Noboru Yoshimura grew up in a small town near the Sacramento River in California. Having lost his father at a young age, Yoshimura was raised by his mother, a picture bride who had left her hometown of Wakayama, Japan, to marry. When the elder Yoshimura died suddenly in his early 40s, Yoshimura's mother took her four sons ranging in age from one to six back to Japan. Being so young, Yoshimura picked up Japanese very quickly and was soon attending school and playing with Japanese children. Still, he yearned to return to the place of his birth:
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I thought that I had a better chance in the United States than in Japan. In Japan, tenant farmers' descendants almost always remained as tenant farmers' descendants. You very seldom had a chance to elevate yourself in your position or financially become successful....
<br><br>I think it was the individual desire, I just developed that desire to drive forward, and I just didn't want to be the second best. I just wanted to be the best. That has been all throughout my life.
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<br><br>Thus, at the age of 13, he left for the United States on his own. Yoshimura was detained at Angel Island for immigration processing. He remembers the overnight stay in the detention barracks as being similar to a prison:
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It was like a jail where you had no freedom of movement...the island is so small you had no other place to go....We couldn't go anywhere until I was completely cleared and verified that I was an American citizen.
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<br><br>Yoshimura stayed with his father's friend and his family for a total of four years. During that time he attended school, starting out as a first grader and relearning the alphabet at the age of 13.
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By the time I came back I was totally conversant in the Japanese language and I forgot the English language. So when I came back I had to start all over again learning the English language....That was a more difficult adjustment than when I was taken back to Japan by my mother. It was really difficult.
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<br><br>Later, upon his uncle's suggestion, Yoshimura trained to become a barber and eventually opened his own shop in San Francisco. He enjoyed a successful business for only a few years until his draft notice came in March 1942. A few days after he left for Fort MacArthur, Japanese Americans were evacuated from San Francisco under Executive Order 9066. Yoshimura recalls times when he was called a "Jap" prior to the Pearl Harbor attack, but the name-calling increased twofold when the evacuations began.
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Now the word Jap is used, we just become infuriated. But in those days, when we were called Japs, we just had to grin and bear it. Nothing else we could do. I don't recall any instance when I fought back. They look at my face and call me a Jap but I just didn't say anything. There wasn't anything that we could do.
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<br><br>Yoshimura reported to Camp Savage for Military Intelligence Service Language School (MISLS) despite not having volunteered out of his own accord. In fact, he did not know that his transfer would mean becoming part of the MIS: "It was another conscription. I didn't have any choice in the matter and in the military, of course, an order from higher up is what you have to obey."
<br><br>Serving in the Southwest Pacific, Yoshimura fell under heavy fire--not only from the enemy but also from U.S. soldiers who mistook him for the enemy. After one such incident, the commanding general issued an order to provide bodyguards for the Nisei linguists. Though the linguists were considered noncombatants, as Yoshimura comments, "When we were shot at we had to shoot back, so we were carrying paratroopers carbines with hand grenades and ammo to go with it." In addition to the weapons, he carried dictionaries and other necessary materials to conduct his duties.
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I spent 13 weeks in New Guinea jungles....At times fellow Americans would carry my pack for me. They felt kind of sorry for me because I was physically so small. They were very nice to me after getting to know them....I was loaded with documents all the time....
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<br><br>Yoshimura and the other MIS men worked hard to get Japanese stragglers out of caves. Many of them surrendered and expressed surprise at seeing a Japanese face in U.S. military uniform.
<br><br>After the war, Yoshimura spent more than eight years on military tours around Japan. Among his duties were censoring foreign correspondence and monitoring the Japanese media for "anything that would discredit General Headquarters and Gen. MacArthur." Years after the war, he found out that his three brothers who had all remained in Japan served in the Japanese armed forces.
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