<Begin Segment 24>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

TI: Well, let's talk about first, that first sweep. So they take away Mr. Tsujimoto in the first sweep. What was the tenor of the community...

SA: We were all tense. That started us burning everything that connected us to Japan, so I don't know if you had heard of it before, but you know, we had, in our family home, we had this kind of a belly stove, it's not a fireplace, and we burned all of our pictures, photographs, the flags, everything that we could, that would (link us to Japan). And this is why you find a lot of people don't have photographs of themselves as children.

TI: And so you can remember that happening?

SA: Oh, yeah, I helped stoke the fire. We were throwing in books, you know, everything we could.

TI: Now, as a, as a sixteen-year-old, you're about sixteen right now, what did you think about this? Did you think that you guys were doing something wrong or you had to do this? Why, why would you think that you would have to burn...

SA: Well, we knew, well, the media was hard at it, we were all, all of a sudden called the "yellow peril." This is the Hearst newspapers, this is why we took the (Seattle) Times against (the) Seattle Post-Intelligencer. And this was also the time, I don't know if you know Roy Tsuboi, he was a (patrolboy), one of the patrolboys at a school, and I have an article, (but) he's still living, (so) you could talk to him. But he got picked up by this white fellow who later turned out to be, I think, an immigrant. But the article (that) I have (says) he was dragged, literally dragged out, and this man (pushed), had him pushed into the car. But when he got in, evidently, another person stopped him and I think he got out the other door. But he said when they took this man down here, he said, "What's a Jap doing at a time like this, patrolling?" He thought that (we) should all be taken off the street. It, so we were on guard, too. The impetus (of hate) you can't help, but it does hurt you.

[Interruption]

TI: Okay, so let's get going again. So we just talked about that first wave, FBI came by, picked up --

SA: Picked up the leaders.

TI: Yeah, picked up the leaders.

SA: Civic leaders.

TI: Did, during that first wave, was there, in your family, thinking that your father might get picked up?

SA: Oh, yes, we did.

TI: And why do you think your father might have, might be targeted?

SA: Well, they were picking up everybody they thought was prominent in the community, but that almost included everyone: the Buddhist priests, the pastors, anyone of any influence they thought. So they would come pick up the merchants next, I should think. But we didn't sense that then, that he would be taken, because we thought, well, they (can't pick) up everybody they wanted in the Japanese American community, but it wasn't so. But what I saw, from my standpoint, was (with husbands taken like Mr. Tsujimoto, the) wife coming (downstairs daily to our store), and she wasn't as well-educated, (what was going to happen next?)

TI: You're talking about Mrs....

SA: Mrs. Tsujimoto. I think most of the immigrants had about a fourth grade education. Very few were really academically able to get very far, especially the women. And in a society where the men made all the decisions, you can see what happens here. They didn't even know where the money was, they didn't know anything. And the children, the average age was about sixteen, seventeen, just maybe eighteen. So who was going to take over? No one really could. It was a hard time for everybody. And then the ones taken had their funds frozen, so then there's no money (reserve).

TI: So it made it really hard for those families.

SA: It was hard. The women came through, I guess, but evacuation was a good thing in that respect, (the women became decision-makers, and more independent).

TI: So during this time period when you were thinking possibly your father might be picked up by the FBI, and you would see this hardship, did your father ever talk with, with you or your brother or your older sister or your mother about what might happen if they took him away?

SA: No, but this is a funny thing. I didn't know this 'til much later, but when my father was picked up, I said to my sister, "I don't remember going down there (to the immigration building where they took him in)," and she says, "No, you were too young," but she was twenty-one and she went down. My mother did not, somebody had to run the store. So anyway, (my older sister) went down, and I said, "What did you talk to Dad about?" And she said, "He only said a few words," because there's someone there, standing there listening, too. And what he told her to do was to get the money, and she said, "Where?" and he had hidden nine hundred dollars in between the door and something, she said. But that was the only message. 'Cause I said, "Didn't you take him some underclothes?" 'cause I keep hearing everybody saying that they had to take fresh clothing and changes for the men down there. But she said, "No, he didn't ask for anything," he just told her to get the money, (from where he had hidden it).

TI: And so your sister went down to the immigration building --

SA: Yes, she did.

TI: --- where he was being held, and he told her to...

SA: Yeah, that was the only thing he told her.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.