Photo: Kenji Kanazawa
“You didn’t meet your husband until after the war, is that right?” I asked.
“Yes. I was working with his twin, Kanemi at the Veterans Administration. At first I thought there was only one of them. Then when I met Kinji, I couldn’t tell them apart.” She gestured toward a photograph of the twins on the wall. “They died within four weeks of each other.” (Kinji Kanazawa died on October 8, 2003; his twin, Kanemi, died on November 1, 2003.)
She continued, “When Kinji came in my office so often I thought it was to visit his brother, now I know it was to see me. I had no interest in any serious relationship. I planned to work for the American Embassy in Tokyo. But, instead we fell in love and were married and that’s how I followed him to Boston.”
I told her I read that he was a very low-key man who worked hard to save the Moiliili Community Center from government confiscation during the war. “Yes,” she said. “He donated a lot of his services for the center, and Buddhist temples and any people or organizations that asked him for help. He would tell our son, Sidney, ‘You can’t make money practicing law.’ (Sidney is an attorney practicing on the mainland.) He told our children, ‘Try your best and do it with a good heart.’”
It was impossible not to hear Vice-Consul Olaf’s request that he needed to find an assistant “with a Red Cross heart” and realize that Shim and Kinji Kanazawa shared the same heart. I told her I read that her own mother told her that she would never be rich because she spent all her money on other people. Shim confirmed that fact. “But she told me that was ok because people appreciated what I did and they come first and that’s worth more than money.”
Shim spent a considerable amount of her own money to support her clients during the war. When women and children arrived from the Neighbor Islands with neither money nor a place to stay while waiting for ships to the mainland to join their husbands in internment camps, Shim put them up in the consulate building. She said, “We had futon and they slept on the floor.” But she also bought them winter clothes with her own money and supplied them with food she paid for herself. “My parents helped me,” she said. “My mother sent vegetables from Hawaii.”
Shim took out other photographs of herself. We had to move a porcelain soup tureen to spread them out on the dining room table . I commented on her hair style in a formal portrait of her. “I had my hair combed everyday.” She smiled. “Recently I met a woman and she asked if I knew how she was, and I did. She was my hairstylist during the war. With the position I had, I never knew who I was going to meet that day—it could be a general, the mayor or a family being sent to the mainland. I needed to be able to present myself to anyone at any time. Some days I came in and found out I was flying to a neighbor island to represent a family at a wedding or funeral.”
When I asked if she ever attempted to get permission for interned family members to attend funerals, she explained that the travel restrictions were on all Hawaii residents. “If any Japanese family member could not attend Buddhist rites, funerals or weddings and tradition demanded that they be present, if I could, I went in their place, and they saved family pride and were able to exhibit traditional honor.” As she answered, I was reminded of the impact and the importance of Shim being present at her own sister’s death.
And, as if marking a change of topic, Shim folded her hands on the table in front of her and went back to her account of the war. She looked at her hands as she spoke. “There were so many duties. When a Japanese citizen came in to the consulate to renounce his citizenship, I had to help them fill out the form, translating for them, and then send the form to Washington D.C. where they were sent to Japan. There were many who did not know how to fill out the forms they were required to. Once, a lawyer challenged me, asking if I were assuming legal responsibilities beyond my qualifications. And I told him I was doing in five minutes what some lawyers were charging destitute people ten dollars.”
I remarked that I assumed lawyer never brought up the topic again. She didn’t answer; she raised her head and looked at me. I believe there was a slight smile beginning to emerge when she continued her narration. “I had a good staff who supported me,” she said. “Mr. Ozaki was the consulate chauffer. The consulate limousine had a phone in it and a partition between me and the driver. It was difficult for me to become accustomed to what was afforded me. Sometimes, I felt like Lady Astor! Mr. Ozaki, the chauffer was a good man. Sometimes, I asked him to help me translate some of the more difficult kanji.” I asked what kinds of documents needed translation. “Almost all,” she answered. “The consulate issued family records, births, arrivals, spelling of names in Roman letters, marriages, adoptions, parentages, expatriations from Japanese nationality, filing of application for expatriation from Japanese nationality. Then later in the war, when local employers needed laborers and restrictions against hiring Japanese were relaxed, Japanese-American citizens were required to prove their Hawaii birth, or for proof of their expatriation from Japan in order to qualify for certain types of work in restricted areas.”
According to Shim, the consulate assumed the dual role of “angel of mercy” and “employment office.” She said, “We solicited aid from the American Red Cross, we acted as arbitrator in ironing out domestic difficulties, we assisted families in sending food, money, letters and gifts to internment camps and relocation centers on the mainland. All in all, it was not uncommon for us to be swamped from day to day.”
PHOTO: Overhead of Crystal City Camp. View looking east of the entire Crystal City WWII civilian internment camp. Smaller “E” in center is the Japanese Market. German Section lower left; L-shapped building is German School.” (Photo and caption from UTSA ITC archives.)
In 1945, the United States government asked Shim Ryusaki to accompany Japanese women and children who were moving to the Crystal City, Texas Internment Camp to be reunited with their husbands and fathers. “I couldn’t tell my mother I was leaving. Ship movements were top secret. The telephone in my office was tapped, I knew it. And part of the reason for that was that I discussed ship movements on the phone. I would be informed when internees would be sailing to the mainland, but I could never say anything. There were times I would be talking to the wife or daughter of a man I knew would be shipped out the following day, but I could never tell them.
“When I left for Crystal City, I didn’t know how long I would be gone. It ended up being a three month trip because the United States government sent me on a 34 state tour to thank me for all the services I provided.
“On the ship, I served as an interpreter and a facilitator. It was a frightening crossing. We were all afraid. The ship had no escort and we knew we were sailing through water where submarines were still lurking. We couldn’t put on a radio and the ship was blacked out. We made is safely to the coast, then on to the camp at Crystal City, Texas with no incidents. But when we arrived at the camp, the restrictions were such that I couldn’t enter; I had to leave the women and children at the gate.”
I asked if she experienced and “difficulty” or racial prejudice during her mainland travels and she said she didn’t. “The only comment anyone made to me about race was a man on a train in Wyoming who told me he knew I couldn’t be a mainland (U.S.) Japanese. He said something like, ‘I don’t know who you are but you don’t walk with your head down.’ Then he asked me if I was Mrs. Chaing Kai Shek.” She smiled. “I had been thought of as Mata Hari before, but never Mrs. Chaing Kai Shek.
A Department of Justice film, 1940's, addressed Crystal City. Live footage of the camp is included.
http://www.wow-tube.ru/view.php?video=WRfSHgdh2UA&feature=youtube_gdata&title=Crystal+City+Internment+Camp+1945
