<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So at this point, you must have been pretty... what's the right word? Pretty frightened?

BI: Oh, I was, I was shaking. And then when he didn't come home, I kept waiting for him to come home, and he didn't come home and I thought...

TI: And about what time was this, when you were waiting for him?

BI: Well, it was practically all night, you know, it was, I think the, it was about two o'clock when they left, and Ken hadn't come home yet. And in the morning he still hadn't come home, and I thought, "I wonder what happened to him." Then I went, started to think, "Gosh, did he leave me? He said he'd be home," and I didn't know what to do. I kept thinking, "My God, would he desert me?" And it was about nine o'clock in the morning, my mother called and asked me if Ken was home, and I started to cry. [Cries] Excuse me. I said, "No, he isn't, he didn't come home." And so she assured me that there were other Japanese that were taken away, and so not to worry, he was probably taken away by the same people. Before that, I guess I called Bill Mimbu's (home) to see if Bill had gone to work, and I talked to his wife and she said, "Yes, he went to work," and I thought, well, then I wondered how come Bill went to work and Ken wasn't going to work. And then I think that day, that morning, I got a call from some man that I didn't know who he was, offered to help me, he said he knew Ken, and if I needed help, to please call on him. (Narr. note: According to an F.B.I. report dated December 20, 1941, Ken had, in fact, returned home, but he was arrested as he was entering the house through the back door).

TI: And was this someone from the Japanese community?

BI: No, it was a Caucasian man, he gave me his name, but I didn't know who he was. So I thanked him, but I didn't get in touch with him.

TI: But at this point, because of your mother's conversation, you knew that other men had been picked up.

BI: Right, uh-huh.

TI: And so you felt that he was probably with the, the FBI.

BI: Right.

TI: And so, still, you must have been very frightened.

BI: Yes, uh-huh. And of course then the newspaper came out, and big headlines, you know, about all the "Japs" being rounded up. And "Kenji Ito was accused of being a spy." And I think it was about, it seemed like about two weeks, maybe.

TI: Let's go back to that, still, December 8th. Did anything else happen that day, that you can recall, other than calling around? I mean, you're just, pretty much just waiting on that day. Any more conversations with family members?

BI: No, it's just Mother called.

TI: And so you're pretty much alone with your baby, Ayleen, and then I guess also Ken's brother was there.

BI: Uh-huh.

TI: So you guys were just sort of unsure what was going on.

BI: Yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.