<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So let's move on then to the war in terms of, yeah, December 7, 1941. So what are some memories about that time? You're very young still, you're what like six?

RO: I was six, six years old.

TI: Yeah, six years old. So but tell me what you can remember about when the war started.

RO: When the war started we had to go to the city hall to get vaccinated for measles and we got vaccinated and we returned back to the parsonage and we all came down with the measles. Within a few days we were covered with measles and so the rest of the San Diego community had moved on to Santa Anita except we were the only one left because of, we were quarantined. So after we got through our measles they had to ship us to Santa Anita and I remember the army truck coming, one of those with the canvas on it. And our neighbor was German, she was a German woman, and she decided to cook a meal for us and we went over there. It was soup, it was... I now recall, remember what it is but at that time I didn't know what it was 'cause I was just used to miso soup. But it was split pea soup and the texture was so strange none of us kids ate it, I felt, years later thinking about it, I was thinking I wished I could have gone back to apologize to the lady for first all for being so kind to make a meal for us and we couldn't eat it because we just weren't familiar with split pea soup. After the meal that we couldn't eat we went down to... walked down the street and the soldiers were standing there. There must have been three of them but they had this rifle, they were standing there with the rifle with this long bayonet at the end and I remember as a child, a six year old walking over there and seeing these soldiers with the bayonets and I thought, oh my god, are they going to kill us? What are they doing? And at that moment it was so terrifying and my mother was six months pregnant and she had to sit on that bench in this truck and for two hours, it must have taken us more than two hours 'cause there was no freeway at the time.

TI: And in the truck it was just your family?

RO: It was just our family.

TI: So your father, your pregnant mother, your older brother, you and younger brother?

RO: Right. And it was just a bench and those trucks have that canvas and it's just tied at the end so you look down and you can see the road and the flapping of the canvas. And I remember to this day looking down there, scared, hanging on for dear life onto the bench. And I don't know how many hours it took us to get to Santa Anita because in those days there weren't freeways.

TI: Do you remember any interaction between the family and the soldiers? Like I imagine six years old, you're probably pretty cute. I mean, I would think. I was wondering did the soldiers just kind of... were they friendly with you?

RO: That I don't remember. I don't remember anything other than just being terrified at seeing this bayonet and I don't know if my father conversed with them at all, I doubt it. I just remember being marched to the truck and then climbing aboard and ending up in Santa Anita racetrack.

TI: Before we go to Santa Anita I want to back up a little bit because your father was a minister so probably perceived as a community leader and the FBI right after December 7th picked up a lot of the Japanese community leaders. Did that happen in San Diego and was your father ever a potential target for that?

RO: Yes. I found out this much later but I remembered my father had a suitcase by the door and it occurred to me years later why he had that suitcase there. And through the records I found out that they took the Buddhist priest in San Diego to the labor camp, I guess it was called the labor camp. And they were ready to take my father but they found out he was a minister, a Protestant, Christian minister so I saw the memo saying because he's a Christian minister they weren't going to pick him up. So he came with us, he stayed with the family.

TI: So that's interesting just in terms of when you think about, I guess, a bias in terms of religion. If you were a Christian minister you were okay but if you're a Buddhist minister then you were suspect.

RO: Absolutely. But they were curious about the fact that I think the issue of my father having been drafted into the Japanese army but then kicked out, I think that also was why they were looking into his background.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.