KOIZUMI​,​ Mrs.

My parents first went to Hawaii. At that time, they thought they would work hard, save some money, and then go back to Japan. They never imagined settling permanently. But one morning, when they were about to leave for Japan, they discovered that all the cash they had hidden was gone—completely empty. So they changed their plans. My father went alone to the mainland United States, first to San Francisco, and then, through acquaintances, he made his way to Colorado. There, he worked under another Japanese man who had a contract with the railroad company, helping to build the railroad. There wasn’t much to eat—he said they mostly had dumpling soup—and the work was so hard that many of the men got sick at night. In Hawaii, they had worked in the sugarcane fields. I was born in America, but when I was about a year and a half old, I was sent back to Japan. I was educated there through high school, and in 1930 I came back again, arriving in Seattle on the Manila Maru. Because my visa status wasn’t clear, I had to stay in the immigration station for eleven days. Before leaving Japan, people had told me, “There’s no rice or soy sauce over there,” so I thought the meals on the ship would be my last good food for a long time. I even drank soy sauce that was left over, thinking I’d never taste it again. But when I was released from the immigration station and went to stay with a family who took care of me, they served me a whole plate of sashimi! I was so surprised. After that, I went to Denver, where my parents were. I had thought I would complain to them for keeping me away for so long, but when their friends held a welcome gathering and I listened to their stories—about all the hardships the Issei had gone through—I couldn’t say a word of complaint. The Nisei, I think, have seen and know something of their parents’ struggles, but the hardships of the Issei themselves were truly tremendous. During the war, I was in Atlanta, Georgia, with my three children. My husband worked as a chef at a big nightclub and restaurant. The cooks and waiters were mostly Chinese and Japanese. When the war started, we couldn’t leave the state. There were no jobs, and the restaurant where he worked closed down. So we pooled our money together and started living communally. There were many single people then, and the Japanese community helped each other a great deal. I went back to Japan once, in 1971. Everything had changed so much that even when I met old acquaintances, it all felt a bit out of tune. And Japanese people had become so well-off—they didn’t really want to listen seriously to stories about America anymore. This interview is part of the DMHJNY's new exhibit Issei: Portraits Of The First-Generation Japanese New Yorkers which is on view here: https://www.historyofjapaneseinny.org/issei/