<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay, so let's talk about, so all of a sudden Terminal Island is off limits, what happened to things like your father's boat?

HN: My father was a, had a good friend -- Italian, Italian guy -- who had a, who was a distributor of the fish, fish distributor, my father came in from the fishing trip, he'd go over to his market and unload the fish, and so they got to be good friends. And so my father got a hold of him and asked him to take control of the boat.

TI: When you say take control, what is take control?

HN: Oh, I mean watch and if possible sell the boat.

TI: Okay, but then when the government expelled people, my understanding is they took control of the boats, too, that were at Terminal Island, so was your dad's boat outside of that?

HN: That I don't know. We were already out of Terminal Island, but when we left Terminal Island it was not under the government control.

TI: But it sounds like this Italian friend was able to maybe either hold the boat or sell the boat.

HN: Yeah, sell it. He sold the boat, but he looked and says, "This is not the price that you should, it should not be sold," but the people, the market know that we were in, Japanese couldn't do anything, you know, so they really brought that price down. The boat probably was going for, when they were before incarceration, probably five thousand dollars, and he only got something like six hundred dollars for it.

TI: I'm curious, you mentioned an Italian friend, was this Italian an Italian immigrant? Or was it more --

HN: I think he was Italian immigrant, yeah.

TI: Which is ironic because we were also at war with Italy, also.

HN: Yeah, right, but Italians, as you know, many Italians and Germans, Americans, said, "We were treated the same." No, it was different. The Japanese American were incarcerated and treated completely, the whole community was treated as an "enemy alien." The Italians and Germans, they were selective, and the people who had strong connection with Germany, people who had strong connection with Italy were taken in by the FBI, but they were, they had the due process. They went through the hearing, you know. And some of 'em just released and some were put into... and that's entirely different from the Japanese Americans. They wholesale, everything. So that's the, so I try to explain that in Bismarck, and they said, "The people who were involved, yes, but the whole community, no." There's a difference.

TI: Well, what's interesting, too, is, was Terminal Island was targeted first because of the boats and the fishermen --

HN: Right, yes.

TI: -- but here you had an Italian, possibly immigrant, with access to the boats, and you would, you would think that there might've been restrictions placed on him if the government really was worried about security issues. You know, these people with access to boats.

HN: Yeah, I know. No, they weren't. The whole thing, as you know, it was racial and prejudiced and politic. Political shenanigans, and that's what it was. You read the history about -- I've been doing a lot of reading on this -- and it's Roosevelt really that had a, something against the Japanese. He didn't treat the Germans like they treated the Japanese Americans.

TI: Let's go back to your story, and we'll, at the end I'll ask you more about the politics and things. So you're with a friend who got you out of Terminal Island, what part of L.A.?

HN: West L.A. It's, where was it about now? It's around 37th and Normandy. I remember the junction. It was a few blocks on, don't know exactly what block.

TI: Now were there very many Japanese in this community?

HN: Not too many, but there were... I remember a Japanese grocery store, few blocks down, the store, but I didn't see too many Japanese family. Few.

TI: And what was the reaction of others towards, towards you and your family? Terminal Islanders, so they must have...

HN: No, there wasn't any reaction. No, there wasn't. But at the school, junior high school was Foshay Junior High School, the Korean Americans, the Chinese Americans had a big sign on their back, saying, "I'm not a Jap, I'm a Korean," and I was taken aback. "What the hell?" [Laughs]

TI: What was the name of the school, junior...

HN: Foshay. F-O-S-H-A-Y. Junior high school.

TI: And what, when you saw that, what did you think?

HN: I said, "Boy," I... at the, when I was, that was when I was fourteen, fifteen. "Boy, what a bunch of lousy people."

TI: Now did you ever get into any, like, altercations, any arguments or anything?

HN: No, no, never then. Never then.

TI: Did anyone ever call you names?

HN: No, not then. The, surprisingly, the Caucasian student, they didn't bother us. It was like normal school days.

TI: So what's interesting to me, so the, where you got perhaps the most negative reaction was actually from the Chinese and Korean students.

HN: Right. They want to make sure they're not classified as Japanese, I guess.

TI: Or, I guess, or maybe just protecting themselves, rather than negative.

HN: Yeah, protecting themselves.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.