Paul Tashiro is from Japan and in 1945, he wanted to die for the emperor.
He was 13 years old and Japanese children were taught that to die for their country was the highest honor. Japan was in a fight with the United States then, so Tashiro volunteered and began flight school to train as a kamikaze pilot. On Aug. 15, 1945, Japan surrendered, World War II ended and Tashiro was sent home.
“I never flew,” the 81-year-old said last week. “I’m an unsuccessful kamikaze pilot.”
Things worked out well for Tashiro, though it took a while.
Today he is the president of the board of the Japan-America Society of Mississippi. The non-profit group was formed in 2002, just before a Nissan plant opened in Canton. Its purpose, Tashiro said, is to nurture relationships between Japan and Mississippi. Also, for Japanese workers in the state, the society aims to “do anything we can to make their life comfortable in Mississippi.”
With the Yokohama Tire Corporation having broke ground on a Clay County manufacturing plant that will open in two years, Tashiro is speaking to Rotary Clubs through the Golden Triangle. He is speaking to the Columbus group at Lion Hills on Tuesday. Yokohama has joined the Japan-America Society of Mississippi. Tashiro’s message will be that any individual, corporation or business entity can, as well.
His personal story is interesting, too.
Tashiro remembers riding the train home after the atomic bombs fell on Japan and he had been discharged. There were no jobs or schools when he got home. He couldn’t find his family and thought they were dead. A year and a half later he learned they were living in the countryside.
“But it was too late,” he said.
By then, Tashiro had joined a Yakuza group, essentially a Japanese version of the Mafia. His first job was to push drugs on American soldiers because, he said, they had money. He was also a pimp. In that role, he learned to speak English.
One day in east Tokyo, when he was 16 and still known as Yukio Tashiro, he found a large tent with people beneath it. He could understand the English they were speaking and he stepped inside to listen. It was an evangelical meeting and by the end of it, Tashiro said, “I had given my life over to Jesus Christ.”
He spent some time working as an interpreter for Christian missionaries in Japan. They went city to city for months at a time.
In 1969, he moved to the United States and eventually earned a PhD in religion. He spent 16 years as a preacher in Kentucky before moving to Mississippi to teach at the Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson. He taught there for 24 years. Today, he is a professor emeritus.
He and his wife moved to Kentucky last year, but he is frequently in Mississippi. He is pastor of a Japanese Methodist church in Jackson.
Tashiro said he is always looking to bridge any gap between Japanese people and Mississippians with the society. What drives him, he said, is his Christian faith and remembering how, as a child, he was taught that Americans were “devils.”
“When I moved here, I realized Americans are human beings, too,” he said. “It’s just learning about each other.”
Tashiro’s appearance is open to Rotarians and their guests only.
William Browning was managing editor for The Dispatch until June 2016.
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