Dec 28, 2010
Jim Tsugawa is a native Oregonian of Japanese descent who was interned during World War 2 in an internment camp with his family. He went on to become a dentist and settle in Portland. In February and March of 2009, local immigrants or descendants of local immigrants met with us at the Cedar Mill Community Library to discuss what it is like to be an immigrant in Oregon. We recorded these discussions and have posted them for the public to listen to.
0:27 Jim:
My name is Jim Tsugawa. My father, Masaichiro, and my mother, Kazuno Tsugawa, emigrated from Japan in 1919. (They) hit the Port of Seattle in 1919. Dad farmed in an area close to Seattle; farmed potatoes. Made it big. Invested it all back against the advice of other farmers; back into potatoes again. I think he lost everything.
0:57 (They) migrated down to Oregon and decided to go west of the Willamette River and ended up in Hillsboro, Oregon. Mom and Dad had a kind of “mom and pop” grocery/fruit stand. They had 7 children. Dad died when I was born in Hillsboro, Oregon. And I believe my sister Helen was also born in Hillsboro. The rest of the brothers and sisters were born up in the Seattle in the Washington area. I was born in Jones Hospital. And then when I was one, dad died. So, that left mom with a brood of seven kids to raise; ages 1 to 14.
1:44 I don’t know she did it, Mark, because she really didn’t speak the language. She had to rely mostly on the kids. But, somehow the tough old lady was able to raise us, not in the most lavish ways, but we survived, we ate. In the early 40s, mom moved the operation into Portland, in NW Portland where she opened up another grocery store, it was right across from Montgomery Ward. Then the Naito brothers changed it to some kind of a name. That is where we lived until the outbreak of WWII.
2:34 When December 7 arrived, it affected everybody. I think all of these Issei, which would be the first generation. I am a second generation Japanese American. I feel like the Issei were a very docile people. They had no roots to fight back. February 19, 1942, President Roosevelt issued a proclamation 9066 stating that the military could do anything that they wanted with the Japanese Americans and (people of) Japanese descent. All of the Japanese Americans were removed 200 miles inland from the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Figuring that maybe we would be detrimental to the safety of the United States, which it never happened. During this time, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, anything pertaining to Japan that you owned was destroyed. Such as I was telling you before - it just killed me when mom destroyed this picture of dad who was mounted on a white steed/horse with his military uniform with his sword. It was just a shame because it was handsome picture.
4:11 Mark: So, when you say things were destroyed, you mean the families themselves destroyed things just so the other folks living around them would think that they were loyal to the US, instead of Japan?
4:24 Jim:
Yes, that is right. And then when that happened, the FBI without any search warrants would walk into a home of yours, ransack, go through whatever they were looking for and then leave. This happened to two of my good friends and their families. They came in and the FBI just rifled through drawers… everything. I don’t know what they were looking for.
5:00 In April 1942, people of Japanese descent, Japanese Americans were notified that in so many days they had to uproot, get rid of all of their possessions, and be interned in the assembly center which was the Portland International Livestock Pavilion at that time, now it is known as the Portland Expo Center. This was an area where they showed horses, cows, pigs, etc. To house 3,500-4,000 people from Washington and Oregon that were put into this assembly center (as) they called it. That covered 11 acres. And this livestock pavilion was boarded over, I am sure that manure was removed, but the smell was still there. These were made into various sized cubicles to house 3,500-4,000 people. The main arena was boarded over and that was made into kind of like a gym, so the young men could play athletics.
6:19 Mark: About how old were you at this time?
6:22 Jim:
I was ten years old. So, I am saying this from the standpoint of a kid that is 10 years old and what I can remember and what I have been told. But, I do remember it was a hot summer – that I remember. I do remember the smell, that you couldn’t help but to detect the smell of animal feces, that was removed, but still the remnants of odor were still there. In your cubicle, if you had a family of five, you had five cots. That is about all you could put into those cubicles. The door was a piece of canvas that was used as a door. There was no ceiling. It was partitioned off with plywood. Like I told you before, if someone burped down five (cubicles), you could hear the burp all the way up here.
7:21 The food was not the most gourmet, much tongue, much liver, much heart. But, they did have rice. I believe they ate in shifts of 2,000 or 1,500. And that was the way you ate. I do remember along the mess hall, there were these fly paper strips and they were black with flies. It couldn’t be helped.
