was that fellow, the well known gambler. So, they may have used detention as a means of picking up some of these people that would not have been considered a subversive threat, but were sort of considered doing things the government or law enforcement agents decided well, why not just remove them from the gambling scene by picking him up and detaining him rather than trying to bring charges against him. That would be my suspicion. But I have no knowledge of who was being picked up and why.
There was a great deal of unhappiness about being evacuated, and all, but hardly fair to blame a local group for an action signed by the president and implemented by the military. There are those subsequently who said more should have been done. Of course, the newer generation keeps saying it was a mistake to even cooperate. ThatÕs rewriting history in your own image, so to speak.
First, the generations, the younger children, those still at university, I'm not aware there were any who felt we could have done anything about being forced to move. Subsequent generations have argued that we shouldn't have gone, or that we gave in too easily. At the time there was a certain fatalism about it. If we gotta move we gotta move. Anything that makes the move easier, fine.
Then they did not let me out of the Colorado camp until January 1943. Most of the students who had been able to be accepted, were able to leave in time for the September classes in 1942. I was held back until January 1943 before I got permission to leave, then I took off for college, Oberlin. I had been accepted at Oberlin in principle, even before we were evacuated. Harry Yamaguchi, another Seattle Nisei and graduate of Broadway, had gotten a scholarship to Oberlin and went to Oberlin in the Fall, I think he started in the Fall of 1939. I think he went right on to the University in the Fall of 1939. Then there was talk of moving everybody off the west coast. The president of Oberlin college called Harry in and said, do you have friends around Seattle you think would be able to or qualify to come to Oberlin and benefit from it? Harry called us, he had four or five of us in mind. He called us and asked us if we would be interested in going. A couple of them had already left voluntarily. They had gone or were about to leave and had acceptances to colleges back east. so there were about four or five of us that said we would be interested. Then, the president had presumably talked to the president of the University of Washington and so on, and we got letters saying we were accepted. We had to send documents, but in principal we were accepted, shortly before the evacuation. As soon as we were permitted to apply to go from camp, which was initially started even at Puyallup, then the red tape was horrendous, so I think only one person managed to get out of Puyallup in the first month. The rest were held up by the red tape. There was a list of requirements the Western Defense Command required. You must get a statement from the mayor or local community that they would provide protection and treat you and insure your safety from the mayor or chief of police in the community to which you would be going. I've got a whole page of these requirements that had been established by the Western Defense Command. So everybody said, well just wait until the civilian War Relocation Authority moves in, then you should be able to get right out. Sure enough, once we got in there, most of those who were waiting just within a month or so were on their way to college. Except mine didnÕt come through for several months. And the fellow that was very helpful in all of this and worked really intensively with, particularly young people up here to help them get to college was Tom Bodine, who was a volunteer with the Friends Service Committee, who was in the student relocation efforts of that organization. We had voluminous correspondence on why my case seemed to be held up. Couldn't figure out why things were moving so slowly.
LF: I'd like to read you something I don't think youÕve read, that may shed light on why you were removed. This was a letter dated August 14, 1942. It was actually a memo from Headquarters, Western Defense Command, 4th Army, Seattle Branch, to superiors in San Francisco, on conditions existing in Puyallup. Talking about removal of various individuals. "It is recommended by this office that the following individuals, in addition to Hosokawa, Ito, Suyetani and Masuda, should be removed to separate relocation centers: S. Hosokawa, who was Bill's father, ÒKenji Okuda, William Mimbu, and Frank Y. Kinomoto."
KO: Oh yes, Frank Kinomoto, right, the accountant. [Can you provide a brief bio of him?]
LF: "Those four individuals are considered subversive for the following reasons: 5. Kenji Okuda. He is the son of Henry Okuda, recently and unfortunately released by the parole board from internment and now residing in Spokane. The father, Henry Okuda, was considered by the local Japanese Issei to be the number one Japanese propagandist in this territory. Kenji Okuda, in addition to being the son of Henry Okuda, is dangerous on his own part, for the reason that he is active in the publication of the Pacific Cable, a publication of the American Friends Service Committee, and the Seattle Youth Fellowship of Reconciliation [IÕd like to know more about this group]. Kenji Okuda is further reliably reported to have stated before the war, 'I'll be damned if I'll serve Uncle Sam.'" So, that's what I know about you.
LF: What is this relationship to the Pacific Cable? What is that?
KO: I had forgotten about that. That's a little news letter that Floyd Schmoe was putting out, just to generate information, keep people friends concerned information on what was happening to the students of Japanese descent around the University, those that had contacts with the Quakers. Then the Fellowship of Reconciliation, that's the pacifist organization.
LF: There's an addendum in this August 14th note. It says, "9. It should be mentioned in passing that the Pacific Cable is a new publication that is receiving considerable attention from this office. An example of their editorial policy is their attempt to make a martyr of Gordon Hirabayashi, conscientious objector, and challenger of the constitutional right of the Japanese evacuation and now backed by the American Civil Liberties Union."
