Japanese-American Activists Discuss World War II-Era Resettlement in Chicago

by Allison Yates

One of Read & Run Chicago’s most celebrated events are guided runs with Chelsey Stone (now a Read & Run on the Road organizer in D.C.!) inspired by Naomi Hirahara’s Clark and Division, a gripping novel that takes place in World War II-era Chicago, a time in which thousands of Japanese-Americans are relocated to inland cities–like Chicago–after being uprooted from their homes and placed in forced internment camps. When the main character Aki arrives in Chicago's Near North Side to reunite with her older sister, she instead finds herself faced with a tragedy and  personal challenges.

In February 2025, Read & Run Chicago hosted a post-run panel discussion with two Chicagoland historians and activists, Mary Doi and Alice Murata. Watch the discussion below to learn more about their personal experiences, the resettlement of Japanese Americans in Chicago after World War II, the challenges they faced, and the importance of preserving their history through oral histories and community involvement.

[Related: Where to Learn More About Chicago’s Japanese-American History]

Panel Discussion with Mary Doi and Alice Murata

About the speakers:

Mary Doy is a community-based researcher, retired grant writer, and board member of the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society for over 25 years. She has also been on the board of the low-income senior building Heiwa Terrace for over 15 years.

Alice Murata was born in Los Angeles, spent the war years in post-camp, and resettled in Chicago in 1945. She has been president and a board member of Heiwa Terrace, a subsidized HUD facility for senior citizens, for over 40 years. She is also one of the founders of the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society and wrote the book Japanese Americans in Chicago from the Images of America series.

[Related: Author Interview: Naomi Hirahara on Research, Chicago, and What’s Next After Clark and Divison]

Alice Murata and Mary Doi with Read & Run Chicago at Slant of Light Books in February 2025.

[Related: Live Q&A With Clark and Division Author Naomi Hirahara]

Transcript:

[ 00:00:00 ]introduce our guests for the evening. So this is Mary Doy. And I also want to say to that, as we mentioned, we did a read and run on Clark and vision a few times before. And Mary came to our very first one, which was in 2022. And we got we were a small group. Right. So we were a small group, we did a third coast cafe. And Mary brought two of friends and friends, friends with her, who shared their experiences. And it was an absolutely wonderful time and cotton conversation and to learn from them. And they brought things and he brought things to I expect that this is going to be equally wonderful. But to properly introduce Mary, so she's a community based researcher, retired grant writer, and a board member with the Chicago Japanese American Historical Society.

[ 00:00:52 ]He's been doing that over 25 years. Okay. And then the low she's also on the board of the low income senior building called Hey, what? Hey, what Tara's over 15 years on that board. And then she's a beginning sower. Yeah. And then a US census. Okay. And now we have this as well. Alice Murata. She was born in Los Angeles. Alice spent the war years and post post and that's how you pronounce that. Okay, so post in, she resettled to Chicago in 1945. Community based, she has been president of highway terrace. So you guys work together on that, surely. And that's a subsidized HUD facility for senior citizens. And then you've been aboard member there for over 40 years. Incredible. She is also one of thefoundersofthe Chicago Japanese American Historical Society.

[ 00:01:58 ]That's incredible. And then as we mentioned at the beginning, she wrote this book, the one of the images of America, Japanese Americans in Chicago. This is from Merlo public library. You want to find that I also mentioned that it's the Curtis King. If anyone wants to learn more about Jeff has had some of the books. Thank you both so much for being here. We're so excited to talk with you. And I can I can jump in one of the first things I'm curious about is that have you both read the book? Oh, yeah. We know her. So 2022 so don't quiz me. But you tell me if it's been too long. But if you thought that the portrayal in the story, if that felt really accurate to what you know, to what you experienced, I'm just if you can sort of recall, like, if you read it, and sort of felt like, wow, she really nailed it.

