Soon after arriving there Bob signed up for a work furlough and went to harvest potatoes and sugar beets in Aberdeen, Idaho. “We had our truck and put all our stuff on it, drove down to Puyallup and unloaded.” In September, they were transferred to the Minidoka camp in southern Idaho. On May 15, 1942, the Mizukami family moved to the nearby temporary detention center in Puyallup on army orders. The War Relocation Authority eventually sold the property we didn’t have any place to come back to after the war.” May was the height of the bedding season, one of the biggest months in the greenhouse business. He graduated from high school in 1940.Īfter graduation Bob worked in the family greenhouse business: “Didn’t have much choice in those days.” When the army issued its exclusion orders in the spring of 1942, being the eldest son, he suddenly incurred the responsibility of registering the family with the authorities and preparing the household for the move to camp. He was interested in sports but was “too small for football, too short for basketball, and even too light to make the ninety-pound weight class in wrestling.” So he got involved in athletics by assisting the coaches as a student manager and earned his varsity letter three years running. Bob was a sophomore in high school and soon became a part of the high school crowd, attending classes and participating in extracurricular activities.

The Mizukami family moved from Renton to Fife in 1937. Today, he attends the Methodist Church just a block down the street from the Buddhist Church in his hometown of Fife, Washington. So we went to Sunday School and daily Vacation Bible School during the summer.” Bob was baptized in a Baptist Church in Seattle. Even though his father was Buddhist, “he believed that all of his kids should have some kind of religious training. He and Gordon’s younger brother, Ed, were best friends and together attended the Union Sunday School, festivals in the nearby urban centers of Kent and Auburn, as well as family picnics at Redondo Beach, Washington.Īfter returning to Renton, Bob attended a church where a Baptist preacher came from Seattle to give sermons. The Mizukamis lived and farmed in Thomas right next to cousin Gordon’s farm before moving back to Renton. Raised during the Depression, it seemed to Bob that the family was moving almost once a year. Gordon’s mother, Mitsu, served as an informal “go-between” in his parents’ betrothal. His mother, Isami, was the youngest sister of Gordon’s father, Shungo, and attended the academy Kensei Gijuku, before emigrating to America. Bob Taro Mizukami was born in 1922 in Star Lake in the hills above Kent, Washington.

Unlikely Liberators by Masayo Duus