Oral history interviews with Nadyne Yoneko Dozono [Sound Recording 18]

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SR976_T09S2

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Oral history interviews with Nadyne Yoneko Dozono [Sound Recording 18]

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  • 1998-01-30 (Creation)

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Audiocassette; 00:30:48

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Biographical history

Nadyne Yoneko Dozono, nee Yoneko Niguma, was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1915. Her family arranged for her to go to Japan in 1931, when she was a teenager, to obtain a two-year education in Japanese culture. In 1934, while still in Japan, she and Asazo Dozono were married, and they later had three children. She lived in Japan during World War II and considered herself a Japanese citizen. After the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United States in 1945, she worked with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, which studied the effects of radiation poisoning among the survivors. She returned to the United States with her oldest child in 1953, with Asazo Dozono and the other children following shortly after. In the U.S., she continued working as an interpreter for the Japanese Ancestral League, as well as occasionally for the FBI. She was active in the Veleda Nisei Women's Club and often spoke in public schools about Japanese culture. She died in 2013.

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Tape 9, Side 2. This oral history interview with Nadyne Yoneko Dozono was conducted by Clark Hansen at Dozono’s home in Portland, Oregon, from January 23 to February 5, 1998. The interview was recorded as part of the Japanese American Oral History Project, which was conducted by the Oregon Historical Society to preserve the stories of Japanese Americans in Oregon. The interview was conducted in seven sessions. In the fourth interview session, conducted on January 30, 1998, Dozono continues describing life in Japan during World War II. She also revisits the topic of her first child’s death during an epidemic. She talks about rationing and shortages, as well as being uninformed about U.S. government's incarceration of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps. She describes the information the Japanese government gave the citizenry about the war’s progress, the reaction of the people to Japan’s surrender, and the bombing of Okayama City, as well as the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. She talks about the aftermath of the war, including her husband losing his job due to his loyalty to the Japanese government, the American occupation, and revealing herself as an American citizen. She discusses her work as an interpreter for the American military; talks about the difficulty of explaining democracy to Japanese citizens; and shares stories about cultural misunderstandings between American troops and the Japanese population. She also talks about the changes that the U.S. made to Japan. She then discusses her work with the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission as an interpreter in Hiroshima; describes the effects of radiation sickness that she witnessed; and shares her opinion that the bombings were unnecessary. She closes the session by sharing a story about acting as an interpreter for Jean MacArthur, the spouse of U.S. General Douglas MacArthur).

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Copyright for this interview is held by the Oregon Historical Society. Use is allowed according to the following statement: Creative Commons - BY-NC-SA, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

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  • eng

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