<Begin Segment 34>

TI: Okay, so what I next want to do is, so during these weeks before people were removed, this was a time when you decided to get married. And I wanted to understand how that all happened, because prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, were you planning to get married right away? Is this kind of your thinking?

HH: Yes, when the evacuation was already announced, then we did get, Shizuko, she did have an engagement party announcing engagement among her own friends in Seattle.

TI: Well, before you even get there, how did the two of you decide to get married? Did you ask her to get married, or how did that happen?

HH: No, we did have idea before, but with the evacuation being announced and everything, we thought, well, it's better, on her birthday. And then on my birthday, September, see, hers is March, she announced the engagement and also then we can get married in September on my birthday. This is about the, or in September. So this is just before...

TI: So the original plan was to sort of announce the engagement on her birthday, but to get married later on in September on your birthday.

HH: Yes.

TI: That was the original plan.

HH: Yes.

TI: Okay, then what happened?

HH: Well, then as they went into March or after that, they started announcing the Western military command, General DeWitt, commander, he announced the evacuation. But before the evacuation, they had a travel restriction imposed that you could only go five miles. So that meant that it would be hard for us to keep in touch with each other after that.

TI: Because at this point, you were in Tacoma, is that why?

HH: Yes, I did go back eventually, I left working for Jimmy, and then I went back to help my dad because my dad, being an alien, he was having difficulty getting supplies for the grocery store. So I went back even though my brother was there, but I did go back to help him.

TI: So let me make, so this, I want to make sure I understand this. So at the time you made your original plans to get married, this was before DeWitt had issued the orders that people would be removed from the West Coast. At that point, so when you were making plans and you were helping your dad with the store, did you think that the Japanese Americans would be removed from places like Tacoma, or did you think that you would stay there throughout the war?

HH: I think most everybody thought that there would not be mass movement of all. In fact, maybe if there were a possibility of evacuation, in fact, we thought that, well, it'll just be just maybe a month or so and then we'll be all coming back. But if not, at least the Nisei, we have citizenship, that it will split the family, but we thought that maybe just for the Japanese nationals or our parents, Issei, might be detained for a short while, but things won't change. We just didn't believe that evacuation would actually happen.

TI: So it made sense for you to go back to Tacoma, start helping your dad with the store, worst case, maybe he might be taken away, but you could probably take care of the store. But you had to go back there and help get more supplies into the store. So you thought that it was going to be an ongoing concern, that it was going to keep going on.

HH: Yes, because being a small grocery store, he couldn't get credit because the Japanese nationals, their funds, I think some of the businesses were frozen, I think. So I think it was hard for them to get credit, so everything had to be done by cash.

TI: And then the orders started coming out, and in fact, I think Bainbridge Island was the first one, and when you heard about that, what did you and the others think at that point?

HH: We were surprised that why are they, were the first ones to be taken out? Maybe because... oh, I got no idea there, but to be evacuated to California, Manzanar.

TI: Right.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.