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TI: How, how about Japanese American classmates, did any of their fathers get picked up by the FBI?

TH: Oh (yes). In fact, in the neighborhood, that afternoon, December 7th, a fair number of, of the fathers were picked up. And didn't hear much about where they were, and then finally, I guess maybe a week or so later, (...) "Oh, they're down in Terminal Island," was what we heard, and pretty soon they were then removed from Terminal Island. And I don't know how many weeks later, but I was visiting one of the families whose father was picked up, and they're sitting at the table, rolling the socks up and I said, "What's going on?" Said, oh, "We know where," by that time he was a grandpa, (...), "Yeah, we know where Grandpa" -- well, no, they didn't know, except that they told us to pack up all different clothing so that they could get over to them, so I remember that, sitting there rolling up socks and whatever else, so that they could package it up and get it to him. But (...) as I said, the schoolteachers, the principal, Japanese school principal, they were picked up. And it turned out, later on I find that those who were very active in the different organizations were the ones that were picked up, 'cause I guess the government figured that they were the leaders and just pulled the leaders out of the whole group to sort of detooth the population.

TI: So I'm curious, from a community standpoint, for the families whose fathers were taken away, were they treated any differently, these families that, like the mother and the kids, were they treated any differently than any other family?

TH: No, I didn't notice that, because we were still, as I said, as a kid, visit so and so, and you go over and pretty soon there they are, rolling up the socks. So not much...

TI: How about a sense of trying to help some of these families out, because all of a sudden the main breadwinner was now gone? Did you see or hear of any attempts to maybe bring food over or anything like that?

TH: That I don't remember, but I'm sure that that happened. (...) Think back on the Terminal Island group, they were the very first ones down in Southern California (to be) moved out, and soon as the word got out that they had something like forty-eight hours or even less than that, in some cases twenty-four hours to move out, the word got out and those people who had trucks (...) quickly went down and helped them move out, and then they also moved into (our neighborhood). The relatives were all open to that, and so suddenly in the neighborhood (there) were a bunch of new kids and so you wondered, "Who are these people?" Then that's when I heard the story of Terminal Island. There was cooperation, quite a bit. And then apparently there was a big (concern), especially now as the evacuation, the removal of us became more or less imminent. Families then moved around so that they would be together, 'cause they heard that they would be moving groups out by areas, so the families that were dispersed then moved together into the same neighborhood, so that when we went into the camps they would be together.

TI: So are you talking more about the Terminal Islanders? I mean, that they were kind of dispersed and they would kind of get together? I'm trying to understand which families.

TH: No, other families.

TI: Just other families, too.

TH: Other families. Well, the Terminal Islanders, okay, they had to leave first so then what happened then was they in turn moved in with their relatives, so in the Hollywood area here were several families now together with one of the families who were in Hollywood.

TI: Oh, I see, so I'm thinking, so if someone, like, married and moved someplace else, you mean they'd all try to get back together so that when...

TH: Yeah, so somebody, as you said, if they had married out, okay, one might be up in San Jose or way out in, in Camarillo or something like that, yes, there was another family that came in from Camarillo and then stayed with one of the families in the neighborhood.

TI: So I'm curious. I've interviewed people who were in Terminal Island and they talk about leaving the island, and this was kind of, like, the end of February, early March of 1942, '42... I'm curious from the, I never asked someone from the incoming community that they came into, when all these Terminal Islanders started coming into the neighborhood, how was that for you and the others? I mean, was there any hardships or any, were there positives to it, negatives? Can you, any sense of that?

TH: Well, just that they were new people in the neighborhood. But hardship, our family didn't go through that, but I can see because some of the families I knew, they weren't living in a large place. I mean, small apartments, and with the economy as it was... so I can certainly say, oh my gosh, thinking back, it's that, you suddenly now double up the number of kids and parents into maybe a small apartment, and so I think, yeah, that might be a hardship for that particular family.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.