Back from my errands. It's so cold out today my car wouldn't start right away. Good thing I was due for an oil change--they're going to check my battery too.
However, that's not why you're here. You are here, right? ;) Let's continue with the story. What I know of it so far.
During my senior year in college my grandpa actually allowed me to interview him about his time during the war. I was ecstatic that he gave his consent, until he answered my questions. One or two words here, a phrase or sentence there. Suddenly my assignment became much harder--what my grandfather told me was good, but I would have to fill in the gaps myself with some hard core research. Being a history major I hit the library. And I found what I needed.
When the American public first heard that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, my grandfather does not remember where he was. His only concern, when he first heard the news, was one any 19 year old would have. "I [was worried] I would be called up to serve," he told me.
His family's concerns were not so simple. My grandfather told me, "They were apprehensive. [They were worried] regarding how the neighborhood would treat them." And rightly so. This was a Japanese-American family living in New Jersey. About as far from the West Coast as one could get without actually climbing into the ocean. My grandfather remarked that growing up, he was the only minority kid at his school. Everyone else in his neighborhood was a typical WASP. It was understandable, then, that his parents would worry how they would be treated following the attacks. There was no denying that they were a Japanese-American family.
The government did investigate them. My grandfather was born November 15, so his nineteenth birthday had passed about three weeks prior to the attack. For that particular birthday he had received what, in his opinion, was a phenominal present: a small battery-powered walkie talkie radio system. The two devices could be used to send small signals to each other, up to a half a mile away, and could tune into certain radio frequencies, depending on the weather. For my grandfather, who eventually majored in engineering, it was a dream gift.
When the government came to investigate his family, they were concerned the radio might be used to contact Japanese spies or, even worse, the Japanese government itself. Against my grandfather's better judgement the U.S. government employees sent to investigate the Kumasaka family confiscated the walkie talkies. Archie never saw them again. To this day, it is one of the things he was most upset with.
As a family, though, the goverment felt the Kumasaka's were a safe, American family. Partially because they lived in New Jersey. Partially because they had no previous record of any ties back in Japan. Partially, though, it must be made clear, they were deemed a safe family because of the community. My grandfather remarked that in the days following the attack, his parents worried what might happen to their stores, now that the Japanese were the "enemy". He told me their concerns were useless. In his words, "My father had such a friendly relationship to his customers, we soon realized that we would be treated in a friendly manner." Neighbors still shopped at the Kumasaka Department Store, as they always had. And when the government came questioning, these same neighbors, who had known the family for years, assured the government there was nothing to worry about with these five. Story after story was told about what an assest they were to Keansburg, how their store was a staple in the town, how they could never be involved in any sort of spy affairs with the Japanese Imperial Government. And so the government left, trusting that the Kumasaka family was who their town promised they were.
They certainly didn't let them down.
When President Roosevelt passed Executive Order 9066 in December of 1941, what most people remember about the order was that it allowed, by law, for the government to take any Japanese immigrants or Japanese-American families living on the West Coast and place them in internment camps for the duration of the war. The government's reasoning behind the order was that the majority of Japanese-Americans lived on the West Coast, and, with some skill, could help Japanese communications and operations here in the states. To remove them from their homes and lives, then, would help to prevent this from becoming an issue. By the end of the war almost 120,000 Japanese-Americans had been sent to these camps throughout the United States. {1} It is said, though I have not found the concrete evidence to support it, that only 3,000 Japanese-American families did not fall under Executive Order 9066. All of them lived on the East Coast. One such family was the Kumasakas.
While Executive Order 9066 did not force them to relocate, and allowed them to still keep their string of department stores, my grandfather still was not allowed to enlist. The same order that allowed the government to move Japanese-American families away from the West Coast also allowed the military to "exclude any or all persons from military areas." {2} Though the language is vague, it was written specifically to exclude the service of any person of Japanese desent. This included my grandfather.
Unable to serve because of his heritage, my grandfather continued to work in his father's stores while attending college. His dream was to become an engineer; he attended nearby Rutger's University in hopes of seeing that dream fullfilled. It might not have been the life he wanted, but it was a life he could live with.
By 1943 the U.S. government was rethinking Executive Order 9066. They had noticed that young men in internment camps were bored and frustrated with their situation, and felt that it would do them well to serve their country. The U.S. government formed the 442nd division, an all-Japanese unit, to fight in Europe. By early 1944 any and all Japanese-Americans could serve in the military again, even in non-segregated divisions, though most chose to stay with the 442nd. By the commencement of the war, the 442nd was the most decorated division in the U.S. Army.
