<Begin Segment 19>

AI: Well, let me take... go back just a step and, and ask you about Pearl Harbor, itself. Because here you were, it's late in the year 1941. You're in school --

EH: Uh-huh.

AI: -- at Sacramento Junior College.

EH: Uh-huh.

AI: And so December 7th was a Sunday.

EH: Uh-huh, uh-huh.

AI: What do you remember about that day and how did you hear about it?

EH: Well, listening to the radio. We came, we came home from our service, and then the Issei parents had their service after the Nisei parents. So I, I was on Fifth and T, and the church was between Seventh and Eighth on T, so just two or three blocks. And I guess we automatically turned the news on and heard this. And we were just dumbfounded. It was a little scary, and then a, a friend called and, and said, "Did you hear the news?" And we got on the telephone. I was... I had the urge to go back, run back to the church and tell them, though, what had happened was in situations somebody comes up the church and announces, and, and then there's a shift in the whole church service, because this becomes a paramount issue. When my folks came home -- see, my father did get... I think each time we thought he was recovered, so he came home my ninth grade year and was able to witness the ninth grade graduation and that kind of thing. And then in my senior year he was able to come home, so I think... no, I think he wasn't home during Pearl Harbor. He did witness graduation.

And the other fun thing about that was when he was in the sanitarium, he loved sports anyway, but could never watch football games. First of all, there wasn't any television, and... but he loved tennis. My parents often had a conflict, because he was always late coming home from the tennis court and, and my mother hated to be late for church. But anyway, so she immediately started surmising herself what needed to be done, and she immediately started burning valuable pictures and, and letters and explaining to us why. That we can't be caught with these kind of things because this is from enemy country now, and that kind of thing, which was really regretful. I'm, I'm thinking... I guess, I guess I don't really recall seeing any prewar pictures.

AI: So what did you think or what did you feel when you heard her saying, "These are things from an enemy country. We have to get rid of them"? What, what was your reaction?

EH: I, I thought regretful. I, I said, "They're not going to... they're not going to be that picky or small." But, but to some extent she was right. Mr. Inai, downstairs, who owned the grocery store kitty-corner from us was taken immediately the night of Pearl Harbor. And then she began to get calls from other people. And it was, it was a frantic time. Sara was... well, she was in school. She was probably kindergarten age. So anyway... and I was living away from school, and she was really always harping at me to go back to Garritty's. "Don't stay here," because I had friends... there was one girl who was shot as a, she was a ticket seller for a small theater, and a Filipino guy came and shot her. It was that kind of hysteria, easily. The, the Chinese... our Chinese friends did stop talking to us. That was kind of a, a low blow. I had... in fact, after that happened I tried to, I went to a Chinese Presbyterian schoolmate's who, I knew they had a Christian Endeavor and I, I said, "Andrew, let's have a joint meeting." Well, their parents would not allow such a thing. And --

AI: And so how... what did you think about that? Did you have some understanding as to

why the parents would...

EH: (Yes). I, I could understand that... because our Chinese friends basically had stopped talking to us anyway. Which was, I was surprised more at that, that I didn't think they would be that un-understanding, because we grew up all the way through elementary and, and junior high school in, in sewing classes. In seventh and eighth grade sewing classes we, we were far enough away from the teacher that we could be chatting, and they would tell us about Chinese school and, and we would tell them about Japanese school, and we found out then that, that their Chinese school was a lot harder. They went from six o'clock to ten o'clock. And they would fall asleep in, in the American school system, the school classes. But then we started comparing kanjis, and, and we found that, by golly, the meanings are the same. I could... "Ishikawa" was a, is a fairly simple kanji and, and it meant "rock river" in Chinese also. That was kind of fun.

But after the war -- oh, in fact, during, after evacuation I came back and I had found out that a friend of mine, a Chinese friend's family, bought Mr. Inai's grocery store. So I thought I'd maybe see if I could get any... see any. Parents would not even talk to me, they, they'd (say), "Annie not home." And they wouldn't tell me anything else. A, a Korean... there were, there were only two Korean families in Sacramento, and one of the Korean friends I met in... oh, and my sister knew that she was in Berkeley and so we looked her up. She was working at a department store, and so we had lunch a couple of times. And interestingly enough, they, they were fairly close. They lived a block away from our church, but they never came to the Sacramento, to the Presbyterian church. They went to a neighboring white church eventually. And I said, "Why, why didn't you come to Parkview?" And that was probably not the tone at the time. The Koreans could not join. There, there may have been some old members who already... but in school we didn't... we heard about each other's dances and things, but we never had joint.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.