<Begin Segment 6>

DM: Do you remember what kind of restrictions were first put on the family?

BS: Yes. The first restrictions were a curfew where we had to be home at nine p.m. to the morning. And then if we had to travel more than five miles, or ten miles, I forgot, then you had to get a special permit. And I remember one incident where we were out in the field harvesting with headlights getting things ready for the market for the following morning, and the sheriff came out with the blinking lights out in the field. So the only way that he would know is one of our neighbor friends, that were friends forever, had to call the police. So this is how the press could really change the minds of, of people that were good, good solid thinkers.

DM: So the, the curfew was, you had to be in the house by nine p.m., and then you couldn't leave until dawn?

BS: Yes.

DM: And it sounds like that was a real problem in terms of getting the crops in.

BS: Oh, yes.

DM: Did it present other problems as well?

BS: No, we had to adjust our time completely anymore. And I'll tell you a comical story because I went with my late brother Harry, at that time he was old enough to drive and I went to the market delivering the produce early in the morning, at three o'clock in the morning. And when we were stopped by a sentry prior to crossing the San Francisco Bay Bridge, the sentry looked at my brother and asked him, "You Chinese or Japanese?" He didn't say, "Japanese," he said, "You Chinese or you a Jap?" And my brother would ask him, "What do you think?" and the sentry would say, "Yeah, you look Chinese," he said, "Go." [Laughs] What that did was confuse my thinking more because much of the reasons for all this curfew and so forth was really for our own benefit because, "You never could tell; Japan could land in the West Coast, and all of you look alike. So sometimes it's for your own safety that you have this curfew and you'd be at home." But the thing that confused me was, look at all the other Asians, which were Chinese people, that were in that area. So that was rather confusing for me.

DM: So the logic that the government told you didn't quite add up.

BS: That's right.

DM: And do you remember how you found out for the first time that you were going to have to leave your home and farm?

BS: You know, I can't remember the first time, but there were, there were rumblings that we may, that may come about. And that so-called rumbling and rumors, as the pressure from the press would come about, where, "You can't trust any Japs." "The Japs is always a Jap." And when that became more and more in the forefront, we could sense that that may happen, that may happen. But there was nothing we could do about it but prepare ourselves mentally that this may happen.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright ©2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.