7:57 As far as hygiene, the toilets and showers were not private. They were no partitions between showers, no partitions between toilets. (For) men, it was all right; boys, that would be fine. But, (for) the women, that was harsh blow to them, embarrassment, I’m sure.
8:20 As far as entertainment, the young men played baseball out there. They had enough room out there to have a baseball diamond. I can remember tagging along with these athletes because I loved sports. I would follow them around like a dog. So, I kind of became their mascot. It covered 11 acres which was barb wired in and there were four guard towers in the corners. Guns were not pointed out, but pointed in. Figuring that there was going to be an escape, which nobody ever did.
9:05 They did have various departments like fire department, police department, and athletic department. That summer, we had a very hot summer. The fire department thought they would hose down the floors to cool off everybody. But, of course, the water seeped down through the floor and increased the intensity of the smell.
9:29 When you entered the assembly center, you could only bring what you could carry. So, if you were to think now, what are the most important things that we have to take, it would be quite a decision. Nowadays, it would be laptops. That was May 1942, so we stayed there May, June, July, August, September is when we were put on trains. Blinds were pulled. And they took us to Twin Falls, ID. And we got on trucks and they took us to Minidoka. While we were in the Portland Expo Center, ten camps were made – were being constructed. These camps/barracks were constructed of plywood, tar paper and a slat to keep the tar paper up there. And these camps were always built in areas that were very desolate, mostly sage brush country where we would be out of the way.
10:34 We went to a place called Minidoka, ID. Which I believe was about 9,500 of us were in this camp here. There were 44 blocks. Each block contained 6 barracks down the center, if you can picture it. Down the center was the area of bathing and washing clothes. If I remember right, every other block had the mess hall. I don’t think every block had a mess hall. And again, there was no privacy, there were no partitions between toilets or showers.
11:15 Being that they put these camps in the most desolate spots, like ours was a lot of sage brush. And when those were removed, it (made) summer dusty (and) hot; wintertime was muddy, cold, very cold. Each of the barracks had 6 apartments. 12 barracks to a block. To keep warm, they had a pot belly stove in the middle and you fed it with coal, I believe. There was no real furniture. If you had four in the family, there were four cots, and just a light bulb in the middle.
11:58 In Minidoka, being a kid 10 years old, there was a lot of playing. Summertime, there was a canal that went through our area. Very dangerous canal really because it was used for irrigation of crops (by) the farmers. I was about a fifth grader and I knew how to swim, thank goodness. But if you got in the canal, and started one area and down 30 yards and finally make it across. I can remember getting potatoes from Farmer Brown there and putting them in our swim suit and swimming back and then putting them in the fire and having baked potatoes.
12:40 In the winter time, it was so cold, many of these areas would freeze over, so you could ice skate. You bought your clothes through Sears and Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. Many kids bought ice skates through the catalog. There was ice skating down on the waters there. I think my brother Henry sent me a pair from the Army, when he was in the Army. So, in camp there was George and I, mom, Helen and then Aki (Akira) got drafted out of the camp and put in the Army. So, there were just four of us. Then, mom became very, very ill. (She) needed better, more expertise in the field of medicine, so a Reverend Johnson from Boise, Idaho, sponsored our family. Rented us a home and kind of overlooked to see that everything was fine with us. That was probably September, October of 1943, so I was only in there just about a year.
13:50 Then we moved to Boise, Idaho, under the care of Mr. Johnson and mom was taken in the hospital right away and then she was opened up and then cancer riddled her whole body so they closed her up and then she passed away right away in December of 1943. So there left George, Helen and me, and George was 22. So, he was kind of the guardian. He was left and not taken in the Army (exempt). But, he was left to take care of Helen and I who was three years older than I. Somehow we managed to live and George worked for the (Waihee?) Hotel as a bellhop and my brother Henry in the service would send money home to help out and everything. But, somehow we didn’t end up in jail. I don’t know how we existed, but we did. Helen must have been 14, so she had to do the cooking and the cleaning and washing. Then I remember for my allowance of 25 cents, I always had to bring in the coal, the kindling and help with the dishes; I remember that.
15:00 Mark: And so you guys settled in Boise for a little while?
