StoryCorps 536: Little Kids, Big Problems
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Michael Garofalo (MG): When you’re a kid, the people you depend on most, the people you look to for safety and support, are adults. It’s a grown-up world and most of the time, kids really have no choice but to go along with the course charted by the adults around them.
This means that kids are subject to grown-up problems often in ways they can’t understand until much later in their lives.
Parents, teachers, caretakers of all kinds — they do their best to protect kids from the darker parts of the grown-up world, but sometimes the problems are so big that kids get swept up in them.
Roy Ebihara (RE): We saw the men were holding the oil torches coming across to where we lived. They were going to burn down everything.
James Hanover Thompson (JHT): I was nine years old; David was seven. The police car pulled up and they said, ”We’re taking y’all to jail.”
Ruben Aguilar (RA): I grew up when that happened. From six years old, all of a sudden I felt like I was 15.
In this episode of the StoryCorps podcast from NPR, we’ll hear what it’s like to be a kid caught up in a tangle created by adults. What does it look like from the kid’s point of view and how do they carry the things that happen to them into adulthood? I’m Michael Garofalo. We’ll be back after a short break.
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MG: Welcome back. We’ve got three StoryCorps interviews for you in this episode and they all come from people who as kids got caught up in big adult problems.
We’ll start with Roy and Aiko [EYE–CO] Ebihara [EBB–IH–HARRA]
In 1942, President Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 which authorized the internment of Japanese-Americans, like Roy and Aiko.
Roy was 8 years old then and he begins by describing the atmosphere in his hometown of Clovis, New Mexico in the weeks before his family was interned.
RE: A sheriff and two plainclothesmen barged into the house and searched for what they called contrabands. They took out my brother’s box camera, my father’s shortwave radio, and they took the ax to it and chopped everything up. My father never protested, never said a word. He just stood there. And one night, vigilante groups formed in town. We saw the men were holding the oil torches coming across to where we lived. They were going to burn down everything.
The state patrol came roaring in and told us quickly to gather up what we can in pillowcases and whatever can fit into the trunk of the car. I remember my sister Kathy my sister Mary and my brother Bill and I, the four of us were squeezed into the back seat of the sedan, and we left in the darkness of the night. We were all crying, and we couldn’t stop. It was just terrifying. And some months later, we were put into camps. Do you remember those times?
Aiko Ebihara (AE): I do remember getting on these Army trucks. I was probably 5 or 6 years old. I thought I was going on a vacation. Did you know that you were not going to return to your house again?
RE: No. I was 8 years old, and I really didn’t understand what this all meant and how it would affect our family. I guess I felt we were guilty of something but what, I didn’t know. When we were released, if we talked about some of these things, even at dinner table, we were silenced, especially by my father who said I don’t want to hear that. So you and I maintain that silence of our parents.
AE: Yeah, we regret it very much, yeah.
RE: You know, I just feel that I want to go back and accept that pride, that pride of who we are.
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MG: That’s Roy and Aiko Ebihara. In 2014, Roy and his family received a formal public apology from the mayor of Clovis, NM.
Next — we’ll hear from a Mexican-American who was deported in 1933.
It happened as part of a Mexican Repatriation Program, run by the U-S Government.
During the Great Depression, hundreds of thousands of people of Mexican descent were forcibly deported to Mexico without due process including many American citizens.
Ruben Aguilar (AG-ee-lahr) was born in the U-S, but was deported with his parents, who were undocumented. At the time, he was 6 years old.
Here, he tells his story to a friend, Bill Luna.
Bill Luna (BL): So you were born in Chicago?
RA: In Chicago.
BL: Now what happened when you were deported to Mexico?
RA: Well, when I was deported what I remember is the way that the agents crashed into the house. Okay people. Line up against the wall. We were put into the trucks, taken to the train station, and then shipped out.
I grew up when that happened. From six years old, all of a sudden I felt like I was 15.
BL: You hadn’t been to Mexico before then?
RA: Never. I could speak fluent English, but not Spanish.
BL: Now, how did you return to the U.S.? How did you come back here?
RA: I was an American citizen. So in 1945, I was drafted into the Army.
My father explained to me, he says, ”You got a little card from Chicago to join the United States Army. You’re going back to your country.”
So I took the bus to the United States. It stopped in Laredo before we take off for Chicago. And I asked the bus driver, ”Where is the washroom, sir?” And he said, ”Right around the corner.” So I go around the corner and I see a big sign, No Mexicans or dogs are allowed. And I said, Welcome back.
You know, it’s a funny thing, because when I talk about it, you know, it looks like yesterday. Those things, you never get rid of that.
BL: How do you want to be remembered Ruben?
RA: I want to be remembered as somebody got hurt by his country, came back to this country, and is going to die in his country.
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MG: Ruben Aguilar and Bill Luna in Chicago.
We’ll end with a story of how a kiss made civil rights history.
It happened in Monroe, North Carolina in 1958.
Two African-American children — James Hanover Thompson and his friend David Simpson were accused of kissing a girl, who was white.
They were arrested, and charged with rape and it became known around the world as ””The Kissing Case.”
Over time it was largely forgotten and the Thompson family rarely talked about it, but they did record this StoryCorps interview.
James Hanover Thompson sat down with his younger brother, Dwight, to talk about what happened.
JHT: We were playing with some friends over in the white neighborhood, chasing spiders and wrestling and stuff like that. One of the little kids suggested that one of the little white girls give us a kiss on the jaw. The little girl gave me a peck on the cheek and then she kissed David on the cheek. So, we didn’t think nothing of it. We were just little kids.
Dwight Thompson (DT): How old was you then?
JHT: I was nine years old; David was seven. Really didn’t hardly know what a kiss was. And, so, we went on home like nothing happened, you know?
And the next day, the police car pulled up and they said, ”We’re taking y’all to jail.” I didn’t know what was going on. But when we got down to the police station we understand that they said that we had raped a little white girl.
They uh took us down in the bottom of the police station to a cell. And they had us handcuffed — they started beating us. They was beating us to our body, you know? They didn’t beat us to the face where nobody could see it; they just punched us all in the stomach and back and legs. We was hollering and screaming. We thought they was gonna kill us.
And so we stayed in jail for six or seven days before our parents ever got a chance to see us. And they sent me to a psychologist. And I would go see that man. Every week, I had to go see him. He’d tell me, ”They should have castrated y’all.” I mean, it were just something.
DT: So how that make you feel now? I mean, how old are you now?
JHT: I’m 62 now.
DT: 62.
JHT: I still feel the hurt and the pain from it. And nobody never said, ”Hey, look, I’m sorry what happened to y’all. It was wrong.” And I always sit around and wonder if this hadn’t happened to me, you know, what could I have turned out to be? Could I have been a doctor? Could I have went off to some college or some great school? It just destroyed our life.
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MG: James Hanover Thompson with his younger brother, Dwight. Both James and the other child, David Simpson, were eventually pardoned by the governor of North Carolina.
That’s all for this episode. These stories were produced by John White, Jasmyn Belcher Morris, and myself. This episode of the StoryCorps podcast was produced by David Herman, and edited by me. As always you can find out what music we used on our website, StoryCorps-dot-org. If you ever want to leave a voicemail for someone you hear on the show, we have a number for that: it’s (301) 744 “TALK.” That’s 3-0-1 7-4-4 T-A-L-K.
Until next time, this has been the StoryCorps Podcast, and I’m Michael Garofalo. Thanks for listening.
