<Begin Segment 21>

AI: Well, I guess we'll get started then. And, today is August 4, 2003. We're continuing our interview with Marion Tsutakawa Kanemoto, which we began yesterday at the Minidoka reunion. And Marion, thanks again for coming back today.

MK: Oh, thank you.

AI: I, we had talked about your father being picked up by the FBI in February of 1942. And I wonder if you would just hold up this copy of the newspaper.

MK: Uh-huh.

AI: I'm sorry, he was picked up the twenty-first, but the paper came out --

MK: On the twenty-second, on the Sunday, the front page.

AI: And can you point out your father there?

MK: This is my father. His name is not listed in the captions, but, I think Mr. (Gosho) is one of them. I think this is him. And to look at this, even sixty years later, I mean, it is sad. It is sad, because the man that I idolized is just carrying a paper brown bag with his toilet articles. And I didn't see him for the next eighteen months.

AI: Thank you for holding that up. And I wanted to ask you, after your father had been taken away, and you were then living at home with your mother and two younger brothers, what was daily life like without your father there?

MK: It was awkward. You just -- definitely awkward, because my mother was so dependent on him, being an Issei who didn't speak any English and, we were definitely minors, and the communication with the telephone. There was no TV so our source of information was very limited. And since we didn't live in J-town, I mean, we just didn't have neighbors to share the sad experience. So, I think she was typically, the Japanese style, being very quiet. I mean, you could kind of tell. It's hard to express that, that demeanor, but it was, don't have to say anything, you just feel how sad it is.

AI: Well, I wanted to ask you also, when your father was taken like that, here you were about age fourteen, what did you think was happening? I mean, the FBI coming to your house, taking him away. What was your, even as a child that age.

MK: Well, I knew the FBI is really big. I mean, even in the black and white movies that we saw in those days, (in) the black and white (FBI) was really an authority figure. And people feared them. And then, but then when they were in the regular suit, street suit, it wasn't so much. But to flash their badge, that was pinned on them, underneath their suit, inside. But, and then, of course we've been trained, brought up to obey any authority figure so that's what we did. And, I thought well, you know, my dad can't be a criminal, so I mean, he'll be back, he'll be back. They said that he's gonna, they're gonna interrogate him further, but I never thought that that would be the end for a few months. That's for sure.

AI: Well, when your father didn't return, after several months, did you start getting a feeling or wondering, as a child, wondering if maybe he was a criminal, maybe he had done something bad?

MK: Kept wondering. But my mother reassured me that no, he's not a bad person. And the only little glimmer of hope, or what do you call -- not being singled out, where there were several other Japanese men who were picked up. And they were in the respectable position, like the Japanese school teachers, and ministers. So they, you automatically assume that they're very good people. And my father was, and my mother kept saying, "Well, it's because your father did important work in the community work." And she told us in such a way that it, we were proud that, well he was a leader, a good leader. And he was a suspect, but you know, she reassured us that he wasn't a bad person.

AI: What about the reaction from some of the other kids who became aware that your father had been taken by the FBI?

MK: Well, it's interesting how when it's an awkward position, there are people who just stay away. They don't know how to comfort you or to... so they were either the comforters or the ones who didn't ... just actually stayed away. I have an autograph book that in those days we really cherished. And I have many entries in them. And to this day, the ones who made the entry -- I brought it to the reunion -- but they're the ones who still remember, and actually a professor of sociology, (Teruo) Jitodai came up to me and said, "Do you remember we gave you a party, a going-away party?" Well, believe it or not, I don't remember at all. And then he said -- once I got on the Gripsholm, I wrote the class a letter, and he said he was really choked up. And he said it was so sad.

AI: Oh, and that was --

MK: because he didn't know -- I mentioned the fact that I didn't know what was gonna happen in the future. And it was really happening. And I don't remember writing the letter, so I had to tell him that, "I'm sorry, I don't remember. I must have been in shock." I mean, just being like a sheep, being herded and just obediently listening to what I had to do.

AI: So, the letter you were mentioning, that was later, from when you were on the ship, the Gripsholm?

MK: Gripsholm.

AI: But back, earlier, in, in spring of '42, it sounds like it was also a very shocking time, very hard to, hard to deal with, as a family, with your father gone.

MK: Right.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.