Interviewed by Charles Zhong (CZ), Leonard Chan (LC), and Philip Chin (PC)

General Questions

LC: Thank you for doing this interview with us, Gary. For our readers, please give us a very short introduction about who you are and some of the things you’ve done and experienced in your life.

I am now 85 years old, a Sansei, who is called a ‘Survivor’ of one of ten World War II Concentration Camps scattered throughout the USA. The camp my Ono and Okamura families were interned is named Amache, which is near Granada, Colorado.

I obtained an Associate of Arts degree in Photography from City College of San Francisco, so when I was drafted into the US Army, the Military Occupation Specialty (MOS) assigned was as a Photographer and I served at the Walter Reed Medical Center, Washington, DC, as a Medical Photographer for 1-year and as a Journalist Photographer for 1-year at a US Army base in Uijongbu, Korea. After, I worked over 40-years for the UC San Diego Medical School and the VA Healthcare System as a supervisory Medical Photographer until I retired. During that period, I was encouraged and supported by my dear wife, Sachiko Carol (Baba) to get my BA degree in Photography, Film and TV at California State University Northridge.

I produced a video, “Calling Tokyo,” with Janice D. Tanaka and Sreescanda Subramonian about what my father, Sam Masami Ono, did during World War II.

I volunteered at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo as a photographer and have written 20 essays about my family’s history for their Discover Nikkei Website, JANM.org.

CZ: What are your most vivid memories of the Amache as a child?

Being only 3 to 5-years-old in Amache, my memories include walking across the athletic field from our barrack in 10E to the Amache High School with one of my uncles to an event being held in the HS Auditorium, seeing snow falling outside our barrack window, falling on a small snowman my brother built, being scared by stray dogs that wandered into our camp, jumping into a ditch berm to escape a dog, being in dust storms, and seeing the variety of small wildlife in the camp surrounding.

CZ: Did your parents ever talk about what they thought of FDR during that time, considering his leadership during the Depression but also his Executive Order 9066? Did your family ever have disagreements over complying with government orders or resisting them?

I don’t recall any discussions by them of our country’s leadership or politics.

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(During internment, Ono’s grandfather, Suyeichi Okamura, was separated from the rest of the family. His family wrote repeated pleas to the government requesting him to be reunited with them but received no response.)

CZ: That moment when the government didn’t reply to your grandmother’s plea for Suyeichi’s release stood out to me. Do you recall any specific stories relating to that uncertainty and anxiety due to the lack of response?

I didn’t have any ‘moment’ of time when there wasn’t any response because all of what I based my recollection of any exchange of communications was based on the physical documents NARA (National Archives and Records Administration) provided me in response to my request for any documents relating to my grandfather’s separation from his family. There was no communication document from the Government.

My mother had terrible experiences. She was separated from us. Her children returned back to Amache, while she was in quarantine with TB in a Boulder, Colorado, Sanitarium for over half a year. She didn’t want to talk about camp but rather place the subject on the shelf. She did tell me, when I asked her directly, “What were you doing on your Birthday, Dec. 7, 1941?” I wrote an essay, “A Sunday Drive - Mommy’s Birthday” on JANM.org Discover Nikkei website.

CZ: What were some challenges you faced finding documents relating to your family and incarceration?

I got almost 200 dollars worth of documents from NARA and some letters from Okamura family asking for Suyeichi’s release. I also got documents of Suyeichi being transferred to different DOJ camps, till he ended up in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

CZ: To what extent did the reparation money help your family and Japanese Americans as a whole rebuild their lives?

I used my reparation money to go to London and Tokyo to do research for my documentary, “Calling Tokyo: Japanese American Radio Broadcasters During WWII.”

One uncle bought a new car!

CZ: Do you see any ties between Japanese Internment and current day mass deportations? Do you fear history is repeating itself?

In essence, because there is no due process allowed before the action of deportation and incarceration for the American Japanese or the immigrants to America, which are a violation of the US Constitution, criminal history is being repeated.

CZ: Now that it is a National Park, how has Amache been impacted by the funding cuts of the current administration?

My grandson, Salvador ‘Chava’ Masami Valdez-Ono and I attended the 50th Pilgrimage Anniversary, May 16, 2025 and the National Park Service had two park rangers there to help host guests to Amache. The National Park Service helps maintain the roadways, two barracks, the water and guard towers and guidepost and signage and the historically well-preserved cemetery.

Questions About Calling Tokyo a Documentary by Gary Ono

(Calling Tokyo is Gary Ono’s documentary about Japanese Americans broadcasting war propaganda against Japan. Ono’s father was one of the Japanese Americans recruited from the internment camps to broadcast propaganda.)

CZ: What inspired you to create Calling Tokyo?

I met one of the former OWI (Office of War Information) radio broadcasters, Chiyo Wada, the only woman broadcaster and she told me about my father’s and BPWM (British Political Warfare Mission) and her whole OWI story and gave me contact information of all her former (6) OWI coworkers. I contacted Gish Endo, who was my father’s co-broadcaster with the British Political Warfare Mission with two others, George Dote and Frank Hattori.

CZ: When and how was this information publicly disclosed, since previously this program was supposed to be kept a secret?

Well after the war and when I started work on “Calling Tokyo,” the former broadcasters felt comfortable talking about their “secret World War II Work.” That was about 1997.

CZ: Both the United States and Japan used radio broadcasts to the other side for propaganda purposes. How effective was the psychological warfare from either side? What were the reactions of civilians in Japan who could access the broadcast?

There’s a book titled, “You Can’t Fight Tanks With Bayonets,” by Allison B. Gillmore that might answer your question and a book about Frank Shozo Baba being translated, “The Man Who Helped Establish the Broadcast Industry of Japan,” in Japanese by Kiyoshi Ishii. Baba went to Japan after World War II ended.

CZ: What specific measures were set in place to enforce that the broadcasters were on task? Were there any punishments?

Sounded like working conditions were respectful and not forced. They also got paid well. Two hundred dollars per month was great in the 40s.

CZ: Do you think the stories of people doing secretive wartime work to prove their loyalty and then rebuilding their lives was used to feed into the model minority myth?

I think it helped to foster the model minority myth as opposed to other ethnics groups that are more outwardly vocal in expressing their displeasure for being unfairly mistreated.

Even the younger generation Asians wondered why the Issei and Nisei were so compliant. Many were angry at JACL leadership for encouraging cooperating with US Government order to evacuate and relocate.

CZ: Why do you think this story is less known compared to others in Japanese American history, such as the 442nd?

Perhaps because the OWI and the BPWM told their broadcasters not to talk about what they were doing.

Concluding Question

PC: One of the high school classes I sat in on, when I was a student teacher, had a former concentration camp survivor talking to the students. One of the things I wish I could go back in time to ask is, “What lasting message, from your experience, would you want to say to generations after the last survivor of your experience has passed on?”

I personally think that the US government failed to follow the due process, the Japanese Americans were entitled to, but I also see their dilemma, that many of the Japanese were still citizens of Japan, a county they were at war with. I think the Japanese culturally behaved as their characteristic nature kicked in.

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Thank you again for doing this interview with us. We truly appreciate it.