Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Takashi Hoshizaki Interview
Narrator: Takashi Hoshizaki
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Jim Gatewood
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: July 28, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-htakashi_2-01-0024

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TI: So let's go back, so you, you get your papers to report for the physical and you ignore them. You don't, you don't go. A week or so later you said they come to pick you up, so describe that. What happened?

TH: After, the part that I really remember is that they just, when they came in the morning and picked me up, the only thing I remember was I think my mother, I think she must have handed me a sweater and somehow I think she handed me a little spiral bound notepad and a pencil. And the reason I remember, I think that I remember is I moved around, being interrogated and then signing the report paper that the FBI had, was that I had wrote all the events as they were happening. And apparently -- and I don't really remember all the details, except there they were, and except that we went (...) to the administrative area of the camp and (...) that was where they had interrogated me, and apparently they were trying to get information on the Fair Play Committee. And (...) then I went over to the Cody jail and then I somehow, from there I came back, if I remember the notes part. I went back to Heart Mountain and eventually ended up in the county jail at Casper, Wyoming. (...) There were so many of us that we had filled up the county jails in and around the whole area of Wyoming.

TI: And, so going back, your, so your mother, I understand the sweater and then the notepad. Did, did she tell you, did she have, did she tell you why she gave it to you? I mean, you used it, in a way, to keep track, but that, it's kind of an interesting...

TH: No, it... yeah, she didn't say, but it was interesting because I felt that, well, they were holding pretty well, and I used to say, "Well, my mother and father weren't upset," but then later on I talked to my siblings and they said, "Oh, yeah, my mom was really upset that this had happened." I said oh, okay, well that's after I had left then, this all happened.

TI: So when this was happening, in the moment they were pretty stoic about it?

TH: Yeah.

TI: But then your siblings later on told you...

TH: Yeah, that (...) she was upset. But then she did come out and see me during the trial at Cheyenne. There was a group of the people who were then permitted to leave the camp, I guess who were related to resisters, to come out and then sit in the trial.

TI: So describe meeting your, your mom? Was your father there, too, or just your mother?

TH: No, just my mother.

TI: And so were you, did you have an opportunity to talk with her?

TH: Yeah, just a bit and... but apparently what had happened was that there was a huge hailstorm, and so the talk and, I guess, more at that time was what had happened and how the hailstorm had smashed the windows in the room that they were in, and I said, "Oh, you didn't get hurt?" She said no, no, everything's fine. But that's the, the real part of the conversation that I remember, so that's basically about it. But she was there, I remember.

TI: So your... and why not your father?

TH: I don't know. It may be that they have limited family members coming out, but I really don't know. I was really surprised that they permitted the, the parents to come out.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.