[ 00:02:58 ]Or maybe not. It's a long time ago. Yeah, I haven't read that book in ages now that is now that you say it and read evergreen to one of the things that interesting though, to me, is that we do oral histories, you know, which means that we talk to people and we, you know, see what their lives are like, and like that. And we did some oral histories for the people of Clark and division. And we can see in her book, our own interviews. Yeah, you know, so actually, in the back of the book. So this is the regenerations, resettlement, oral histories, there was their four sets, one done in Chicago, one in LA, one in San Diego, and one in San Jose. And so the beautician in this book that Alice interviewed, appears in parking division.

[ 00:03:57 ]We see that we see our own work in this fiction. So that's an interesting thing. But I also then wrote it out for you. It's a regenerations project. And you can see the online archive of California. And that's the address. And then if you there's a left hand column, and if you click on interviews, you can see the interview. So I thought I don't pass this around. And, and you can, you know, if you have a computer, go see the thing and then compare it to Clark and division. I mean, good to happen. So Kate, read cake who are this is what my handwriting one and this is the one I wrote nice. But yeah, you can read it. But I thought that that might be interesting.

[ 00:04:42 ]Yeah, yeah, you can sort of pass them separately so that people get them. But I thought that that would be interesting for you. Because, yeah, the two that I did for here, and one was the beautician. So yeah, you compare what she says about her real situation, and how it's depicted in the book. And the other person is what is his name? I forgot Hiroshi Kaneko. And I wrote that name down there, too. So if you read about him, he had the list, what we call the cell mansion. So the problem at the time of after the war was you couldn't find rent, you couldn't find a place to rent. And it's the same thing. If you're minority, they the place is full. But it's empty, but they won't rent to you.

[ 00:05:35 ]Okay. So one of the ways in which they tried to help that is they would buy buildings, they would buy the building. And then they would have Japanese American tenants because they had no place to live, you know. And so where you'reliving today in a nice flat, we would have like three families, you know, in a basement two room apartment, you have like lots of people living. You know, it's, it's no place to live. But that's why if you look at that, that book, and I have three books to sell to. But if you look at the book, it has a map of Clark and division. So it shows you all of the shops. And you can see this restaurants, there's grocery stores, there's buildings, you know, barber shops, everything, you know, the ice cream shop, the ribs shop.

[ 00:06:28 ]And but also there is pool shooting pool, you know, instead of going to school, you shoot pool, you know, you do some of these kinds of things. So it's an interesting place. And what's interesting about, and I don't remember exactly how she said it in the book, but interesting is they have a barber shop, beauty shop in the Mark Twain Hotel. And the Mark Twain Hotel is interesting they don't care who comes. Okay, so the, the customers could be very, very wealthy people who lived on the Gold Coast. They could be the entertainers of the nightclubs and things that are right there, you know, and, and actually, she was offered to be a makeup artist by movies, but she didn't go because she wanted to stay here. And her family was okay.

[ 00:07:22 ]But you also had mafia wives, this was all Italian mafia in here, you know, and then you had the community, which she keeps saying, are innocent, they have no idea who these other customers are. But they all are coming to her as customers. And she says, we don't ask themquestions questions. We just keep our minds clear. And we just do the beauty shop. But they're all friends. So there is such a thing as this Chinese restaurant, Jing, what was it,Jing Jing? Well, anyway, it is, and they buy food, and they all share food, they eat together. They even spend theirholidays together, if you can imagine. That's not in the book, but she'll tell you that they even spend their holidays together.

[ 00:08:11 ]You know, I mean, it becomes sort of a community within this little beauty shop. Well, and I think a little bit more about that interview. She describes like the mafia girlfriends, the transvestites, the Issei ladies, you know, my grandparents' generation who only speak Japanese, and her secret weapon are these Issei who speak bilingual, beauticians. So I just had this wonderful image of everybody around the table eating Chinese food. Oh, and the Moody Bible people. Yes, they're also part of it. Yes, Moody Bible is here too, that's right. Yeah, she describes, so if you read the interview, so if you want to see the actual one, yeah, I passed it around. That's Kei Kuwahara. Then you can, and yeah, her name was Kei Kuwahara, and she came out of camp, and she didn't even know her birthday because her parents were gone, and she said, you know, her brother lived here, and this one lived there, and she lived someplace else, and she said, you needed to know your birthday

