George Izumi

GEORGE IZUMI
Family # 2711
Camp: Manzanar, CA
ddress: 16-4-3

My dad came here in the early 1900’s. This was my mother’s second marriage. My mother’s first husband was killed in a hay accident. She had two children, so I had one step brother and one step sister. She was born in Fukushima Japan. My fa­ther, Riozo Izumi, was born in Miyagai Prefecture. He came to the U.S.A. when he got out of school. There were nine of us in the family – eight sons and one daughter. There were four above me and four below me. My folks were commercial florists. I was born in Hollywood in 1921.

I was working in a flower shop. Things were very, very rough as far as second generation Japanese Americans were concerned because jobs were not that easy to get and prejudice was very strong. I graduated from high school in 1939.

I was 20 years old when Pearl Harbor was bombed. We were all at home except my brother who was in the army. I think he was at home on furlough at the time. And he had to go back immediately.

I was still an Amer­ican of Japanese ancestry. I didn’t change. I think the American people changed because they had a dif­ferent attitude about us even though I tried my best to prove to the people I came into contact with that I was a real American. What do I know about the Japanese? I just grew up in a Japanese family, but I went to all the schools here. I was taught just like every other American citizen.

When the war broke out I went to volunteer for the US Army but they just looked at me and told me “no, we’re not taking anybody in,” but I could understand that, be­cause after all, I looked like their enemy. So why should they take me, you know, but I really wanted to go in there to prove that I was a good American citizen and I wanted to do my part as an American citizen but they wouldn’t let me do it.

We were told to assemble at the Japanese school in West LA and that’s where the buses came and then the trucks came and they loaded up the trucks with all our baggage and we all just got on the bus. I can’t even remember anybody crying at the time we were on the bus. Of course there were GIs there with rifles, but I just took that with a grain of salt.

I think the first job I had there was doing carpentry work, finishing up the barracks and odds and ends.

Well then we had an opportunity to work on a farm and so the first chance that the opportunity arose, I took a job in Montana topping beets. We stayed in camp until harvest time came around again. I must have gone about three times. In Idaho I picked potatoes. My partner and I did real well picking potatoes.

I finally got a job in camp in the mess hall. I had to get up at 3:00 in the morning to fire up the oil stove so I could get it all warmed up for when the cooks came in and it would be ready to cook. Our mess hall, number 16, was known as the worst mess hall. I worked on the farm too. I used to love to work on the farm. I used to love to drive the caterpillar to plow the fields.

We used to get together and play pinochle all the time. We played a lot of basketball. Played softball. We used to play football there too.

There was no ill feeling about the draft. We just went. We were sworn in in camp. From camp we had to go up to Reno and catch a train and from Reno to Fort Douglas, that’s where we went in. I had five brothers in the army at one time during the war.

We did the best we can – what we should do. If it wasn’t for the evacuation the Japanese Americans wouldn’t be where they are today because they were given a lot of opportunity and they got what they really wanted to accomplish in life and I think they were able to set a name for themselves. I bought a bakery and that’s how we got started and we built that busi­ness up into one of the largest retail and multiple unit bakeries in California.

All during that time I always tried to emphasize that if you want to accomplish anything you can accomplish it—if you put your nose to the grindstone and just go.

Wind and Dust
This wind and dust I have to bear
How hard it blows I do not care.
But when the wind begins to blow –
­My morale is pretty low.
I know that I can see it through
Because others have to bear it too.
So I will bear it with the rest
And hope the outcome is the best.
– George Nishimura, age 16 (Manzanar, 1943)

Read this to learn more about the demographics of each of the ten facilities administered by the War Relocation Authority.

Back to ID booklet main page.