<Begin Segment 9>

MN: Now I want to get into the war years. Do you remember what you were doing on Sunday, December 7, 1941?

YH: No, I don't remember. What I do remember after Pearl Harbor, they had, my father and all my uncles met at my grandmother's house to decide whether we should stay in California or leave the state altogether. And then everyone decided that we should stay.

MN: Now, because you decided to stay, what happened to your father?

YH: He was picked up by the FBI.

MN: Do you remember --

YH: From his work. I remember that because when he came home he still had his apron on that he wore when he worked in the grocery store. And he came home in his car and the FBI came home in their, came to our house in their car and came straight into our house and then, and then they told my father to pack. So while (he was) packing the FBI searched our house. They went into the living room and the kitchen, and the back porch because that's where we had the washing machine, and then they looked under the sink and my mother had a curtain under the sink, and they looked into the stove 'cause it, the tie from the stove was up here. And then as they were going into the living room there was a cabinet on the side of the gas heater, and they took all this shakuhachi music out of that cabinet. I don't know why they were doing that, but anyway, they took it all away. And then my father had one small duffel bag, and he was putting all his things into the duffel bag, opening up the tansu drawers and putting his underwear and his shorts, his socks in the duffel bag. And then the FBI agent went into the, my mother and father's closet and turned his golf bag upside down so all the golf balls came out of there and rolled across the bedroom rug. I don't know why they were doing that. So anyway, and my mother was really getting scared and my father was telling her, you know, "It'll be okay, you don't have to worry." And then the FBI took him away in their car.

MN: You mentioned they took the shakuhachi music.

YH: Yeah.

MN: Do you think the FBI thought it was code or something?

YH: I think so.

MN: I'm just trying to think why they would take that.

YH: Yeah, 'cause the shakuhachi music is really, it's really hard to read unless you knew how to play the shakuhachi. I guess to anyone else it would look like code, especially if you were an FBI agent.

MN: And you're watching all this, what's going through your mind?

YH: Well, I didn't know what the heck they were doing.

MN: Were you angry? Were you scared?

YH: No, I wasn't angry or scared. I was just watching them 'cause I was curious what they were doing.

MN: How did you feel about having them take your father away?

YH: Well, I don't know how I would feel, but then the next thing I knew I was with my grandmother, I think they called it Tujunga Canyon, and I could see my father a long distance away. I couldn't talk to him or touch him 'cause he was behind a big wire fence, but I could see that he was crying. And then, and then we left. So my grandmother must have known that my father was there, 'cause I didn't know he was there.

MN: Someone drove you out to Tujunga Canyon.

YH: Yeah. Do you know where that is?

MN: It's up in the hills. They're trying to preserve that right now.

YH: Is that right?

MN: There's a, there's a structure there still and they're trying to get funds to preserve it, but I'm not sure if they're gonna be successful.

YH: Yeah. 'Cause I know when I saw him next he said after, after Tujunga Canyon -- before that he was taken to the jail, and he said there were a lot of other men there that he knew, were in that jail, and they were kidding with each other, "Now," they said, "Now what did you do?" He said, "Nothing. What did you do?" "Well you must've done something to land here." They were just kidding with each other. Then they, from that jail they went to Tujunga Canyon.

MN: And that's where you saw your father, but you were not able to communicate at all?

YH: No. It was too far.

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