[ 00:09:12 ]She said, I didn't even know my birthday. So she said, I just picked a I think it was something in the summer, like June or July, because Christmas is then. Then she picked her birthday in the middle so she could get gifts. She says, I picked this, you know, but her real name and her real birthday she finds out later. I don't know that that's in the interview, but anyway, it's very interesting, and she doesn't have children, so she adopts children, you know, and buys a home, a nice home, but it's like what I told you about the Lakeview area. It's cheap when you buy it, 14, 000. Now it's worth a million. So she buys a house, probably nicer than Lakeview because this is a nicer area, and then, you know, she wants to live there and everything, and she's ready to retire, and as she's ready to retire, she says,

[ 00:10:04 ]I went to California to look athouses and da- da- da, and I came back, and I was ready to sell my house, and she said, you know what? My house was worth a million dollars. I couldn't believe I was living in a million- dollar house, you know? She says, I decided I'm not going to move. I'm going to stay in my million. So then she says, but the other thing is, Japanese Americans are so, theyvolunteer volunteer. Anytime you need help, you can get them, you know, and so she came to Haywa Terrace when it first opened, and she got her other Nisei beauticians to come for free, and they would do the hair for these seniors for all those years, all those years, and when we opened it up later to Koreans or Chinese, they want pay.

[ 00:10:51 ]Japanese will do anything for no pay. Everybody else, you know, you want to translate, we got to pay us, you know? You got to pay us. Not Japanese. Don't do anything. You want something, even here. You want to come here and talk for nothing. Okay, well, we don't say you got to pay us, you know? It's okay. We'll find time to, you know, come and do whatever. They're volunteers. Okay, does that answer your question? Well, I was born in 1953, so I don't really have a resettlement story, but I can tell you that I have a little, so my father lived in Stockton, which is in Northern California. My mother lived in San Pedro, which is near LA in Southern California. Before people went into the incarceration camps, they were in a temporary holding pen.

[ 00:11:44 ]It's called the Assembly Centers. So people in LA went to the Santa Anita racetracks and lived there for several months, while the camp that they eventually go to is beingbuilt built. Similarly for my dad. My dad's family went to the Stockton Fairgrounds, but they both end up, both families end up in So I marked all the ten camps, and Rohwer is in The terrains vary widely in places that people wereincarcerated incarcerated. Rohwer turns out to be on farmland, and when my daughter went back in the summer, it's a soybean field, but others are on Native American reservations, somewhere in the high desert of the Sierra Madre,I think. So sometimes it's beautiful but desolate, you know, and often the extremes of weather. So that's how we would characterize Manzanar.

[ 00:12:42 ]The camp that my mom was in had torrential rains, so there was no sidewalk or anything. you know, that was muddy, and that's when we went to visit on a pilgrimage, we got the sense of what it must have been like to live in camp during the rain. So from. My dad only went to the assembly center. He did not go into an internment incarceration camp because he figured out a way to, he was a senior at Berkeley, to get accepted at a college inland. So he went to Wash U, and this is his travel permit card so that he could go from California to Washington University, where he finished college, and moved to Chicago.Sohefinishesinabout43andthenmovestoChicago My mom was sort of an angry person, and, you know, she was like pissed as hell that she got put in the camp.

[ 00:13:42 ]So she leaves, and this is her little card, giving her citizen's indefinite leave permit. She leaves in May 26, 1943. Her own mother isdying of stomach cancer in the hospital. And my grandmother dies on August the 25th, 1943. So my mom left before my grandmother died. I don't know what it says about their relationship or whether my mom was just so, got to get out of here. But my daughter and I found this very ghostly portrait of my grandmother in the hospital. I mean, it's really a bad copy, but it's, if you see the original, it's also very, very, very faint. So we kind of make up a story about this, you know, that my grandmother must have taken this either as her funeral picture or took it so that my mom and her brother, who also leave early, will have a memento of my grandmother.

