<Begin Segment 7>

TI: Brian, can I ask a follow-up? You said that Hiroko worked at the, with Jimmy Sakamoto, and that there was an army --

KH: No, no.

BH: -- soldier there?

KH: Yes, he --

TI: So it was a U.S. army soldier that would just help inform Jimmy, or why was he in the office?

KH: I really don't know why he was there, but he told my sister that they said two suitcase apiece. But he says, "If you need something more than that, go ahead and take it." So my mother took the legs off her sewing machine and she brought her sewing machine.

TI: So but, I just wanted to -- the soldier was just there visiting and just informed them, or was he always in the office?

KH: That I don't remember. But then he's the one that told my sister.

TI: And what did Hiroko do at...

KH: She was the stenographer.

TI: Did she ever talk about working with Jimmy Sakamoto, what that was like?

KH: You know, I don't remember. But you know, that age group that we were in, we just obeyed the law, and there was really no leader as such in the Japanese community among the Nisei that would say, "This is the way to go." And the only thing that I remember Jimmy Sakamoto was saying, that, "You obey the law." When they said we had to evacuate, "You obey the law and go." He was getting ready to close his shop, so you knew that... and Jimmy Sakamoto was blind, did you know that?

TI: Yeah, Jimmy Sakamoto was a pretty prominent Nisei who helped start the JACL. So when she mentioned that, I just wanted to see if there was any other information because it's, it was so long ago, not too many people remember Jimmy Sakamoto or have personal relationships. That's why I was curious.

BH: Yeah, that's interesting.

KH: Well, Jimmy Sakamoto and his wife were also members of Maryknoll, so I think that's how my sister got the job.

BH: I was gonna ask about your parents and how they responded to all of this, to being informed that they were being put away in camp. How did they respond to that?

KH: You know, I think we were fortunate, because lot of the male Japanese leaders in the community, when the war broke out, just within days, they were picked up and sent to internment camp. And my father was not in that group. My father was active in the Kagoshima Club, and my mother and father also belonged to a singing group.

BH: Now, can I ask you, what was the Kagoshima Club?

KH: Kagoshima Club is all the people who came from Kagoshima Prefecture.

BH: So, from Japan?

KH: From Japan, they belonged. And so they would, right after Pearl Harbor occurred, the military took away the prominent Issei? The so-called leaders of the Japanese community, or if they thought that they were doing anything subversive, they picked them up.

BH: And they were sent to Puyallup, then?

KH: No, they were sent to Missoula, Montana. At the same time, I think it happened in Hawaii. Lot of the influential Japanese, they were sent to Missoula. It's kind of funny to know that, because after we moved to Missoula, we did go by and see the camp where the Japanese were interned.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.