15:03 Jim:
For ’43 and then I was very fortunate to get into a neighborhood of about radius of four blocks. There were many kids my age and older and we did a lot of bicycle riding, swimming together, baseball, football and I can still hear them outside. “Okay Jim, we are ready to go.” “I got to go do my dishes.” Then, we would go down to the greens and play football. (The) people of Boise, Mark, were very nice. The parents of these kids were… going to have a very fond memory of them. There were the Frasers, the Connors, just people that treated me like a son except for one kid named Lefty Reynolds that said, “don’t come around the house, Jim, because dad doesn’t like Japanese.” In Boise, like I told you there were signs that said, “No Japs allowed.” No Japs allowed at restaurants. But, somehow we managed and you just stayed away from those places.
16:10 After the war, Henry was discharged. And Aik (Akira) was discharged. The boys had no formal education. They finished high school, of course, but they didn’t have any vocations. I think my brother Henry had raised strawberries - five acres of strawberries prior to going into the war. And so, on Laidlaw Road, there were the Hammil’s. There was Bill Hammil which rented Henry 32 acres of land and they had no money, so they used the farmer Bill’s horses to do the working of the ground: the plowing, the harrowing, (and) the disking.
16:55 Mark: So did they know that family from before when you guys were in the area?
17:03 Jim:
You know, I don’t think so. I don’t know how they ever came across Bill. I remember we had a Model A for transportation. And I think they bought an old used Army truck for hauling pickers in. And then when the pickers were taken home, then we hauled the berries into Birdseye Cannery in Hillsboro. I remember as I got older, I did many trips of hauling strawberries into Birdseye Cannery. I can remember walking behind old Brownie Culavanney walked many, many miles behind Brownie. So that was how they got started.
17:45 My sister Helen graduated from Beaverton High in ’47. That is when I entered Beaverton High. The war ended in ’45, so there was still that feeling of anti-Japanese, but the high school of Beaverton of maybe 600-650 at the time I entered, there were no other Black, Filipino, Chinese, (or) Japanese – no other ethnic group was really (present). Because now if you were to go into school, it is just riddled with Asians and Blacks, which is good… a good mixing.
18:25 I think I was lucky because I played sports and played all three of them. I played football, basketball and baseball at Beaverton High and that’s when you know a small guy could play. Now you get killed or you get the ball shoved down your face. And then I was lucky enough to get a scholarship – a football scholarship to Lewis and Clark where I started my education. I did not do well, Mark. In fact, very poor and I played under a coach named Joe Houston and a guy named Al Lake. Half way through my sophomore year, I said that I better get out of there. I am not doing well. I don’t want any flunks on my record, so I quit…withdrew. There were four of us guys from Beaverton High School that probably did the same thing, not very serious about school. They went to Pacific U on a basketball and football scholarship, so we put our name up on the draft and within 30 days, we were in the Army.
19:40 I trained up at Fort Lewis, Washington during a real – February, March, April, May, June. Finished 4 months of basic training up there. And my good friend Dick Wise said, “let’s go Airborne.” I said, “no way am I jumping out of airplanes. I’ll take my chances.” Korean War was going hot and heavy at the time. But I said, “I’ll take my chances going to Korea.” The orders came out when we finished basic training. Those that fooled around and goofed off and got reprimanded were sent to Korea. The rest of us went to Germany which was good duty. And Dick went to Airborne. And I was very fortunate when I got to Germany, Bremerhaven and down to Zweibruken which was a replacement depot and there they interviewed you as to whether you were going to be a cook or you were going to be a truck driver or you were going to be in the office. And the interviewer was a sergeant who said, “you know Jim, we need another Asian on post.” They must have had a lot of Blacks, Asians at that time. He said, “yeah, would you like to interview?” And I said, “you darn right I would.”
20:59 I was a walk-in soldier when I headed over. So, the interviewer was a captain from Lake Oswego. Yes, so we had a nice, long talk about Lake Oswego, Oregon. And I told him how I used to come over and swim in the lake at that time you could do that. So, I was in classification and assignment and it was good duty and it was kind of like on a college campus when I would say 80% of the troops that came to Europe came through our depot and then we classified them and I took care of their records - made sure that ten guys going to Heidelberg had their records with them and made sure that they were with them when they got to Heidelberg. Again, I played sports there at the base there, but it was small base, so I could play. When you flown in with guys from Missouri, New York, Louisiana and you’re together for so long, you really develop strong friendships and to this day, I still keep in contact with seven of them yet. Two of them have come over and stayed with us. And we stayed over there in New York with a fellow. A couple of them have passed away. And to think these guys that we kind of caroused around in Germany, over in Germany. A lot of tipping the bottle, but they all turned out pretty darn good.
