Densho Digital Archive - Takashi Hoshizaki Interview (denshovh-htakashi

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: Okay, well actually... let's, so let's go to December 7, 1941. Why don't you tell me what you can remember of that day?

TH: Okay. Well, by that time I was sixteen, had driver's license and I was very interested in aviation, so I was making model airplanes and, in fact, actually designing models, flying 'em, and so graduated up into the little gasoline motors. And so I was flying, had gone down to a place called Western and Rosecranz, that was a big, open area there, and the people in Southern California would gather, those who were interested in the model airplanes, would fly their gas models there. And I was there December 7th, and (...) I found that on that day I could not really fly my model, airplane, model airplane because there was a large regional meet there, and later on, talking to other people, they says, "Oh yeah," I says, "I was there," and so forth, 'cause everybody remembers that date. So anyway, I would go there early Sunday morning and try to fly, and then when I drove back, came back home, then I found out that, what had happened (...) now, there was a war on. And so that was my recollection of December 7th, plus the fact that we all sat down and my dad said, "Now Japan's (going to) lose the war." But then after that came the time to prepare as to what was (going to) happen.

TI: So the next day, when you went back, when you went to school, what was the reaction at school?

TH: There was nothing, as, as some might think that there'd be anger toward us, but no, all our schoolmates, we just sat around and talked. And the, I guess the others were talking about, from their newspaper, radio reports as to what happened at Pearl Harbor and so on. But no, we were still, as I said, kids, friends, except that it felt a little strange because all the propaganda and stuff that was starting to come out. (Thinking), "Wow, something's gonna happen." No, it didn't, so that was very good.

TI: So I want to make sure, so your, your non-Japanese American friends, they... so there were no taunts or any negative comments or name calling, stuff like that?

TH: No, no name calling. Yeah.

TI: How about on the other side? Did any of the non-Japanese Americans come up to you and say, "Hey, Takashi, we know you're okay, you're American," or anything like that? Did anything like that happen?

TH: No, it's, it was, for me, there was nothing like that. I mean, we were still friends. We, as by high school many of us had been schoolmates, classmates (...) since grammar school. Because we had at Dayton Heights a very diverse background school. (...) I guess nothing much really happened. We continued our classes.

TI: Or how about amongst your Japanese American friends? Was there any discussions about what happened or things happening in the community? Any discussions about that?

TH: No, I don't remember that, except that I guess I would be following the progress of the war, what was happening, and I had a fairly good grasp of geography, except Pearl Harbor. Where's that? Oh, it's in Hawaii. Okay, fine.