Freedom

Kiyo’s story, part 10: 1945

In December of 1944, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Mitsuye Endo, declaring that the United States could not detain loyal citizens. The internment order was rescinded by FDR and Japanese Americans were allowed to go home beginning in January, 1945. (The last camp didn’t close until the end of 1945, however.)

Kiyo remembers going to a dinner dance at the Empire Room in the Palmer House Hotel with a Nisei acquaintance from San Francisco who was passing through Chicago on his way back to California from Detroit.

Meanwhile, Kiyo’s brother Shig completed his graduate studies in 1945 and went into the Army. Since he was leaving to teach Japanese at the Army language school in Monterey, their younger brother Edwin came out from camp to stay with Kiyo. Professor Nimoy had found a job for him as a busboy on the breakfast shift at the International House. Edwin arrived at Union Station and went directly to Kiyo’s office, showing up with his face black with soot from the el (elevated trains).

Edwin was about fifteen at the time, tall and cute, and the kitchen ladies at the I-House loved him. Several black ladies and one Japanese-American lady mothered him, since he was so far away from his family, and they always saved food for the “growing boy.” He made 50 cents an hour and was home by 10 am. Because the apartment was stifling during the day, he would go to the air-conditioned movie theater around the corner from their apartment and stay there, for the price of admission (37 cents), until Kiyo got off work. He recalls mail-ordering 78s to keep himself occupied at other times.

Kiyo worked half days on Saturdays, but on some weekends, she would take Edwin downtown to see theater or vaudeville. She remembers going to see Ella Fitzgerald.

Kiyo sometimes invited Professor Nimoy’s son Maury, who was a year younger than Edwin, to go along with them on outings. Maury had had a childhood illness and was extremely smart but not very physically active; he seemed a rather lonely boy. Kiyo encouraged Edwin to befriend Maury, and they sometimes played catch at a neighborhood park. (Edwin would complain later to Kiyo, “Maury throws like a girl.”)

When Edwin left Chicago to rejoin the Takahashis, Professor Nimoy invited Kiyo to stay with his family; they also lived in Hyde Park and had an extra room. So Kiyo moved in with the Nimoy family.

Kiyo’s Story, part 11: The Fork in the Road

This post was originally published on October 7, 2018.
Images: © R. A. Sasaki. All rights reserved.