KO: It was just put out by the staff, a secretary employee in the American Friends Committee right off campus. It came out, I suspect, after the war started and all the anti-Japanese feelings and sentiments, trying to put out the Quaker point of view. and then what Gordon was doing, what some of the people involved with the Quakers were doing, or had some contact with them were doing around the University, and Seattle. Then, when the evacuation came along how they were responding to it. And Floyd, of course, being a staunch pacifist, I gather he's had a 100th birthday, lately.
LF: Yes, in fact he made the front page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a huge color photograph.
KO: A very sincere, dedicated individual. He used to help provide transport, used to come out to Puyallup and visit regularly. He'd bring out some students from the University just to cheer us up, so to speak.
LF: He went to Fort Missoula as well.
KO: That's right. He was dedicated to help. Then there were people like Mary Farquharson from the University of Washington who was very active. Y. Woodbury and Ruth Haines were active. They were the executive directors or secretaries of the YMCA and YWCA. They were members of the permanent staff and they worked with students to provide activities and have a place for meetings, provide leadership and direction to little workshops and discussions we used to have. When did Jimmie die?
KO: So for awhile you could go in any city and see somebody you knew. Did a lot of that during and after the war. You could hit any college campus in the midwest and you might see somebody you knew. Places like Madison, Wisconsin, even Peru State Teachers College in Peru, Nebraska. I remember visiting that place. You had to take a bus, you could even go there by train. You take a bus there and go out in the back woods of Nebraska up on the cliffs above, I think, the Missouri River. And here's this little out of the way teachers college, like an overgrown high school, that some friend of mine managed to get into. Really rural midwest.
LF: Roger Daniels is studying the National Student Relocation Council. There's a wealth of information down at the Hoover Institute in California which he is looking at. One day.
KO: The National Student Relocation Council did a great deal of effort. Then I remember Lincoln Noda, a fellow I met in Merced and then in Amache, and is working now in New England somewhere, a few years back started a campaign to start, a memory fund, to continue the kind of work that the National Student Relocation Council had done. To help students, I think mostly Asian students, who might be having trouble getting in and getting financial support. So the effort hasnÕt been lost, but I havenÕt been involved in much of that. I seem to have lost touch with that. See, when I came back after the war, I think in 1947, 1948, I was president of the local chapter here in Seattle, after I had graduated from Oberlin. I think it was about 1950, when I was working with the Price Stabilization Board, I was between jobs and I was working for Price Stabilization Board, working on price setting, or at least permitting price increases, the price control program associated with the Korean War. And I worked a year, year and a half, then went back east to try to do more work on the thesis, without much luck. Went back to Harvard for awhile. Sat and tried to work. Finally decided to heck with that, I might as well go back teaching again. That's when I finally got out to Washington State [College] and finally getting serious about getting the thing done.
I guess there are all sorts of tensions when you coop people up. Several thousand in a very limited area. Nothing much to do except to find your own entertainment. We managed, baseball games, forming orchestras, all sorts of various limited activities. People not assigned jobs really had nothing to do.
LF: So you had found a lessee?
KO: Oh, we had a lessee for the whole duration of the war, same couple. Then we moved back in. I was around Seattle for awhile, but I didnÕt move in immediately. I lived for awhile at a relative's house. Then I went out to the University and lived out in the international student house. I had permission to go out there even though I was not a student. Then I moved back into our old house. They came home.
Date: September 13, 1995
Place: Vancouver, British Columbia (via telephone)
Narrator: Kenji Okuda
Interviewer: Louis Fiset
LF: Had you not gone on to your own kind of camp can you speculate might you have maintained CO status?
KO: I tried. We didn't get into this until I guess I was at Oberlin and got a notice from the draft board once they decided to draft the Nisei again. Then I started a correspondence, and that went on for a year or two, longer than that, because I finally ended up going in for a physical when I was back in Boston.
KO: No. That was the Friends Service Committee newsletter.
LF: That was local?
KO: My recollection is it was local. It came out as a newsletter to keep everybody informed right after the war started. It was an effort to keep the community informed as to what was happening to the Japanese Americans during the early days of the war.
LF: I understand there was quite a bit written on Gordon Hirabayashi.
KO: Yes. He was, of course, a Quaker. I'm not sure when he married Floyd Schmoe's daughter. That must have been after the war. No, Gordon was quite active and I believe a member of the Quakers. It was when he took his stand on the curfew that he got a lot of directed attention to his effort to question the legality of a lot of the activities that were going on, the constitutionality more than anything else.
LF: I learned through the archivist at UW a couple of days ago when I was talking to her about Mrs. Suzuki that he actually lived with her for some time during that period.
KO: I know little about that. There's some recollection of that before the war. He had come into the university from the Auburn area. He came into Seattle to attend the University. Whether he was a family friend of the Suzukis I don't remember.
LF: One last thing I wanted to ask you is, one of the reasons I went to the UW Daily was to try and find out more about the UW students support of the clerks from the Seattle School district who resigned. I had heard from somewhere there was a petition with a 1000 signatures raised at UW. I never found that in the Daily, although I did find editorial support for the clerks.
University of Washington Nisei Student Organizations and Individuals