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TI: So let's go back now to your story, so December 7th, the war starts. Next day, you talked about going to school, how this teacher sort of protected you by having you do other things. You mentioned the kids teasing you. What were, how did they tease you, what were some of the things they would do?

KK: Well, they would just, you know, "Jap." And they really didn't know what they were saying, and they didn't know what they were doing, but they knew I was a "Jap" and so I shouldn't, they shouldn't like me. And yet, we were friends so we did like each other.

TI: Well that's what I was going to ask. So some of your, maybe your closer friends, did your relationship change with them after the war?

KK: No, not really.

TI: So they still accepted you as who you were?

KK: Yeah, uh-huh. 'Cause I said, you know, "I don't know, we don't know what's happening over there. We're not, we're over here in America, we're all Americans."

TI: How about your siblings, any incidents or events that happened to them during this period, after the war broke out that, that you can remember?

KK: No, I don't really remember.

TI: 'Cause you were in elementary school, they were in junior high school.

KK: Junior high and high school, yeah.

TI: But you don't recall them perhaps getting into fights or facing the same teasing or anything like that.

KK: No. I think that they wouldn't get into fights, for one thing.

TI: Now why is that, why wouldn't they get into fights?

KK: 'Cause our mother would, was the kind that said no, you don't get into fights, you know. Even if people tease you or anything, you accept it.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.