Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Yasashi Ichikawa Interview I
Narrator: Yasashi Ichikawa
Interviewer: Tomoyo Yamada
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: October 16, 1999
Densho ID: denshovh-iyasashi-01-0029

<Begin Segment 29>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: So everybody was gathered at the church. For the first time... on December 7th.

YI: On that day, there was some special event at the temple. So many people gathered there. Then somebody said, "A war just broke out." We were all surprised. Everybody was surprised. Some did not believe it. They insisted it was a lie. [Laughs]

TY: What did you think?

YI: So nobody thought a war would break out.

TY: That's how you learned the news for the first time?

YI: Uh-huh.

TY: What did you think when you heard the news?

YI: Well, I don't think about things like that. Then we had a blackout. All the lights would go out. It was dangerous to use a light. So when Shinya was born, we could not use a light. The midwife had to lower the light to here, and that's how he was born.

TY: I understand it was two days after the war broke out. I heard that he was born two days after the war started.

YI: That's right. It was December seventh in this country. He was born on the ninth.

TY: In the dark.

YI: [Laughs] In the pitch dark. A woman said, "He is Shinya because he was born in shinya. Shinya means "in the depth of night" in Japanese. Though the two words use different Chinese characters. I might have thought of that (when I named him).

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.