[ 00:14:43 ]So sometimes when you have absence of history, you know, you can be a little bit imaginative and make it up. And then this is my grandmother's death certificate. From camp, huh? She died in camp. Yeah, so that's a camp. Yeah, it's like that because it's out in the county or something like that. So I don't have that much of information about my parents' story about moving toChicago but they did both settled on the south side in Hyde Park, you know, and pretty typical of many Japanese Americans settling in Hyde Park. I think my mom was a secretary when she came and my dad, you know, not only did he kind of wield his way into Wash U, but he was also very entrepreneurial.

[ 00:15:29 ]So when he comes here at the age of 21, he sets up a business and he's, at that, at those days, I think greeting cards were wrapped in cellophane. So he has a little factory where the Issei ladies, when they come out of camp, work for him for pennies, you know. So he probably had a sweatshop, but no, we got paid by, we were paid by peace. This is my but we were paid by peace and if you made two little bows on the greeting card, then we got a penny for two cards. I don't know how much the cards are sold for, but we would do, that's the kind of job I was doing as a child. In other words, you do homework. That was called homework because they were paid the minimum wage.

[ 00:16:21 ]That's true for Mexicans. I don't care who comes and you can't live on that minimum wage, you know, and even my mother always in her whole life made maybe 10 cents over the minimum, but you can imagine how little money that is really and so one of the ways in which we made money was we would take homework and homework meant though that the children had to work, you know, and immigrants when they first come, children often work because that first generation often has businesses of some sort. If you have a building, then you can't make it unless you have tenants. So you take tenants to in the building, but you have towash the sheets, you have to feed them, all these things, but children have to work to do that or if you have a little business in the store, they're working, you know.

[ 00:17:11 ]That's a thing for immigrant children is they have to work to help make the family go, you know, and that was our situation. Therefore, more people wanted to have businesses than work for minimum wage and they're very bright people. So, you know, you have this person telling them what to do constantly. It's like they want to be the boss. They don't want to be the worker, right? You have your own business and can tell people what to do. So, that was what they did, youknow know. So, when you have things like a greeting card or whatever, yeah, it's piecework that they were doing, yeah, but I remember doing that kind of piecework as a child and that's what disability people and disability elderly people do now, you know.

[ 00:18:01 ]They're not paid the growing wage, but, you them some kind of work. Yeah. So, I would say I don't really know my parents' resettlement story. What we can talk about, did you talk about this map that Eric made? So, there's a fellow that has a Facebook page called Windy City Nikkei and he has taken telephone books and plotted where grocery stores and businesses are. So, this is like 1940 to 1960 and you can really see, if you use businesses as a proxy for where people live, you can really seemigration migration. My daughter did this also, but using telephone books for people. And so, in 1940, there were about 400 people of Japanese descent that lived in Chicago. By the end of the forties, the estimate is that there are about 20, 000.

[ 00:19:01 ]So, you know, the population just boomed. Alice met the difficulty in finding places to rent. Also, I have toremember that this is another time when Blacks are coming up from the south to get jobs. So, it's, you know, not just discrimination against us probably, but way more harsh probably against African Americans looking for places to live. Well, they had a harder time. Yeah. If you were Black, you had a harder time. So, what the Japanese were, were what you call in the middle, buffer, the buffer between Blacks and Whites. Always. Yeah. And in many ways. So, one of the good things about, well, one of the positive things that came out of World War II is minorities had, they weren't integrated. They had separate units. Japanese had their own units.

[ 00:19:50 ]Black had their own units. And of course, you don't prize them very much. So, you put them into battle first. They get to go first. They get more deaths, more whatever. So, they get more ribbons, more decorations because they're more dead. They've sacrificed more. But they both Blacks and Japanese make important progresses in the war. So, they'll tell you though, even the Japanese units will tell you, we are the ones who freed the Jewish out of the camps. Now, three days later, four days later, the Whites will move in. The filming is going on. So, what do you see? You see the films. But the people that were there will tell you who freed them. They know because that's who, you know. So, there's a difference. Okay.

