- Were you a spy? - Was I a spy?
- Yeah. - At eight years old?
- I was thinking that too like eight years old.
I'm pretty sure that you wouldn't
even have a credit card.
(laughing)
(soft music)
- Hello, my name's Crystal, what is your name?
- My name is Shokichi Tokita.
I go by Shox.
Can you say that? - Shokes.
- So, why are we here today?
- We're gonna be talking about
what happened to me and my family
when World War II started.
Do you recall which countries the United States
was fighting against at that time?
- Yes, Germany, Italy, and Japan.
- Right. - I'm actually learning
about that right now so.
- Oh you're learning about it now, okay.
In 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
Have you heard of Pearl Harbor?
- No.
- Pearl Harbor is in Hawaii.
- Do you remember it clearly?
- Oh yeah, I sure do.
A lot of turmoil at that time.
Since, the US was at war with Japan
there was a lot of fighting people in America.
About the Japanese people
thinking that they might turn against people in the US.
And so the Japanese people were placed
in concentration camps.
When you talk about camps, what comes to mind for you?
- Camping, like the one with s'mores.
(laughing)
Were there s'mores at your camp?
- No.
It was not that nice.
You know what barbed wire is?
- It's the stuff that goes like that on the top of it.
So then when you try climbing
you would just get really hurt.
- Yeah, they had barbed wire all the way around the camp.
And they had guards making sure
that we didn't get out of camps.
And you know which way the guns and machine guns were faced?
- Probably towards the camp. - Towards the camp.
- They would face them towards us.
We were considered prisoners.
- But you didn't do anything bad.
- That's right.
That's exactly right.
- So then why would you be in prison?
- Because the war was with Japan and I'm Japanese.
- Because you're Japanese? - Yeah.
- This is my question.
Why didn't they put Italy or Germany?
That's kind of weird.
- They're weird?
- Because like if you just put one country in,
it's really not that fair.
- The main reason is that a lot of the Germans
and Italians are white like you are.
But you're not all white. - Yeah.
- You're part Japanese?
- Yeah, a quarter though.
Would I have been put in a camp?
- Yes.
- Oh my God.
- That is sort of racism, a bit.
- That is really racism.
- That's exactly what that is.
- That must've been so unfair for you guys.
- It was, mhm.
- How many people were at your camp?
- There was roughly 10,000. - 10,000?
- You call it interment camps
but I call it a concentration camps
and do you know what the difference is?
- I don't know exactly
but I know that the concentration camps in Poland
and Germany where the Jews were, they were death camps.
- Yeah, we were not put to death like they were.
- Yeah. - They were poisoned.
- Had a huge difference there.
Nevertheless, these were camps that were set up
for the Japanese who lived along the West Coast.
The camp that we wound up in was Minidoka.
- Where is that? - It's in Southern Idaho.
These camps had a whole bunch of barracks.
They were long barracks.
My family had to live in one room.
- How many siblings did you have?
- I have seven siblings.
- Seven?
- My brothers and sisters were all younger than me.
- No, I'd lose my mind.
(laughing)
I can barely even stand one.
- And when we first went into our rooms,
there was about three or four inches
of sand in that whole room.
So, my father got us cardboard and other things
that we could shovel all the sand out of the rooms.
And then you know these barracks
did not have bathrooms, did not have a kitchen,
did not have any running water,
and we had to go to a different building to go eat.
We didn't have any furniture so my father
got us a big box that he put on the floor
and that was our dining table.
We sat on the floor, Japanese style.
(laughing)
- How old were you when this was happening?
- I was eight years old.
How old are you? - Eight.
- How long did you have to be there?
- Three years.
- Usually when I think of camp
it's like maybe a week or so but, three years?
That makes me think of torture.
- My parents were very angry 'cause we lost our business,
we lost our home, we lost the car.
- That would be a whole waste of that money
and that would be ruining other peoples lives'.
- Oh yeah.
- Did the US ever apologize to you
and to the Japanese? - Yes they did.
President Reagan signed an apology
to the Japanese people that were put into camps.
Gave us a stipend of $20,000
per person who was in the camp.
- Do you think it could happen now?
- Yeah, it could happen.
In fact, have you heard about American Army
going over to the Muslim countries to fight.
- No.
- Well they're doing that right now
and there's a lot of resentment against the Muslims.
It's a racial profiling that has to be stopped.
And in our community a group called the Dencial
are trying to make sure that that doesn't happen
to the Muslims like it did with the Japanese
during World War II. - That would be scary.
(soft music)
I'm speechless.
- Well it was really nice to meet you, Shokes.
I feel so sad for what happened to you.
- Well thank you.
- Thank you Shokes. - Oh you're welcome.
Thanks for coming and I enjoyed talking to you.
- Thank you very much.
- Hi, thanks for watching Kids Meet.
If you'd like to learn more,
check on the link down below.
(laughing)
- [Woman] Awesome, that was great.
All right, thank you so much, Shokes.