22:43 So, then 1955, and when I was over in Europe, I did travel. I did travel with as much money I could gather. I think I wired home once to my brother, Henry. If I had $50, I had a trip planned. As soon as I could get enough time off from the base. It was ‘55 of February, I was bitter because I had to spend one extra day in the Army because it was a weekend and they wouldn’t release us. I spent two years (and) one day in the Army. I came out and went to Oregon State University and studied my head off because I didn’t know if I had it in me to do it and I graduated in 1958 from Oregon State University, or (rather) College at that time.
23:36 And then, I applied for dental school and I was accepted to dental school in ’58 and finished in 1962. I have practiced in Beaverton for about 32 years. So, I feel like I’m very, very lucky man, you know. Like I tell the kids, when I go to the school, if you set your goals high, you study hard, you can attain whatever you really want to do. I don’t know if it goes to their heads.
Mark: I'm sure, like you, they need to struggle before (they know what they want.)
24:13 I had a nice practice, I loved my patients, but when I was done after 32 years, I divorced dentistry.
24:26 Mark: So, when you toured Europe, when you were in the military, what were the differences then from when you went back this time?
24:35 Jim:
Lodging, the lodging was much different. Food was much different. I mean, we kind of now get a little bit of few starred hotels and the food (was) much better. Travel… everything is taken care of and (is) much nicer.
24:57 Mark: I imagine there must have been a lot of destruction when you were touring?
25:02 Jim: You know when we went to… I was fortunate to get a weekend pass, we went to Berlin. And then you had to get a special pass to go into eastern Berlin because remember that it was broken off in four sectors. And the west sector, the US side of it, they were pretty much getting built up. East sector, the Russian side, was really demolished. It was really the destruction was still there. You were advised not to take pictures of the Russian soldiers, so you kind of had the Russian soldiers in the background when you took the picture.
25:39 Mark: One thing occurred to me when you were talking about your mom and the young kids, taking care of you by herself. Was there a big Japanese community that was here at the time that helped or were you guys pretty isolated?
25:55 Jim:
I don’t recall that. Pretty much, Hillsboro. There were families that helped, of course. And, that I don’t remember much about. It’s a shame because they died so young, there is no questioning them. I feel bad because – I’ve been back to Japan. One time, Amy, my wife’s parents, said I will be your tour guide, so he set up the whole trip. But, I said I want to go back to where dad and mom were… where they came from. So, we found relatives, first cousins who were women when pretty much like my sister, one of my older sisters, and they married well. The ones in Tokushima, her husband owned a fleet of cargo ships and the other woman, her family owned a lot of land in Tokushima, the island of Shikoku, where they came from.
27:05 Mark: Do you have any idea why your parents came over?
27:10 Jim:
I think to make a living. I think I’ve been told that the first-born male gets everything. Second male gets nothing. So, I think dad came to America to try to start a new life. I don’t know how common it is in the US, but I think in Japan if there is no heir to carry the name of Tsugawa or something - if the wife has no one to carry on the name of their family, the husband will take the name of her family, so my father’s brother took the name of Ogawa, and perpetuated their name. They lived in California.
28:04 Mark: Knowing that Japan was an enemy of the US during WWII, but also Germany and Italy. But, the German immigrants living here and the Italian immigrants living here, obviously didn’t go through the same experience that the Japanese immigrants did. Why do you think there such a different reaction?
28:26 Jim:
For one thing, for physical characteristics, you could distinguish Asians easily. So, we were very recognizable, could be herded away. Whereas your German and your Italians, they kind of melt into the society. But, I think some of them were imprisoned, Germans, I think so.
28:54 Mark: One of the other interviews we’ve done. The woman was talking about her Hungarian mother who had emigrated over and she would have to go let them know what she was doing every week, but they didn’t put her in a camp or anything. It’s just interesting to think about the different reactions… assuming it has to do with prejudice.
29:20 Jim:
Oh sure, that rang high along the west coast because I think, I heard of families that were Caucasian and Japanese families intermixed. And then war broke out…enemy, no association. And then hear you a lot about the Caucasian kids saying, “I was playing with him and the next day, he was gone.”
29:55 Mark: Well, I think that’s it for now. Thanks again for doing the interview with us.