<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So now I want to move to December 7, 1941. And you told me earlier, way back in 1937, that teacher talked about Pearl Harbor and they studied about that. So on December 7, 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor.

KT: Yeah. That's the one. I was so shocked, "So they did it." That's what my first thought was. And then I didn't say anything. Then my father got taken away.

TI: But back up, so why didn't you say anything? When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, you said you thought about it, then you didn't say anything. So why, why didn't you say anything?

KT: I didn't want to, 'cause I had a hunch they were gonna do it already with that first, the teacher saying that to me. So I closed my mouth.

TI: And then the next morning, they pick up your father.

KT: Yeah. That's when I thought, oh... and my father was somebody that did so much for Japan. He did a lot. He did a lot in his way. So it was something that's gonna be done.

TI: So it didn't surprise you.

KT: [Shakes head] It didn't surprise me at all. But I knew, "Why'd that person get..." some, they didn't do nothing and they went. So I was just wondering why. For my father, I knew why.

TI: Because you saw the important people he knew in Japan.

KT: I knew the point why. But he took it. But when I read that poem, they had it rough in Sand Island. They had it rough in Sand Island. Because he didn't say that was a concentration camp, it was prison. That's the word he used, "prison."

TI: So you're talking about a poem he wrote while he was at Sand Island.

KT: The poem he wrote.

TI: That's a haiku he wrote.

KT: Yeah. So when I read that, I thought, "Oh. They must have been treated rough."

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.