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Oral history interview with Masaji Kusachi

 Digital Record
Identifier: SR 988

Summary

Digitized audio recording of interview with Masaji Kusachi (born Masaji Imai, 1903-1986) conducted in 1986, with abridged English transcript (49 pages). Kusachi discusses his early life in Okayama, Japan, and his reasons for joining his father in the United States in 1919. He discusses his marriage to Haruko Faye Kusachi in 1930, talks about being adopted by the Kusachi family as a yoshi (a Japanese practice in which a man becomes a family's eldest son through marriage), and speaks about the work he did in his home of Dee, Oregon. He shares his experiences after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, and describes living conditions at the Portland Assembly Center and the Tule Lake incarceration camp in California. He talks about Haruko F. Kusachi’s death from cancer during their incarceration, then discusses his experience as the sole caregiver for his seven children while incarcerated at the Minidoka camp in Idaho. He talks about returning to Dee after the end of the war, and describes the state of his property. He talks about his involvement in the Hood River Japanese Society, and discusses his feelings about becoming a U.S. citizen.

Repository Details

Part of the Oregon Historical Society Research Library Repository

Contact:
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Portland OR 97205 United States
5033065204
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