Densho Digital Archive - Mary Hamano Interview (denshovh-hmary

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: So I wanted to change gears a little bit, and ask you about Pearl Harbor, about December 7, 1941. What do you remember about that day?

MH: Oh, that day. December the 7th was a Sunday. I can clearly remember, it was a beautiful, quiet Sunday morning. And about eight o'clock... well, my father gets up early, and he starts to move around and naturally it's Sunday, we like all like to sleep in. So we were taking it easy, and eight o'clock, somebody was knockin' at our front door. And our friend from Hollywood had gone to Gardena to pick up some bedding plants. 'Cause he's a gardener, he needs to gather up his material to take to, to do his gardening and planting and plants in Hollywood area. And he and his son came by, and we got alarmed. And so my father answered the front door and let him in. He says, oh, he says, "Taihen na koto ga dekita" And he says, and my father said, "What?" He said, "Japan started war." And he said, "Oh, it can't be. Japan's such a small country. It's impossible." Says, "No, that's the big news." And of course we had our radio, but we didn't have it on. And so, we let it go at that. And they went on, said, "We gotta hurry up and get home, 'cause we don't know what might happen." So they left early, after they left the news with us. So then in the morning we had our breakfast and we took off just like we always do on a Sunday.

MA: So at that point, your father was sort of in disbelief about what had happened.

MH: Yeah, he couldn't believe this was happening. So then we started out going out to town. Then the newspaper, the extras was going around. Extra, extra, you know. And my father said, "It's unusual." He still didn't believe. So then we went into Japanese town, and Japantown, everybody look was in disbelief, you know, that this was going on. So I took in a movie, and my brothers did their thing, my father did their thing. By five o'clock, the detectives were all over town, going to each door. Each store that was open, and investigating, I assume, and this is what I assume. Lights were going off one by one. And pretty soon, by the time we were leaving, one block was all dark. I mean, the store's lights were all out. And we said, "Well, we better hurry up and go home," 'cause my mother was left alone.

Well that, we got home all right, but in the meantime, there was a station wagon parked in front of our store. And at that time, it didn't dawn on me who they were. But it was a government car. Evidently, they had, somebody had been around investigating, or inquiring about us, I guess. Which is all guesswork now. And somebody said that they did come to somebody's house, but they didn't question too much. But we assumed that maybe the neighbors put in a good word, we don't know. But they never came to our place. But my father told my mother right away. "Get everything ready, just in case I should go." Because if he belongs to some sort of organization, they will take the top head people, you know. If the president of this group, or that group. Well he was, he was a treasurer, and he took care of the money for the organization, and he had a list of people's names and everything. And so then, my mother made a drawstring bag, put his toothpaste and essential things that he would do, if he should be taken to, you know, taken away. So she had it ready for him. But nobody came, so we went on with our business.