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TI: Okay, so let's move on, so let's talk about December 7, 1941. Tell me what happened on that day for you.

HN: Well, I, the only thing I remember is -- I don't know whether it was December 7th or next day -- my father was apprehended by the FBI... and I didn't know, we didn't know at the time, he was taken to some place, and that's the thing I remember. It was either December 7th or December 8th.

TI: And at this point he was a fisherman and he owned a boat.

HN: Yeah, he owned a boat.

TI: And my understanding was it was pretty common for all the Isseis who were fishermen and owned boats to be picked up.

HN: Yeah, right. Yes. That was the reason, I suspect, he was picked up.

TI: And so, for the community that was, like, a lot of men.

HN: Oh yeah. Yes. Either the father or the, the husbands, so forth, were picked up.

TI: What was the impact on your family?

HN: We were at loss as to what to do, because the leadership was just taken, and so it was basically younger Nisei and mothers and their children.

TI: Like, for instance, your mother, do you remember any, any kind of reaction, or do you remember how she reacted when he was taken?

HN: She, she didn't act too emotional, I think because she was, everyone was taken aback by, all of a sudden, December 7th and next day all the husbands and fathers were taken away. But she was able to manage the family affair.

TI: Now your, your older brother Paul, was he still in high school, or, yeah, high school?

HN: Yeah, high school, right.

TI: Do you remember him doing anything or saying anything during this time period?

HN: We were taken aback. "Gee," you know, "What gonna happen?" We're saying, "What gonna happen?"

TI: So what did happen? So your father's taken away, so what, what...

HN: Taken away. And a few weeks later -- we had a friend in Los Angeles, a family friend -- she came over and convinced my mother, said without husband or a father, all the community is at loss. So she said, "Why don't you come over and live with us until this thing settles down?" So we moved out to her home, house. And two weeks later after we moved, maybe a little more, but anyway, a few, soon thereafter there was that expulsion order of forty-eight hours to get out of Terminal Island for all the people living on Terminal Island, Japanese Americans living in Terminal Island. And we had friends there. We heard of their hardship. You know, no husband, no father around, and many of the family, the younger family, just baby, a lot of 'em had babies, just small kids, and to be ordered to be expelled by their government in forty-eight hours, and government didn't give them any place for a retreat. Normally, if government said, "Okay, we want to get out of here, but here's a place where we want you to go." That didn't happen. It was inhumane, inhumane act.

TI: 'Cause they were just expelled and left on their own.

HN: Expelled, yeah, left on their own.

TI: Well, in your case, or your family's case...

HN: In our case we escaped trauma.

TI: So your, it was fortunate that you had this friend.

HN: Yeah, we were, but our friends were all involved in that.

TI: Now when they had the, that order for Terminal Island, how did you hear about, you said you had friends there...

HN: Yeah, friends there. We heard when they moved on, they contacted us, what's happening, you know.

TI: And so where did some of your friends end up?

HN: The nearby Japanese American community, like Torrance, Gardena, all around there, heard about it and the family opened up their home to them. Oh, and the community church, Buddhist church, they opened that up, too, and that's how they survived.

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