<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Okay, so now I'm gonna backtrack because I want to now go back to December 7, 1941. And first I want to just ask, what was that day like for you? Do you remember that day and what happened?

MA: Well that day I was at the Orpheum Theatre with a friend of mine, and Claire and I had just left the theater and we had walked from the Orpheum Theatre to Third and Pine, and there was a newsboy there yelling, "Pearl Harbor attacked by the Japanese." And, and I don't know for sure if I realized how serious that was. I knew it wasn't right. I knew that there was a problem, but then I don't think I really zeroed in on the actual meaning of what that meant. And of course, as you know, shortly after that the declaration of war. And so it was, at that time, when... do you want me to go on with the part of my friends leaving and everything?

TI: Well, let's just stay with this day. I want, I'm actually gonna walk you through a couple days. I want to know what it was like the next day at school and things like that from your perspective. So anything, when you, like, went home or saw your parents, did they say anything about the war?

MA: Yeah, well I think that just the idea of the attack, yes, I think we all, I think everybody was talking about it, naturally, and the news, the radio. I don't think there was TV then, or was there? [Laughs] But mostly it was radio, and so yes, I think most all of us were talking about it, and when we saw --

TI: And what were people saying? I mean, especially, in particular about the Japanese and Japanese Americans?

MA: At that time the Caucasians, not the Japanese, but the Caucasians, most of it was very negative, very anti Japanese. I think that even some people I knew were looking at our Japanese American friends and thinking, oh my gosh, this person... but I don't remember ever really my contemporaries, or even my parents, saying anything anti Japanese.

TI: But these were comments you heard, like downtown then?

MA: Downtown I heard some things, yes. And, but then I was so, I don't even think I was angry that they were doing to the Japanese Americans, I never thought of them as Japanese Americans. These were my buddies. These were my neighbors. These were my friends, and so I never thought in the terms of, oh, what are they doing to my friends, because I couldn't imagine.

TI: So I'm gonna slow you down and still stay on December 7, 1941, and the days after. And when you're downtown, especially, and people are saying perhaps negative things about Japanese, when I interview Japanese and Japanese Americans about this time, many of them just stayed home. They were afraid to venture out. And I'm just curious, from your perspective, would it have been safe for your Japanese friends to have been walking around downtown during this time?

MA: I think so. I mean, I just, I think it's because I can't even possibly imagine that it would be otherwise. I'm sure sporadically there were those that did, but then I don't think I felt, no, I don't think I felt that it was dangerous for them because I couldn't even, not even fathom that it could be.

TI: So let's go to the next day, Monday, December 8th. You have school at Broadway High School. Talk about that. I mean, did your Japanese friends all go to school? Did some of them stay home, or do you have a sense about that day?

MA: Not truly. I don't believe that they, I believe they attended school. And now this is just a kind of a thought of my own, is I can't imagine that they even imagined that what was to come was gonna be. So I just have a feeling that things were just kind of the same, but I could be totally wrong.

TI: Do you remember any teachers or, or the principal saying anything about the war? That, because that day was the day President Roosevelt made the announcement --

MA: Declared.

TI: -- declared war. And was there, like, an assembly, or did you guys hear on the radio, anything like that?

MA: No. I mean, yes, it was talked about, but then I just, I guess I didn't absorb it the same way that I might have.

TI: Now at this point did you have any conversations with your Japanese friends about --

MA: Yeah, just kind of norm. I don't remember having any conversations, until, of course, when it came to the fact that they were told that they have to leave. Then of course lots of comments. But then, up 'til that point, no, I don't know. I just got, I just have memory of it just being kind of norm.

TI: So how about the days and weeks after that? So even before they left, I'm just thinking about that transition period where, there were a couple months where people really didn't know yet, and I'm just wondering if there were any incidents or anything that you can recall out of the ordinary?

MA: No. What I recall is that when it really became reality and then the time came that they had to leave. I think that's when, I think, it really hit all of us. And of course those of us, like, who had a friend or friends, but particularly I'm thinking of my one friend, it was just almost unbelievable that she would be leaving and for the reason that she was leaving. So in general, no, I didn't, I don't know. I think maybe I just wasn't facing it. Maybe it wasn't, I was not facing it, like as to what it really was.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.