Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Jimmie S. Matsuda Interview
Narrator: Jimmie S. Matsuda
Interviewers: Tom Ikeda, Steve Fugita
Location: San Jose, California
Date: January 25, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-mjimmie-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So let's, let's move to December 8, 1941, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Do you remember that day?

JM: Yeah. It was December 8th. Over here it was the 7th?

TI: Yeah.

JM: Yeah, but then, that time I was raised like a kid and my dad too, he says, "The Japanese are stupid." And I said, "Why?" you know, in Japanese. He says, "Japan's a small country. They can't beat America. Look how big America is." And so he says, "Nihonjin wa bakatare." [Laughs]

TI: And what did you think when you heard --

JM: Me too, I, of course I said, yeah, they are stupid. I mean, of all the stuff they, America has and Japan is just a small country. I says, if it was a, if I myself thought if it was a short term of war maybe Japan would've won, but if they keep a long term, I says, my dad, too, says, "No, Japan's gonna lose because there'll be no fuel or nothing."

TI: And how about your mother? Did she have anything to say?

JM: No, no, she says, too, that Japan, well that time, "Bakatare." [Laughs] 'Cause they were here in America and they had everything, whatever they wanted.

TI: So describe what it was like when you went to school. What was school like after war had started?

JM: I was Japan here, so...

TI: Yeah, so in Japan.

JM: In Japan?

TI: Yeah.

JM: They wouldn't say nothing to me. The FBIs were really surrounding us that time.

TI: I'm sorry, the FBI?

JM: The Japanese FBI, because they thought we were spies. So even during the daytime or nighttime, they would come in the house without even knocking. They'll just open the door and say, "How are you guys doing?" and things like that, too. When we were having dinner they'll do that. And one day, I didn't go to school, but the FBI says, "Hey, Matsuda-san," he said, "How was school today?" I said, "Oh, it was very good." He says, "Nope, you didn't go to school. You played hooky, 'cause you were at the coast swimming with the other friends." They caught me right there.

TI: Wow, so they were watching you pretty closely.

JM: Oh, they were watching us all the time.

TI: And why do you think so?

JM: They thought we were spies, 'cause in that city there, I think we were the only American-born people there, and so after that now the policemen got pretty strict, too, so if we had to go out of town, like Sunnyvale and Mountain View, we had to report to the police station, saying that we're going so-and-so, we're going so-and-so, to each place.

TI: Now, when you're at school were you ever teased for growing up in America? Did they call you Yankee or anything like that?

JM: No. Well yeah, they called me Yankee, I mean, "yanki," they'll say. They called me that, but other than that, no. Because what happened is high school there was these guys that, they were pretty good Japanese people, but they start teasing and one day, they were practicing, learning how to blow the bugle and everything and I happened to walk by, and I kind of laughed at them the way they were doing that and this one guy comes up to me and in Japanese he says, "What's the matter with you?" 'Cause he know I was a foreigner, and then he took out this, it's called tsuba, a kendo thing, you know that tsuba in there? He had that in his pocket. He took it out and start raising a hand, so I did my little boxing, I says, "Come on." Soon as he seen me do that he quit. He knew that that was the only way. [Laughs]

TI: So during this time, you mentioned your sisters, so their school, the missionaries had to go back to the United States, so what did your sisters do after the war started?

JM: After the war, just go to Japanese high school, that's all. Until they graduated.

TI: And do you recall any stories that they told about what it was like for them?

JM: No. Because it was mostly English until the war broke out, I mean because Mrs. Lancaster was the principal of the school that time. But that school, they reopened again after the war. It's still standing there.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.