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AI: Well, now I'd like to take us to the fall of 1940. Because you mentioned you had a lot of changes in your family at that time. I think you mentioned that your mother went to Japan for a visit, in the fall of 1940?

SH: Yes. My mother -- having never been back to Japan after leaving there -- went for a visit right after Thanksgiving of 1940. And she was... my dad died while my mother was in Japan, and it so happened that it was... he died on December 31st, morning of December 31st, which is New Year's Day in Japan. And, my family friends hesitated to send a wire saying my dad passed away to my mother, see. But he said we'd better do that, let her know, make plans to come back. She hadn't planned to come back right away. But because of the threat of war at that time and everything, she couldn't come back right away. It was end of February before she was able to come back. For two months she couldn't come back, and my dad passed away. We held a funeral and I embalmed his body, until she came back. And then we had to do funeral rites for my... they did such a good job, it just looked like the day he died. And my mother was real happy that I had... didn't have a funeral and like most funerals, they were all cremation. So, I was the head of the family, I had two younger sisters. And, we managed, thanks to the neighbors and good friends, and until my mother did come back.

AI: Well, so at that time, you already knew there was the threat of war.

SH: There was talk, there was talk. War didn't start until nineteen... let's see, December 7, 1941. That right? '41, yeah. This was in the spring of '40, so it was a year... there was some talk going on at that time.

AI: Do you remember how you heard about Pearl Harbor? What you were doing, how you heard about it?

SH: Oh, I sure do remember that. Came over -- we had no TV, of course. We had a, I had a small radio, shortwave radio, and I think it was eight o'clock Sunday morning -- and it came over the radio. And then, just about that time my neighbor came over and tell me, "Hey, did you hear what happened?" And I said, "Yes, I heard." He said, "We're in trouble." Sure as heck it was, because we had to leave. There was nothing we could do. Right away we were limited. A curfew was put on all persons of Japanese ancestry, and we couldn't travel over 5 miles from our home. And, I think it was from six to six, the hours, daytime that we couldn't be out after dark. If you're living in Bellevue we couldn't go to Seattle, had to get a special permit to go to Seattle.

[Interruption]

AI: Well, you were telling us that soon after Pearl Harbor there were restrictions put on your movement, as Japanese, Japanese Americans, and curfew. How did this affect your farming?

SH: As you know, being war started December, farming, there was no farming being done when the war started. But we weren't evacuated until May. The Bellevue area was mid-May, and the government told us to keep farming like you were, right along, keep farming, do everything you do, preparations from December. And we had planted in the plants in the greenhouse, we bought the seed and fertilizer, spring came along and we start to plant. And just about everybody -- I don't know of any that didn't -- we were hoping against hope that we wouldn't be evacuated. So, we planted like it was going to stay... I did. And just about everybody did. I never heard anybody that didn't start their farm like I did. But it was mid-May before we left. We left our... Bellevue left a little later than the rest of the areas, surrounding area.

AI: Before we get into the actual leaving, I wanted to also back up and ask you, even at the time that you first heard about Pearl Harbor, you mentioned that you thought, "Oh, we're in trouble now." Can you say a little bit about that?

SH: My reason for thinking that is, is that they could pick us out so easily. And, so we would be associated with the Japan, who would be the enemy to the Caucasian people in the whole country. That I figured that there would be some adverse, hoping it wouldn't be, but they could pick us out so easy. And people, ignorant people, didn't make the distinction between people in Japan and us Niseis in this country. They just figured we were just like, since we were Japanese and looked like them, they figured we were enemies, a lot of them did. And so I did worry that, because of the fact that they could tell who we were. I had heard, I had actually seen the sign. But the people in, in Seattle, International District, at that time... the Chinese people wore labels, sign here saying, "I am Chinese," because a lot of Caucasians couldn't distinguish between Chinese and Japanese. If they were Chinese, I guess they weren't an enemy alien, or most of our parents, or all of our parents, were enemy aliens, at that time, classified as. 'Course, we were citizens by birth, but that didn't make any difference. It was... I didn't feel too much prejudice, but in a small community like Bellevue, we knew, everybody knew everybody else in, through school, see. But in your metropolitan centers, that wasn't true all up and down the coast. The Japanese people weren't as well-known to the Amer-, the Caucasian community. I don't recall of any incidents in Bellevue.

AI: Even, between December and May you...

SH: No. No.

AI ...don't recall incidents?

SH: No, I don't recall any.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.