[ 00:20:40 ]But the benefits of these military people is that then the jobs after the war become equal opportunity. I don't what the term they use but that's what it means. Pre- war in California, you had a teaching degree, you could never be a teacher. You still were on the farm. It didn't matter what kind of degree and many of them could afford to go and did have degrees. But the jobs were still menial ornothing nothing. But when you came to Chicago, you could get a government job which meant you could work in the post office or you could work as a teacher or you could work some of these government jobs. Okay. Now, they're required to hire minorities. They don't really want to hire Blacks. They don't really want to hire Japanese.

[ 00:21:33 ]But they'll hire token Japanese and that's the way they make their quota. So, Blacks are that much not liked. Yeah, they had even harder time getting housing or whatever. So, I remember as a child, there are Blacks in my school and they walk me home but I've never been to their house because they live farther and that meant that they live beyond Drexel. It's what I think but I never went to their house or anything. But the way we lived was, yeah, and then the whites are on the other side. So, even in this area, a lot of it turns Black with the housing. But yeah, the Japanese and the buffers, they're being fought for on both sides. You know, Blacks will tell you, it doesn't matter how nice they are to you.

[ 00:22:25 ]You're not gonna be white and you know that and they're using you as a way of whatever. Yeah. But anyway, the positive for that is they do get better jobs and the other good thing about coming to Chicago was pre- war, the first generation was in control. They spoke Japanese. They couldn't speak Japanese anymore. Itwas English in the camps. So, the second generation, we're in charge. The second generation was becoming of age. That's why she talks about her dad going to college and like this, you can come out and do that. If they come of age in Chicago, you could vote. They couldn't vote. If you came from Japan in the turn of the century, they could not become citizens until 1952, okay?

[ 00:23:20 ]That's if you came from Europe in a few years, you had citizenship, okay? So, although they had prejudice against Italians or Irish or whatever, they still had citizenship. They still could vote. Asians could not. But when we came to Chicago, we had people could vote and the other thing is the political system here was there wasn't anybody big enough to win the election. It's not like you have so many blacks now or Hispanics now. They had to have what we call coalitions and they liked your vote. So, if you lived here, they'll tell you how you could get silk stockings or dinner or whatever if you had your vote. So, the respect was given to Japanese Americans because of the vote, okay? That's that's one thing and then I'm going to tell you something else about that

[ 00:24:16 ]But anyway, that that's what made a difference. So, I think the life in Chicago becomes better for those two reasons, job opportunities, and then voting rights. And and I think they also were thinking about that they didn't want to be farmers because pre- war, they tended to be farmers. So, they were willing to try some new occupation, do new things, you know. So, that's what makes them different from Hawaii or different from California. So, the one, the interview you should read is Hiroshi Kaneko who has this Mark Twain Hotel who really talks about, you know, passing out silk stockings to the ladies. So, pretty early on, you get a sense that the machine, you know, is looking at this group as a possible voting bloc. But I love, I love Hiroshi's description.

[ 00:25:07 ]Yes. You know. Yes. Yes, so we have a lot of Issei's who own buildings and things like that, but they have no idea what's going on in their buildings I mean the cell mansion is a huge huge huge building He doesn't keep it very long either, but the communists living in there this prostitution going on in there You can't imagine he's innocent. He doesn't know Prostitutions in there. He doesn't not know that you know the communists in there. Who does he know he's getting the rent You know I mean, that's what he cares about and but this is also a place where young Japanese guys and Come because they live there right. I mean young people like to get together, but yeah he But he sells it because yeah, it's too much for him He's not used to all this you know if he could imagine Your grandmother you know doesn't speak English, and she has this building now.

[ 00:26:07 ]She's in jail For prostitution. She doesn't know what's going on in her building. She's in jail, okay, but yes because you can vote Alderman will come and get her out of there The political system is something that it was much worse than those days and now and They knew how to bribe. I mean you know whether it was driving or owning a building or whatever There was always underneath the table payment You know I don't I think it's harder to do today, and I have no idea how to do it If you ask me to do it, I couldn't do it, okay, but They didn't speak English, but they knew If the inspector came there was something wrong with the house I don't care what it is okay, and you pay them off And then but they never come back and check if it's done.

