Densho Digital Archive - Fred Y. Hoshiyama Interview (denshovh-hfred

<Begin Segment 15>

TI: Okay, so Fred, we're going to start the second hour. And where we left off, you had just started at the YMCA June 1, 1941.

FH: Correct.

TI: And then you had talked about starting programs, but then the war started. Let's go back to that day, December 7, 1941. Do you recall that day?

FH: I sure do. I was, I went to see a movie that day, and I was downtown. Come out of the movie, people, newspapers. "Pearl Harbor, war with Japan. War with Japan." I said, "My gosh. War with Japan? I'm Japanese. Wow, what's going to happen?" I rush home, and then put on the radio, listen to what's happening. Nothing but just Pearl Harbor, Pearl Harbor. Anyhow, that was a scary moment. I thought, "Wow, what's going to happen to us?" In those days, I never thought that I was a Japanese, I was American. Short time later, we're trying to survive, and YMCA, I go to work, report to work. And then everybody's concerned about what's going to happen to them. So we said, "Bring extra rice and foodstuffs, and we'll distribute them from here." We told the people, if they're in dire need, "Come to the Y and we'll try to help you," social service. So we became that kind of a place. "The gymnasium is still open if somebody wants to come and shoot basketball." So happened that we tried to gather clothing and food and newspaper, street sheets, to go out to tell the people what's happening. So we did that from about December, January. In the meantime, February 19th...

TI: Before we go there, I want to ask you a little bit more. So the social service part, so you collected food, clothing...

FH: Food, mostly rice and that kind of stuff, tsukemono.

TI: So in the community, who was struggling? Who needed the food?

FH: Whoever needed it, come and get it.

TI: And so why would they need this more now than before?

FH: Well, one is many people lost their job immediately. And curfew come up and say, "You can't travel more than ten miles out." You can't leave town. We're kind of a prisoner within the city, within J-town. And then those who live outside used to, they're isolated, so they used to call up and say, "Hey, what's happening? What's gonna happen to us?" No one knew. Lincoln Kanai was my boss. Mr. Tomizawa in the meantime retired. After giving me a job, he retired. And so Mr. Lincoln Kanai from Hawaii was the CEO, and he said he goes every day to Whitcomb Hotel, and he got to know the head of the FBI, personal basis, and he says, "They don't know. They don't know what's gonna happen." So what little he knew, we'd print it, send it out to the people, so to allay fears if we could. But no question, it was fear unknown, not knowing the future, and that was a very difficult time.