Upon our return to Oakland on May 12, 1945, we were met at the 16th St. Depot by our dear compassionate friend who was an Oakland police officer, and we bathed and had dinner with his family at home.
For a month we stayed at a friend’s home in West Oakland and walked daily to our home on Sixth Street, cleaning the upper flat which had been broken into and waiting for the tenants to move out of the lower flat. I had given them 30 days’ notice to leave, as they had not paid their rent to our indifferent lawyer for a year, and they in turn rented out rooms and collected rent from four garages. They were abrasive, threatening and filthy and moved out with many things that were previously stored upstairs.
Our policeman friend helped us resettle at the Sixth Street house with the purchase of a well worn secondhand stove, and also patrolled the house at night as we lived in fear. Various violent acts were committed against returning evacuees—homes were burned, we were taunted on the streets, and ‘Japs not wanted’ was the trend of the times. The eventual return of my father and younger brother gave me inner strength, but the wave of homeless, penniless people began.
The hostels of the Japanese Methodist church on 10th and West streets and the Buddhist Church on Sixth Street became filled; four male friends of my father begged for rooms and he provided it.
A widowed, young mother, a total stranger to me, came to the door with two young children begging us for food, beds, linens and pots and pans, and we gave them to her—rusty cots from the basement, dilapidated mattresses— lugging it down the street to a ramshackle house which she was able to rent.
One night, an older Issei woman, an acquaintance of ours, came pleading for shelter and fell on her knees, groveling and crying, and it was a soul-wrenching episode. Naturally, she stayed. Finally, two other Issei couples came to stay as the hostels were closing; and we had a full house.
Daily I did the laundry by hand, went shopping for groceries and cooked and played the subservient Japanese female role, not receiving a penny for their rent, meals or services rendered. Every day they gathered around the long, oak dining table and played cards or lolled around. Then the bubble burst. They complained they wanted better meals and wine on the table. Wine?! This was too much, and one day, in sheer exasperation in the midst of their card game, I angrily struck at all the cards, scattering it in their faces onto the floor and demanded they go out and look for a job, any kind of job. I could no longer feed them on the $25 a month allotment, let alone buying wine, which was a luxury. They all cringed at my angry words and there was a babble of excuses being made. There was a great sense of fatality and fear in all of them and it seemed it was up to me to help them regain their dignity, pride and courage.
The ensuing weeks were spent on the phone or walking to places, looking, asking and searching for jobs for them, no matter how menial.
Eventually they all drifted away to another beginning; and the task of rebuilding our own lives began.
This is the fifth of five excerpts from Harue Minamoto’s memoir (with minor edits). If you missed Parts 1-4, you can read them here:
Part 1: Forced Removal
Part 2: Tanforan
Part 3: First Winter in Topaz
Part 4: Dust-up in the Desert
About the contributor: Harue Hirai Minamoto was born in Oakland, CA in 1916. A graduate of Oakland Technical High School, she completed bookkeeping and secretarial courses at Merritt Business School and was hired by the U.S. Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services in 1937. After Executive Order 9066 was issued, she was forced to resign. She married Toshiro Minamoto in February 1942, shortly before they were incarcerated in Tanforan. Two of her three children were born in Topaz. Sponsored by a Quaker family, the Minamotos resettled in Philadelphia in 1944; but when Tosh was drafted in 1945, Harue and the children returned to Oakland. Harue often spoke of the injustices of incarceration to her children and grandchildren and never hesitated to inform others of what EO 9066 did to American citizens. She passed away in 1999. Her story was shared with us by her family: Melyssa Minamoto, Gay Kaplan, John Minamoto, Ed Minamoto and their children.
© 1999, Harue Minamoto. All rights reserved.