[ 00:26:56 ]It doesn't matter because that isn't then the point isn't the Improvement of course they'll improve it whatever the the thing is in case they come back But yeah, you pay it off, and then no problem, okay? It's always a payoff So I think this shows the strength of oral history that if you have great rapport with your narrator You can get these kinds of stories. You know I'd say that as somebody who's done oral histories in other contexts For me as a younger woman like I look like their daughter You know I'll never get the sexual deviancy deviancy stories, or you know the bad story so we know our limits to Alice can get you know the Eating Chinese food with the transvestites and the mafia girlfriends, and she can get the connected story about graft and prostitution But there's other stories that we cannot get so the power of oral history.

[ 00:27:53 ]You know when when it's good It could be really good, and it can be reflected in a book like Clark in division which it was Mm- hmm So yeah, that's what I remember about what I read it is it oh Yes, that was what was fun for us Is that you know we read the oral histories it and and the thing is we know Naomi well And we know her other she's got a lot of mystery series. You know not only this is That She does not know Chicago You know she knows California And that's why and this was not intended to be a sequel book But everyone wanted a sequel to this story they wanted a continuation of the story and

[ 00:28:38 ]Bringing it to evergreen was easy for her because she's in Los Angeles, and she was a raffle shippal news Person she knows that place you know it's easy to find people who are buried there the stories there But this is new to her this she's not a Chicago person, but you have to be authentic right, so how do you become authentic? You know you have to really figure out what Clark and divisions all about or what the story is like that I think she had guide so she used Eric Matsumoto whose maps you're seeing yeah Yeah, but I'm saying she's reading oral history books She's talking to a lot of people you know so what was like living here like so she knows people to talk to I mean That's how you find out the What do you say the background? So it's rooted in history. I would say that's what's authentic about the book uh- huh tries to make a

[ 00:29:49 ]Like sometimes there's always one generation who really wants to know a lot about it, and there's one generation who want no doesn't want to talk About it at all So I'm curious to know for both of you if you would talk about like your families or your ancestors reaction to your interest in Researching this and how you feel through Mary knowing that your daughter is also carrying on the legacy of Researching this topic in Chicago. Yeah, I think that my generation the Sansei generation the grandkids of the people that initially came we Came of age in like the 60s in the 70s So when we if we hear at all about our parents and grandparents camp experience we go Why didn't you protest you know why didn't you put up a fuss and?

[ 00:30:35 ]Ross when he when we talked to him. He said his father said you were not there. You don't understand you know so That's true. We don't we're just we're like the kids that protested Vietnam. You know March for civil rights and so that is our way of understanding and being having agency so sometimes People will say about this camp experience. She cut the gun. I which is roughly translated as it can't be helped Which to me sounds like so much you're rolling over and playing dead I've had another person actually a person that I interviewed said who said she thinks of she cut the gun I is despite my best efforts that I tried to do something.

[ 00:31:21 ]You know this happened So that's when we talk about camp you'll hear my parents didn't talk about it when they do talk about it They talk about it at all. You know she cut the gun. I but it means more than just it can't be helped I think because our parents didn't talk to us about it We internalize the silence as that is something bad You know you don't talk to your parents about it that there's shame that there's grief that there's anger that there's They feel like they were culpable which they weren't So for sad stays like me I think the way we begin to approach this topic if we don't have relatives who will talk about it with us is we?

[ 00:32:03 ]Start doing pilgrimages to the different camps and you know I myself have been on Several and There's a Tribune article Where I'm talking about it with my I go with my daughter So this is the Tribune article You know so you might be able to guess that I'm somebody that like lives in her head. I don't really let my emotions guide me I let my brain like so I Think I and many people who go on these camp pilgrimages are hoping to feel what our parents and grandparents felt I've come to the I've come to the Sort of baby radical position is that I cannot feel what they felt you know I can try to understand it.

