<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So you're at the University of Washington taking biology. December 1941.

HN: Oh, what a shock.

TI: So talk about December 7, 1941. What do you remember?

HN: Gosh. How can I forget? I was at Ishibashis' house, my father's high school classmate, the one that, Ishibashis was Wataru Ishibashi house. Then there was a, we were there for... my brother was, I don't know where yet. But I was there with my dad, and there was a Japanese vice-consul there, Kihara, I remember that name, Kihara. Vice-consul now, Japanese vice-consul. We had a consul. It was not a consul-general, it was, at that time, it was just a consulate. And then the radio blast came on, and we were all listening, and, "Pearl Harbor? What's that? Pearl Harbor, where is that?" My dad and Ishibashi-san said, "Oh, taihen, taihen!" They both, Dr. Ishibashi, well, he was my dentist, and he understood English. So, "Taihen, taihen." I was shocked at that. Then the vice-consul said, "Taihen. Jimusho ni ikanai dekinai. Jimusho ni dame da." He just left. And so later, I, well, I got up and for whatever reason, I left the Ishibashi house and went walking home slowly. But in the meantime, I'm agonizing over this, what this means to the Nikkei community.

TI: Can we go back to that, when you first heard it on the radio? So the vice-consul was there and your father and his friend. And so they were there at a social setting.

HN: Yeah, yeah, we were there for dinner, I think. That's why we were there.

TI: And then you hear over the radio that Pearl Harbor... and the reaction, first of the vice-consul. So he heard this, and then you did it in Japanese. I wasn't sure, what did he say?

HN: "Taihen, taihen."

TI: Which means?

HN: "Bad news, terrible. Bad things have come, terrible."

TI: And so would you, would you characterize the vice-consul as being shocked or surprised?

HN: I was shocked, too. I think we were all shocked.

TI: And so he, did he immediately get up and leave?

HN: Yeah, oh, yeah. He said they got to go to the jimusho. Jimusho is "office." He got to go to his office. So that was a surprise to him, too.

TI: And so when this is happening, what reaction did your father and his friend have to the vice-consul when...

HN: Ishibashi.

TI: Ishibashi. What did, do you recall what they, perhaps, said?

HN: Yeah, "Taihen, taihen."

TI: That horrible news, bad news.

HN: "Bad news. Terrible things to happen. Bad things are going to happen now." It's bad enough with all the discrimination, prejudice, now, this is the last straw. This is the worst thing that could happen to the Japanese community on top of all the, we were all cognizant about the prejudice and discrimination. We all knew that. We all knew. That's why some of these college students were going to Japan, because they couldn't get a job. You heard that.

TI: Oh, so this is interesting. So the reaction was, because Japan had --

HN: "What's going to happen now?"

TI: -- had just bombed, what's going to happen to the Japanese or Japanese Americans?

HN: Yeah. My concern, my dad was mutual concern, was, "Now what's going to happen?"

TI: And now after the vice-consul left, what happened in that room? Did people stay in talk or did the party break up?

HN: No. I left, I told you. My dad and Mr. Ishibashi, that's all. I left. Whatever reason, I couldn't just sit there and ponder about the eventuality, the consequences of this. I said, "Well," I talked to myself walking home, I said, "Now what's going to happen? What more is going to happen? This is the last straw." And then I thought, "Monday, tomorrow, I'm going to school. Back to school what for? Go back to school, what am I going to do at school?" I started to think about the future. Things are bad enough. Now, with the war on, I anticipated, what else will go wrong? I felt the world fell apart. That's the way I felt, the world. "Should I go to school Monday?" Well, I didn't want to. I thought, "Gee, what's the use of going to school?" Well, anyway, I went back to school Monday morning as usual, walk into the library. Library is very quiet. Everybody studying. As I opened the door, I walked in, I felt all the eyes. I felt all the eyes were upon me. That's how self-conscious I was of my, of my ancestry, of my Japanese face. It was undescribable when I walked in the library. I just felt that all eyes were on me. Maybe they weren't on me, but I felt that way. And I just went, walked out. I walked out right away, because that was agonizing, because of this Pearl Harbor. I think I figured, well, that's the end of the, end of our community. That's the way I felt. Well, okay, maybe I shouldn't quit school. What's the purpose of going to school? Because I knew that some of these guys were, older Nisei were going to Japan to get, to find work. I could name five or six guys that went to Japan to work. In fact, my brother and I went to Japan when we were in the grade school. I think that was the idea, to live there, get educated. But my grandfather died while we were going over on the ship. So when we got there to my mother's house, there were black ribbons there, of course, my grandfather. So Grandmother didn't want to take care of us because she had four daughters. She can't, she told my mother, "I can't take care of two boys," by herself. I could understand that, so we came home. We were supposed to stay there.

TI: But let's go back to when you went to the library, this is the Monday after Pearl Harbor. You walked in, you felt all these eyes on you, and you walked out. Then what did you do? Did you ever go back to school?

HN: Yeah, I went back to school. Everything, that first day, Monday, was very, very difficult. Very hard, very difficult. Then I thought about quitting school, I thought, "What's the use of going to school?" [Laughs] There's no future, there's no opportunities, going to school, so what? Anyway, there was nothing else, there was no job anyway, so, well, I just stayed in school. But they realized that there was no future for Nisei.

TI: During this time, did you ever talk to your father about what was going to happen?

HN: No, we didn't, we didn't talk about that. I think we... no, we never got into discussion, because I think we all mutually understood the pain, the mental anguish we were going through. I think it was internalized. No, I didn't talk to my father and mother about what's going to happen to this. We understood that things are not going to be good for us, as we all know. It didn't turn out very well, did it?

TI: Well, so eventually, the community did find out that they were going to be removed from Seattle, they had to leave Seattle.

HN: Yeah. Internment, yeah.

TI: And so describe that. What happened to the store?

HN: Oh. No, the store is gone. We were up in Eighteenth and Yesler, apartment.

TI: Okay, so what happened to the apartment? What was the next step with the apartment?

HN: Well, like all the Issei, they had to give it up. I assumed that, well, I'm sure that's what happened, they had to leave, right, evacuation. But I was in the army, so no more school for me.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.