<Begin Segment 9>

MN: You were a freshman in high school when Pearl Harbor was bombed. What were you doing on Sunday, December 7, 1941?

BK: On December the 7th, I'm not sure. Usually on Sundays we'd go to church. I'd go to the Evergreen Baptist Church and then go home, but after that... our relationship with the Jewish kids had also developed a group that had the corner of First and (Soto Street) to sell newspapers. And so Larry Anisman and another fellow, Jewish kids, had the corner. They knew the person who was distributing the newspapers, and he'd come by and distribute so many Examiner, Daily News, which were the evening papers, and there was the four o'clock, the five o'clock or whatever newspapers. Each one had the results of the horse races. The people who were buying the afternoon newspapers were all interested in the horse race result, and so after school we would run down to First and (Soto intersection), each of the corners we'd have to have people assigned to it. So the Jewish boys took the bus (route), busses on First and (...) Soto Street. I was assigned the street car, the P-car going to Boyle Heights at the First and Soto. And Ray was there, too. Anyway, as the newspapers came out at different hours, the people that were going home that bought the newspapers wanted certain times, the (horse) race results, so we were very busy trying to make money. And the Jewish kids were the guys that had the connections. Japanese kids didn't have any. So I think we, I told you the, later on, the war progressed. The distributor of the newspapers was a Filipino, and then when the results came out of the war breaking out, then there was a lot of animosity towards Japanese. And then the announcements about what was happening in the war didn't help. So later on this Filipino distributor says, "You Japanese boys, you can't work anymore." So we lost our jobs. We didn't know what was going on. I mean, we had nothing to do with the war, but they controlled who works (...), so we lost our jobs.

MN: How did that make you feel, as a child?

BK: Well, we were lost. 'Cause at that time you have no control. I mean, we were subjected to changes in the attitude of the city, of the government. At school we were being told that we couldn't continue school. We were gonna, having to check out. And pretty soon they were giving us orders that we would have to move out of the Southern California area, and then we started hearing about the registration for evacuation. So my sister was working with friends at the, the Catholic school, and she was helping register people. Now all Japanese people had to register, and she was helping the registration over at the (Maryknoll) Catholic school over in the Little Tokyo. And as a result, as we got all the registration of Japanese Americans coming in to report, they had to report to that school and give their names and addresses because eventually they're (going to be evacuated) out of the area. So most of the people that signed up at Maryknoll were related to the Maryknoll school, but since my sister was not (a) Catholic, but she was close to some of the people at the school so she was helping register people, so they registered us also with (the) group. So we were connected with the Boyle Heights Catholic group that went to Manzanar. And that's how we got to go to Manzanar. Most of my friends that were in Boyle Heights that weren't tied in with the Catholic church went to... what was it? Went to (Poston) Arizona. What was it? There were two camps over there.

MN: Poston?

BK: Huh?

MN: Poston?

BK: Poston. Yeah, they went to Poston I, II, III. They had two, three camps.

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