[ 00:32:51 ]I can be empathic But again, I'm kind of like still in my head and so the way I know this is in 1988 I tried to interview my mother about her camp experience and at that time I've been 30 interviews you know I can talk to my mom. I couldn't get past the demographics I couldn't get past you know tell me how when auntie Liddy was born Because I projected the hurt that she was going to tell me so I think for me. I learned that You know that sometimes you're too close sometimes you can't hear the stories because you don't want to hear your parents pain And that that just completely shocked me I think for my daughter's

[ 00:33:37 ]It's a little different story They some of them have known their grandparents, but they didn't know there some of them have stories from their grandparents But my daughter didn't so for them they start to talk about Intergenerational trauma that because you know no one talked about it again It must be something bad or and they use it as a springboard for social action. You know immigrant rights refugee rights Shut down Guantanamo, etc. Etc. And that's a really small but mighty Stream of social action that's going on now among people my daughter's generation, so she's like 30 And I really applaud them and the work that they do So I think each generation, you know either tells the story doesn't tell the story Makes up the story or uses it as a springboard for social action and so I think each generation is you know a little bit different tack and so for me I Still grapple with the idea like what the heck is intergenerational trauma You know and I go to more and more talks about it and I'm beginning to understand how silence again can Manifest as intergenerational trauma and that I think is the hot topic among people my daughter's age

[ 00:35:11 ]You correct for me I Do speak Not very well But you know in camp I was bilingual. So I knew both languages So to five I'd say pretty good. But once we come out of camp everything Japanese is bad so, you know, we don't speak Japanese or don't go to Japanese classes or anything like that and I have And there's a lot of prejudice. I mean coming out of camp is a very difficult Situation because they were at war with Japan and and they hated Japan for all those years and then their families had People in the military and maybe lost somebody in the military So you come out and they've been trained in their minds to hate and they don't know the difference with Japan from Japan Or from here or whatever.

[ 00:36:09 ]So there's a lot of prejudice. So I would say it was very difficult for me I thought being Japanese had to be the worst thing in the world You couldn't be possibly be any worse than being Japanese, you know like that. So Yeah, so but I speak it but the other thing is I Then later took Japanese this thing But I quit and the reason I quit is because If you really try to learn a language.Whentheconceptcomesitcomesinthatlanguage So From the time I was When I have to say something in English because the population was Japanese and You know and couldn't understand English. I'm used to hearing the English Simplifying it then saying it I don't just say it because they're not gonna understand me doesn't make any sense But if you learn Japanese now all of a sudden the thought comes to you the answer comes to you in Japanese And I'm a teacher.

[ 00:37:16 ]So not only does it I have to get that Japanese concept out. I got to get in English and I got to get simplified it takes too much time You know and Japanese are slow or I'm slow I'm very slow in other words American the more to talk and the faster you talk the better it is Japanese silence is good. You supposed to think before you talk. You're not supposed to talk So if you're Japanese, you can be all day with not no talking Yeah, I mean, I think that that's a language in itself, you know silence as a language Yes There are certain kinds of ways that I understand and we say lady that I knew that I really liked And we would cook Japanese New Year's with her And my generation is like trying really hard and if she took the slightest breath like like that We knew we screwed up, you know, so you have to learn how to read silence or these very small

[ 00:38:15 ]intonations and Understand the meaning of those kinds of things not a word, but you know a look or yeah, I give my daughter thebook you know and So I think there's a silent language too, but I was gonna say for my generation I feel like There was a cultural genocide so that you know, like Alice said you don't learn things that are Japanese When my parents generation came out they also Whether this is true or not Believed that the government is telling them they cannot congregate not you can't be in groups bigger than three. That's a law No, it's not. It's a bit the law That's the law says a gang is three or more But the WRI never said that but people internalized it as if it were the fact so You know, that's one of the reasons there was never a Japantown in Chicago that they were told don't congregate Don't make this kind of a community, you know and Being very law- abiding people didn't congregate

[ 00:39:17 ]They didn't form a Japantown. There's a wonderful art of audio- story on WB easy There was a show called curious city. And so there's a segment on why wasn't there a Japantown in It was done by Katnagas Catherine Nagasawa. It's excellent. Excellent. And so she's really looking at Lakeview as kind of the I highly recommend that yeah, so in my generation, I would say it's the odd person that speaks Japanese The consequence is that for my daughter's generation many of whom are mixed- race They feel that they are not good enough because they don't speak Japanese And to me that just breaks my heart That you know, how did you get that as a crite as a marker of ethnic identity?

