<Begin Segment 9>

TI: So I'm trying to think, you were born in 1923? Is that what you said?

JT: Yeah.

TI: So I'm trying to do my math. Did you graduate from high school before the war started or was it right, you were right around...

JT: Yeah. I graduated June 1941, and this was about six months before Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. So we was out... my dad asked me at that time, says, "What do you want to do?" "Do you want to go to school, or do you want to farm?" And I chose, I want to farm. So we were farming, and when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we was out in the field. When we came home for lunch, my dad says, "Something terrible has happened." And this is in Japanese now. 'Cause he had a hard time speaking English. He could speak English, but he had a harder time speaking English than Japanese. And he says, "Something terrible happened." He says, "I can't believe it. Japan has attacked the Hawaiian islands and bombed Pearl Harbor." And he was all shook up, you know.

TI: And when you saw your father so shook up like that, what did you think? What were you feeling at that time?

JT: Well, we couldn't believe it. So he had the radio on -- there was no TV at that time, at least we didn't have one. And we listened to the radio, and sure enough, the news was saying that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. We were like my father, we couldn't believe that Japan would attack America.

TI: And so what happened after that? Like the next day, Monday, how did... did anything change?

JT: Basically everything changed. It's just like turning on the lights or turning off the light. Just from daylight to dark. If you went into town, something told you, I don't know what it is, but something told you that you're different now. That's when the discrimination started. Until that particular time, we were accepted as just another, another human being. There was no such thing as race. I had people that come to me, that I knew, my father knew, that did business with them, wouldn't speak to us no more. Just, December 7th, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, December 8th, Monday, it was just altogether different. We were on the outside now.

TI: So then it must have made it difficult just to do business if people all of a sudden treated you that way.

JT: Well, I don't know if they really treated us that way, but we felt that... you could just feel that. It's just like you know there's a wall there. It might be a glass wall, but you don't know just where it is. It's a nice, clean plate of glass, so you put your hand up there so you don't run into it and bump your head. It was just like that. There was something different. You could just sense it. They never called you a "Jap" or anything, not yet, anyhow. But when you walked into town, people avoided you. Instead of walking straight towards you, maybe they crossed the street or maybe they went into a store, and there was nobody in front of you. It was just different.

TI: And when people treat you differently like that, I'm thinking, so did you feel like not going out as much? Were you kind of staying more...

JT: Well, yeah. You know, if it's somebody that got mad at you and not speaking to you, that's one thing. But this wasn't like that. This was, I don't know. It was something that I'd never experienced before. People that I used to talk to kids that I went to school with, all of a sudden, they didn't want to associate with me. They never call me any derogatory names, at least at that time. We had... eventually, like I say, I graduated in '41. My classmate, many of 'em, volunteered for the service, or they took some kind of a national job making war equipment. So they weren't around. And then we had, we talked to the parents of these kids. And some of 'em had stores, they were merchants. And they wouldn't talk to us on the street. Says, "Come on inside." They didn't want to be seen with me or some Japanese and be called a "Jap lover."

TI: And how did that make you feel? I mean, when you think about that time?

JT: Well, you know, I associated with these guys, I was eighteen years old, all my life, for those eighteen years. I was accepted as one of them, then all of a sudden I'm on the outside, they don't want nothing to do with me. And this is a small town. I could understand something that, if they didn't know me, and Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, and they says, "Well, it's different." But I knew these people. I knew their kids, went to school with their kids and knew the parents. But they didn't want to talk with me no more. They didn't want to associate with me.

TI: So that must have been really, in some cases, that must have been a really difficult time for you.

JT: Oh, yeah.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.