<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Let's, let's move now into the spring of 1942, so a few months after the bombing at Pearl Harbor the FBI visits your house. Can you describe what happened and why they were there?

BS: Well, one day, on a Sunday, two men, two, yeah, two FBI men came, one, I guess my mother was inside, one stood outside the door and one went inside and I guess he rummaged around the house looking for anything that made my father look like an enemy spy or whatever. Back on December 7th my mother put away Japanese things and she left out a portrait of Abraham Lincoln, see. So anyway, on this Sunday when the two FBI men came, my father was not home and so one man looked around inside the house, couldn't find anything, so before they left they told us to have my father report to the police station. And so when my father came home he went to the police station and then they took him to this Tujunga internment camp in nearby Pasadena, and, and so he was taken there, and...

TI: Now, so the FBI didn't pick up everyone, they just picked up a few select people at this time. Why do you think they picked up your father?

BS: Because he was a member of this Japanese group, some kind of farmers' group, and he was probably one of the last to be picked up because he was a younger Issei. I imagine the older ones got picked up first, and so he was one of the last.

TI: And when this, when this was happening, what was the reaction of your mother?

BS: Well, I don't remember exactly what she went through, but I remember once a week a friend of ours whose own father was at the camp, he came down to our farm to pick up my mother and go to the Tujunga internment center. And I believe that particular action was the worst action that the government did to my family, of taking my father away from the farm and having my mother run the farm. My brother was a senior in high school, so he quit high school to help with, on the farm. We had some farm equipment, a tractor and those kind of things, and then when the evacuation into the camps started in the surrounding area, then my mother had to dispose of the farm and get ready for the --

TI: Well, tell me about, so dispose of the farm? So what does that mean, like selling the farm or, what did she do?

BS: We didn't own the land, okay. We leased the land. We owned the house on this leased land and so it entailed disposing of crops, growing crops, our house... I think that was the worst terrible thing that happened to us, up to that point, I guess.

TI: And part of it was just how hard it was for your mother because all of a sudden she had to take on the responsibility, and you older brother who had to quit school, kind of take on the responsibility of, of running a farm that your father was doing? Was that...

BS: Right. Right.

TI: And part of it, so your father was part of this farming, Japanese farming group. Was there ever an attempt by the family to get, like, legal representation or do anything to get your father out, out of the camp?

BS: Well, my father told my mother that if she could get affidavit, affidavits from our white friends pertaining to his good citizenship then he could be released, so she started that procedure, but before it was finished my father was transferred to the Santa Fe internment camp in New Mexico.

TI: And so you mentioned your mother was able to communicate because she visited your father at Tujunga?

BS: Yes.

TI: Do you know how many times she was able to do that?

BS: No, I don't remember.

TI: But it was more than once? You've mentioned a weekly kind of visit.

BS: Oh, yes. She was going every Sunday.

TI: Now, did any of the children ever get to go also, like your older brother or your older sister, anything like that?

BS: No, I don't remember that.

TI: And when she came back, did you ever get a, did she ever explain to you or the others what, what it was like at Tujunga?

BS: No, I don't remember that. Since I was the third son, she didn't speak to me about those kind of things. She probably spoke to my eldest brother.

TI: Okay. And then you mentioned that he was then transferred to Santa Fe before she could collect all the affidavits and get them there, so, so he went to Santa Fe, your mother had to dispose of things and get ready for leaving the farm, so describe that. I mean, how, like your house belongings, beds and dressers and all that, what happened to all that?

BS: I think we stored that with our landlord in his shed. That's all I could remember. I... that's all I could remember of what we did. It was only later that I found out the exclusion order on what is stated, that we were to report with only with what we could carry. See, I didn't know about that.

TI: And before we go to when you actually left, were there any farewells that you remember? Did you say goodbye to anyone like a teacher or any white friends or anything that you remember before you left?

BS: No.

TI: Was there anything said at school when, knowing that all the Japanese are now gonna be leaving, do you recall a teacher saying anything?

BS: No, I don't. I wish I had kept a record of all that.

TI: I'm just curious how those last days and, and kind of what it felt like for all of a sudden, twenty percent of the class to, to have to leave and what it was like. And whether or not any of the classmates said anything about what was going on.

BS: I think you need to talk to older people on that. I think that would be highly interesting.

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