[ 00:40:06 ]But it is something that's there, you know, it's just that the kind of surprised me I have one last question I'll allow it I was just going to say for us I know I'm going to talk about this in a second The field trip that we're going to do which you had a part of That I would love for you toshare But also like for us at read and run or anybody in Chicago like what can we do to honor your family's history and your stories And do justice to everything that you went through in this Can I add Sorry to that because that's kind of similar to what my No no no My rapid question is going to be like maybe What's the one thing that you wish more Chicagoans knew about the history So just however you want to interpret it Go with that So every year around February 19th

[ 00:40:56 ]February 19th 1942 is when Roosevelt signed executive order 9066 that put our parents and families in these concentration camps So every year we commemorate that at the history museum And it's always like the Sunday closest to February 19th So we just had it two days ago I would say that that's a way to learn more about the history And we take very different approaches You know sometimes it's a lawyer that's going to talk about defending supreme court cases Sometimes it's two years ago it was an academic who has studied trauma by generations In conversation with a person my daughter's age was a memoirist who talks about her mental health You know and she understands her mental health or illness by understanding these Japanese spirits

[ 00:41:53 ]And so that was a really interesting dialogue because you don't think a memoirist can talk to an academician But it worked This past Sunday we've had a woman who translated her grandparents'tanka Which is a kind of poetry a little bit similar to haiku But different numbers of lines and different syllables type things And she spent 15 years doing that So what happens when you have the grandparents' voice come through finally in English These are people that like for me have been hidden in plain sight And so translations of these sorts of things whether they're novels or diaries or poetry You know gives a whole nother view of what happened to a generation that I really don't know Much about the internal life of what they went through So I think every year we do a different topic

[ 00:42:48 ]And it's a coalition of organizations that always puts it on So I think that is unique Chicago is the only group that we know of that has a coalition of Typically it's one organization puts on their Day of Remembrance They might have another competing organization that puts it on the same day So I think we like to think of ourselves as the community that's always been very cooperative I don't know if that's true or not But that's how we pat ourselves on the back But Day of Remembrance, mid- February, Chicago History Museum The other thing is there is an exhibit right now at the Holocaust Museum That you know if people would like to see something They're up to date Are you going to run on that day?

[ 00:43:33 ]We're not going to run, we're going to go visit But you know they have the last Friday of every month free You know and so you can go there And some of their programs are free But there is a Japanese exhibit now with six current Eight Sorry, eight Even more, see even better Eight artists that are talking about this You know now their view of camp, their view of life So we have some of the old kinds of concepts Like Daruma, but this is a new way of looking at it You know and how they look at camp Or what they feel about it like that So I think it's really interesting So I'd say go on the free day Or pay 18 on April 12th

[ 00:44:30 ]And then when you're in there Often when we bring exhibits to ChicagoWetry toaddaChicagostory So there's sort of an ancillary little That's marked by this lovely kimono quilt That Alice was also part of Called Chicago is Home It was done by maybe 15 women In 2000 2001 And so I look at this quilt As also another kind of Stitched history, an oral history Where the women are telling How Chicago became home for them And it's an absolute gem of an And then there's pictures on thewall Including Alice's picture Resettlement era pictures aren't they? Yeah So the Japanese after camp And what was resettlement like But it's really just the Beginning years So I think it's from 1945 to 55 Or 60, something like that It's not later It's just right after coming out ofcamp Yeah and so I'd say that Historians, Japanese- Americans, historians Now would say the resettlement era Goes from roughly 1943 To roughly 1965 So when we talk about resettlement That's really the time frame That we're talking about Thank you so much

[ 00:45:54 ] Thank you Thank Thank you for not being But I want to say one thing Thank you for not being scary We're very nice I know, that's what she said I was wondering Would it be possible for you to shift over here So we can take a group photo? If possible Sure Oh and I have three Of my books If you want to buy them So it's 20 a So I can sit over here