Peter Ota & Betty Basye Hutchinson

Peter Ota:

When Peter was a kid, he lived in the barracks with no privacy. Through most of his childhood, he lived in a prison camp in Colorado during the war. During the war people with a Japanese ancestry were taken away from their homes and had to be taken to internment camps. This was because people were afraid they were spies for Japan or were disloyal to America. At the camps, Ota said school was a joke in the year that he lived in the camps. He had multiple jobs there, but he was paid almost nothing. When he was old enough, he was drafted into the army which was ironic because he was fighting for the United State’s freedom when he himself was not able to use his freedoms. He realized when he was older that the internment camp were basically his home because he spent most of his childhood there. He was discouraged with the Japanese culture and Ota said, “When war ended, I believed there was no other way but to be American.” He did not want to stand out anymore; he just wanted to be accepted for his heritage. I think he gave up in trying to express his love for his ancestry because every time he tried, he was discouraged by being forced to move into a prison camp. Sometimes, he felt that he had to prove that he was an American even though he was an ex-GI and a U.S. citizen. Because of all of his experiences, he eventually became very American and blended into the community and social standards.

Betty Basye Hutchinson:

Betty Basye Hutchinson had a distinct memory when she found out about the bombings at Pearl Harbor. She first heard about it a week after it happened. She was at a nursing school and Japanese girls were leaving the school. She was very confused and soon there were no Japanese students there. She was not certain about what happened, but she thought that if Roosevelt approved it, everything would end up okay. Many nurses at that time joined the war to help the injured soldiers. When Hutchinson went into the army, she was struck by the horror of the soldier’s injuries. She worked at the plastic surgery section and she was not instructed on how to deal with patients who had very serious injuries. After a while, she got used to it. Hutchinson said that it was very common for a wife to separate from a soldier if their injury was very severe. This was a bad time because the soldier would need the most support  when something horrible happened to them. There was a rule that nurses were not able to date enlisted men, but she remembered instances when this rule was broken. One distinct memory she had was the day that V-J Day occurred when she was working at the hospital. It stood for the Victory over Japan Day. This was the day when the Japanese surrendered during World War II. This surrender ended the war against Japan. The United States was very excited that the war was over and they were able to bring in troops after that day. Hutchinson moved to Pasadena for surgeries after that day. Many people in that village were staring at the soldiers who had wounds like they did not even understand that a war was happening. Once people came home from the war, it was not unusual if people were reluctant to tell stories about the war. The war was very horrific and the soldiers did not want to relive those memories.