Who's Who: Aileen Midori Yamate

Name: Aileen Midori Yamate

Age: 84

Occupation: Retired

Did you used to work at the Lawrence Hall of Science? Yes. I first started off in medicine at Stanford Medical School. From Stanford Medical school I was sent out . . . to Italy and presented to the Pope and received blessing from him in private order. That was my greatest accomplishment. From there I went over to Pompeii, having read books about the last days of Pompeii. I went with four doctors from Stanford Medical School as I was the one that was presenting the paper. I said, “I’m going to go to Pompeii,” and they said, “Good luck, that’s a quiet road by yourself.” Do you know what I found out? That’s where Peter was ousted from the Vatican. I, being a Japanese-American, was ousted from the American society and put in the American's concentration camp. And my father was taken to Missoula, Montana.

You were part of that? Yes. My father graduated from Stanford in 1920. When he came to America he asked for President Wilson, for the first peace treaty, “Is that a good school?”

And Wilson said, “You bet." And he says, "Are you going to apply?”

My father says, “Yes.”

And Wilson said, “I’ll remember you.”

By the time my father learned English here in America, he went to school in Monterey. Hiroshima and Monterey have very similar islands. Many of the people  who came to America (from Japan) went to Monterey because they had a seashore and a fishery. Hiroshima on my mother’s side is temple and my grandfather was a hospital. And they both got bombed. My grandfather even had a Red Cross sign on his hospital, but boom!

Were you there for that? No. I was in America’s concentration camp here in Topaz, Utah.

How old were you? Thirteen. And then we were ordered out of the country just a year before, because they said my parents were not here as immigrants, but we were here when my dad came to go to school. He was an international businessman. So they said, “You don’t have the right passport as an immigrant, so you cannot stay here. You have to go back.” All (the) consul general and all the members of the international business were going back. We couldn’t find my father. His business was in New Orleans and all the Southern states. We said, “If he is going to be on the ship, we will go back.” They said, “Well we cannot tell you.” So my sister says, “Alright, if you don’t want to tell us, we’re not going anywhere. Period!” My sister was the eldest.

You were separated from your father? Yes. There are four of us kids. My mother’s from the temple family and my grandfather from the other side is all doctors. When the war came, we were ordered out of the country.

You were all in the camp, your whole family? Yes. First we were all taken to an assembly center in Tanforan at the race track. ... They were putting us in there and putting our cots in there, and everyone was saying, “Oh god, there’s a smell.” And from there, they were building all these barracks in Utah and then in Arkansas and in Arizona. From there, we went to Utah.

And you have lived in Kensington for how long? Sixty years. My daughter, one of them teaches at UC Davis. The other one works at Bank of America. She’s doing online marketing. My granddaughter, she’s an interesting one. She is half Estonian and half Japanese. People will ask her, “What are you?” “JAPANESE!” she says. “But you are awfully light for a Japanese,” they say. “I’m a Japanese!” she says.

On the West Coast, I work with Young Audiences. Have you heard of Young Audiences? We bring music to the school children. I put in all these hours and then I was Marian Anderson’s hostess!

Marian Anderson, the famous singer? Yes! Of course.

And what are your hobbies? What do you like to do for fun? Besides jitterbugging and playing the piano, violin and Japanese koto, I’m into music. Sometimes I play on the piano over here.