Barry Saiki grew up in the Sacramento Valley in Stockton, Calif. While he studied economics at the University of California, Berkeley, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.
With only one semester left before graduation, Saiki returned from his winter vacation in Stockton to UC Berkeley hoping to finish school. However, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066, the FBI picked up his father for questioning in Stockton and Saiki decided to return home. He took his finals at the College of the Pacific (now University of the Pacific) and received his diploma.
The Army moved Saiki and his family into a temporary assembly center. For the third and final time, the FBI came to the assembly center to pick up his father. Saiki remembers the incident well:

> [We] went to our barracks and about an hour later, a car pulled up with two FBI agents, had my father, said, he could take only one suitcase.... They pulled him out of this camp and took him to a special internment camp. [Uncommon Courage]

From Stockton, his family went to Rowher Detention Camp in Arkansas where Saiki worked on the newspaper and taught high school for one year. On the advice of a childhood friend, he left Rowher for Chicago and found work at a machine factory. Living in Chicago changed his draft status, and the military called him for service.
The Army sent him to Camp Beeler, Ga., and he trained in an integrated unit. Of the 1,000 men in the battalion, only 17 were Japanese American. Surprisingly, his commanding lieutenant recommended him and two other Nisei for Officer Candidate School (OCS).
Saiki did his basic training in Camp Beeler, Ga., officer training in Fort Benning, Ga., and then trained troops in Fort McClellan, Ala. By that time, the war had come to an end, and the military needed officers who had language ability in Italian, German, or Japanese. Saiki signed up and went to Tokyo to work for the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC).
While Saiki trained with the Army, his parents received a letter from a retired Air Force captain. The captain explained that a Japanese interpreter in Chofu, Japan told him he had family in the United States, and the captain decided to try to get in touch with them. That interpreter was Saiki's brother.
On his second day in Tokyo, by sheer luck, Saiki received a chance to go to Chofu, Japan. When he arrived, he asked around for his brother. He recalls walking into an office and seeing his brother working with an American officer:

> I walked in and he looks at me and I looked at him. He stands up and walks towards me, leaving the center of the room. This lieutenant is looking at us and he (brother) said, "Is that you?" And I said, "Is that you?" And I said, "Yes." And the lieutenant says, "Hey, what's going on here?"... So I said, "Oh, he's my brother." And he (the lieutenant) says, "Yeah, yeah. He said he had relatives. Why don't you go in the mess hall and have a coffee." That's how I met [him] on the second day in Japan. [Uncommon Courage]

Later he took his brother to the American Consulate so he could return to the United States to see their family. The woman working for the consulate asked him if he voted in the election or served in the Japanese Army, and he replied no. In response to the last question, "Did he sign up for Japanese citizenship?" Saiki's brother answered "yes." Saiki remembers the scene:

> They took the [United States] passport and tore it up and put it in the garbage can. And I said, "What does that mean?" And she said, "That means he lost his citizenship." [Uncommon Courage]

Seven years later, their mother went to Japan to bring her son home. She brought the case to court and won. Finally, after over a decade in Japan, his brother was allowed to return to the United States reuniting the family.
Wartime devastation left many people homeless and hungry, and everywhere Saiki went he saw how difficult it was for Japanese civilians to survive:

> Just before I dumped my powdered egg into the garbage can, there's a young kid standing there.... He saw the piece of omelet, put his hand into my tray, you know, and I ate it right in front of me. And I thought, gee, this guy's a nut, you know. But then I went back there and I asked the kid, "What are those women doing there?" He said, "They're waiting for garbage."... I went up to them and said, "What are you going to do with that can, when you get that?" They take it home, make a fire and warm it up and eat it. They're eating the garbage. [Uncommon Courage]
> There was a moat that surrounds the Imperial Palace grounds.... Ken and I were walking and we saw this guy, this old man fishing. And a couple of kids also were fishing. And I said to the man, "What are you fishing for?" "I'm fishing for Imperial carp." "Did you catch any?" He said, "No. I don't catch anymore." "But," he says, "Before the war ended, if anybody was caught standing here, even thinking of fishing, he would have been arrested." "But," he says, "After we lost the war, a period of time passed, everybody around here came over here to fish. And the fish of this moat saved a lot of people, you know. We fished out the moat. [Uncommon Courage]

During the time immediately after the war, Saiki helped Occupation forces by maintaining contacts with newspapers, police, and other informants. In 1948 he returned to the United States but decided to reenlist for another three years.
This time he worked in the Counterintelligence Corps (CIC) and helped Occupation officials investigate various espionage cases from Korea, China, and the Soviet Union. When Japan and the United States signed a peace treaty giving Japan independence, the espionage cases were handled by the Counter Intelligence Agency and Saiki worked with that organization for one year. Finally in 1966, the Army discharged him and he returned to civilian life.
His opportunities to work during the Occupation opened doors to employment in a Japanese public relations firm for many years:

> It [the Occupation] opened the road for many Nisei.... They were in Japan and they worked for the military and they worked for the Occupation.... There were many Nisei, MIS people, who later became foreign-service officers who worked for the U.S. Consulate in Japan.... And so in a way, the war created a situation that was bad for Japan. At the same time, it opened avenues for Nisei in other occupations, something that they would not have done if there hadn't been a war. [Uncommon Courage]

Saiki, Barry - Bio.doc
Scott Hoshida Page 3 4/4/03