My grandfather, though, had played a few tricks on the government and was able to enlist by January of 1943. When his application was submitted to the government, this was what the one section read:
That's right. Under the heading "race" my grandfather put "white". Apparently his mother's past was acceptable enough for him to put this down. He was drafted into the army, in the 63rd Infantry Division. The division was called up on June 15, 1943, and was in Europe by the year's end. {3}
(You tell me, how "white" does my grandfather look?)
The one stipulation, apparently, that the local recruiters had with my grandfather checking "white" on his application, was that they did not want him to serve anywhere in the Pacific. He still was, afterall, half-Japanese, and they feared that if he ended up in Japan the Japanese could and would use him for spy work. He was sent to Europe instead, then. As part of the 63rd Infantry, he saw action in France and Germany. His division was part of the final push to Berlin in 1945, and was in Germany when the war in Europe finally ended.
My grandfather was injured in the war, though no one (as in my mother and uncle) know exactly what happened. From what they learned over the years, he was hit while in combat--they aren't sure if it was from a bullet, or the impact of something else, but he was knocked unconscious and left in a ditch. He woke up days later, covered in water, completely soaking wet. He made it to a medical hospital, where they determined that, after spending days in a water-filled ditch, he had caugh pneumonia. His recovery was slow, and eventually they determined that part of his one lung was ruined because of his experiences. It would have to be removed. The opperation was successful, and to this day my grandfather still only has about 1 1/2 lungs.
The war ended, and eventually, after six additional months of service, my grandfather came home. He returned to Rutger's on the G.I. bill, and finished the three years he had left for his engineering degree. He graduated and actually returned to the army, working for the government at Fort Monmouth, NJ. He worked there until he retired in the 1980s.
While in college, however, he met a girl from Utica, New York, named Edith Snyder. Edith was the youngest of three children, having an older brother, Arthur, and an older sister, Ruth. Her father had been a Postal worker for years, so she came from a typical middle class family. She fell in love with my grandfather and, much to her parent's dismay (he was, after all, still half Japanese) married him in New Jersey in 1952.
Found the happy couple yet? They're in the back of the photo, dead center. You can see my grandfather looking very happy. It's very cute.They settled into Middletown, New Jersey, in a yellow house that I came to know very well in my early childhood. In 1954 they had their first child, a boy they named Alan. In 1958 their second child, a girl, was born. Her name was Sharon. She died 4 days after being born, having been born with serious health problems. This could be due to the fact that Edith smoked through her pregnancy. This was the 1950s, after all, before pregancy health had become a major issue.
In April of 1960 my mother was born. She was several weeks early, and very small, due, again, to what we believe is her mother smoking. While she was tiny, she survived, and suffered no other complications from her birth. They named her Lynne.
By my mother's account, she lived a normal childhood. Her father worked all day, her mother stayed at home. Typical 1960s family. She had her own bedroom, didn't bother her older brother too much, and played with her friends in the neighborhood. She went to Catholic Mass every Sunday, though she went to public school.
In 1975 her mother died from lung cancer. My mom was 15, my uncle 21. My grandfather, unsure of how to raise a daughter by himself, or a son for that matter (he was still at home at the time) decided to marry Edith's sister, Ruth, who had never married. He has been married to her since then.
As odd as it is, she is the person who I call my grandma. I call her Nana. She is, technically speaking, my great aunt. But I never knew my real nana. She died long before I was born. So my nana is my nana because, well...I guess you could say she was in the right place at the right time. She married my grandfather after his first wife died. So she became my grandmother, in her own way.
My grandfather still resides in New Jersey. One of those life-long residents, I guess. He lives in Princeton now, in a retirement community. He runs a small community store there, that sells groceries and basic goods to the people. Like his father, he seems to have a knack for operating small businesses. He does the invintory, prices things, and hires volunteers to come in and work five days a week. The only difference, he claims, is that he orders a lot of his items online in bulk. His father never had that opportunity.
My great-grandfather passed away in 1976, a year after my mother's mother passed away. His wife, however, lived until 1992. She was ninety-nine years old when she finally died. Being born in 1986, I had the opportunity to meet her while she was alive. So did my sister, actually. Up until the day she died, my grandfather cared for her as only a son can. You could tell he really loved her. And all that she provided for her children.
And that's it. Well, not it. But that's what I know. Every piece of my family history, at least on that side. It seems like a lot, but I know it's not. I don't have every date, I don't have all the information. There are large gaps in people's lives. I don't exactly know what they did. But that's the goal of this blog. I hope to fill in some of those holes. Make sense of this entire mess. And hopefully discover something new about my family, and it's history, that I didn't know before.
That's all for today. That's a lot, really. I usually don't write for this long. We will have to keep these shorter. Tomorrow I will post some letters. I started to go over them. They're really fascinating.
Until next time,
E
{1} Resch, John P. "Japanese Americans in WWII". 2001.
{2} Resch, 2001.
{3} "63rd Infantry Division (United States)." 2009.
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