Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Roger Shimomura Interview
Narrator: Roger Shimomura
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary); Mayumi Tsutakawa (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 18 & 20, 2003
Densho ID: denshovh-sroger-01-0009

RS: The fact is, when we got out of camp, and we went back to Seattle, one of our favorite games to play was "Kill the Jap." And right next to our back porch there was a sort of a play area. My dad had a lot of scrap lumber and we would rearrange that lumber to create these, sort of shelters that we sort of treated as shelters that would protect us from bombs that the Japs dropped on us. [Interruption] But John and I used to always play "Kill the Jap" together along with the, another family was the Masumoto family that lived up the street, and there were two boys, Bob and, Bobby and Richard. And Bobby was my age. And so Bobby and Richard and John and I used to always play "Kill the Jap." And of course we would always argue about who the Jap was gonna be, because none of us wanted to be the Jap. We all wanted to be John Wayne, you know, because John Wayne was the biggest Jap killer. And so I actually have a photograph of that, of all of us playing war and having, you know, helmets and guns and all that kind of stuff, and taking turns being the Jap.

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