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TI: So let's, let me ask you about, on December 7, 1941, that was the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor.

SO: Yeah.

TI: Did you know that was happening on that day?

SO: That morning, we were picking coffee, and then the neighbor came down and said, 'There's an explosion in Honolulu going on. Something funny is going on." And then he couldn't understand what was going on. Then he went home and then he come back. And that day we were picking coffee until five in the afternoon. Then when we came home, then first thing my mother said is, "Japan declared war on the U.S., so from tonight, we're gonna have a blackout." So we wouldn't be having anymore of those lights. Then that night, the army came, this policeman came to arrest my father. And he said, "Oshima, hold you under arrest," and then they took him away. And then after that, we didn't know what happened to him. Then later on, we found out that he was held at Kilauea Military Camp, that's where they kept all the internees. And then after that, he was there for over a month.

TI: Yeah, before we go there, so why do you think the police came and picked up your father that night?

SO: Well, according to the arrest paper, my father knew that he was involved with the Japanese consulate. And he hardly had any correspondence with them, but still yet, he was just taken away, and my father knew that before that, Mr. Okamura, another merchant, was taking care of all that correspondence. But he told my father that since he was fluent in reading Japanese, that he should take over his position. So that's how my father got involved, and then that's how he got taken away.

TI: So when you say "correspondence" with the consulate, what would be a typical type of correspondence he would, he would help with?

SO: Oh, like dual citizenship, you were required to report whatever birth was in the family, and then the family wanted that recorded with the consulate general.

TI: So if a family wanted their children, a Japanese family wanted their children to have citizenship both in the United States and Japan, they would have to submit some papers, and your father would help, help these families do that?

SO: I'm not sure, but he was doing all the help that he could give them, correspondence.

TI: But he would do enough of it so that it was on record, so that when the FBI or somebody checked, they would see your father's name as someone who would be in Kona helping families.

SO: When you read that papers, you would find out.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.