Many Mountains Surrounding .::. Oral Histories - Joy Nozaki Gee, daughter of Kiyoshi "Semita" Nozaki

Page 23 Santa Fe Manuscript

Kiyoshi "Semita" NOZAKI Slide Show

Joy Nozaki Gee, daughter of Kiyoshi "Semita" Nozaki, was interviewed on February 2, 2002, at her home in Sacramento, California.

Joy Nozaki Gee, Tape 1 - Audio - 56k

    Gee's father, Kiyoshi Nozaki was a prolific writer.

    Mr. Nozaki earned a master's degree in literature from the University of Washington. He decided America was a great country in which to live.

    Mr. Nozaki wrote humorous stories about his failed attempts at manual labor.

    Rather than teaching English in Japan, Mr. Nozaki decide to teach Japanese in America. The family moved to Arroyo Grande.

    While imprisoned at New Mexican internment camps, Mr. Nozaki was well-liked and respected. Being in charge of supplies for the internees, he would issue himself new socks instead of washing them. When released to join his family at Crystal City, he arrived with a huge duffle bag filled with dirty socks.

    Mr. Nozaki invented many methods to catch rats at Crystal City.

    Mr. Nozaki loved to tell stories, watch baseball, and listen to the radio.

Joy Nozaki Gee, Tape 2 - Audio - 56k

    After her father was arrested, Gee became head of her household. She sold her family's possessions at bargain rates.

    Although both of her parents were on the FBI list, the local sheriff stopped her mother's arrest.

    After the war, the family went to Japan on the Matsonia. Upon arriving at Uraga, they found the living conditions deplorable.

    The family was forced to guard their possessions from cold and hungry refugees from the South Pacific. Money was worthless. They were fed rice husks. On the train leaving Uraga a Japanese soldier told Gee of war crimes.

    Mr. Nozaki was ahead of his time. He thought kimono were instruments of torture devised by men to control women.

    Before the war, the Nozaki's had amassed over $10,000 in savings. All assets were taken by the U.S. government.

    While Mr. Nozaki worked for a farmer while a graduate student, Gee enjoyed relative luxury living in I-house at Berkeley.

    After leaving Uraga, the family arrived in Kyoto and found work with the U.S. Occupation Forces.