Feb 3, 2011 Chicago-Sun Times
Kinji Sugano (Poston camp 1) was shy and quiet, the type of guy who might drift into a room and drift out again without people taking any notice. It was their loss. For family and friends, he would and could do anything, whether it was repairing a refrigerator, refurbishing an old chest, fixing a leaky pipe or providing chauffeur service.
“I remember when I was in high school I asked my dad if he could take me and my friends to a concert in South Bend,” said daughter Edna Sugano. “Well, we got there when the parking lot gate opened, around noon, and he waited until the concert was over at 10:30. I don’t know what he did in the car for all that time, but he was right there when we came out.”
Daughter Doris Derbick recalls the time when she and her friends were stranded in suburban Olympia Fields after a cheerleading event. He drove down from the North Side in his Pontiac Catalina and “12 or 14 of us crammed into the car,” she said, adding, “This was before the seat-belt law.”
He asked the girls where they lived and drove each of them home. This was done, as with most things he did, without complaint.
Mr. Sugano died Jan. 22 of complications following surgery. He was 76.
Mr. Sugano worked 33 years as a repairman for White-Westinghouse (later Frigidaire). “He was proud that he worked for such a big company,” said his wife, Kimie.
A secure job gave Mr. Sugano the stability that always had seemed to elude him.
“He had a rough life,” said Roy Akune, his brother-in-law.
When Mr. Sugano was 8 years old, his family — and all Japanese Americans living on the West Coast — were sent to internment camps after war broke out in 1941. The family was separated, with Mr. Sugano, his mother and two brothers and sister, going to (Poston camp I) Arizona and later Texas. Mr. Sugano’s father, however, was initially sent to Tule Lake, Calif., a camp reserved for those the U.S. government deemed disloyal.
After the war, Mr. Sugano’s father took the family to Japan, a country that young Kinji had never seen. Then 12, he was put into the fifth grade even though he could neither read nor write Japanese. He was bullied by classmates because he was illiterate and because he was an American.
The postwar years in Japan were harsh, with the economy in ruins and food scarce. Later, Mr. Sugano was sent to Tokyo to live with relatives.
In the early 1950s, Mr. Sugano returned to America. For a while he worked as a farmhand. “The lady was really mean,” Akune said. “She would only feed him squash. Kinji came to hate squash.”
Eventually Mr. Sugano made his way to Chicago and was drafted into the Army, spending 1957-59 in Korea at the DMZ. Back home again, he took a course in air conditioning and refrigeration maintenance. It proved a wise decision. He was never out of work and there were occasional perks.
“He came home one day and said he fixed the refrigerator at Ernie Banks’ house,” his wife said. Mr. Sugano also got Banks’ autograph.
Mr. Sugano loved sports, especially the Cubs and Bears. But he was also an athlete. A picture taken at the internment camp shows a shoeless 11-year-old dressed in a baseball uniform, his bat poised to take a healthy swing. Later, he would take up golf and win his share of tournaments.
Mr. Sugano spent his retirement doing favors for family and friends — and indulging his grandchildren. His daughter Edna said her father took 4-year-old granddaughter Mika to an arts and crafts store to buy some little items to decorate an ornament.
“She came home with 14-carat gold beads,” Edna said. “They cost $150.”
But the grandchildren were content just sitting on the couch with him, laughing and joking and watching “SpongeBob: SquarePants.”
“He was so clever and the most patient man you would ever hope to meet,” Doris said.
Other survivors include sister Sumire (Sugano) Maruta; brother Katsushi Sugano; son-in-law James Derbick; granddaughters Jamie, Megan and Julia Derbick, and sister-in-law Yoshiko Sugano.
