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MN: Now, going back to the, after Pearl Harbor, and you had this incident one time where you went to this Sunday school picnic, and it was with the First Baptist Church. What happened when you and the boys, and the other boys went to go find something to drink?

RW: Well, we were there in this little town of Mentone, which is on the eastern part of Redlands, and we went on a Sunday school picnic, kind of like a riverbed there, the same Santa Ana riverbed. And somebody said, let's go get a drink of water, so the whole little class went to this house right nearby. It was an older man there, and as we asked him for a glass of water he said, "Sure, come on in." So we all went in the house, and he took a look at me and then he went walking over to the kitchen and started to open a drawer, and whether he was serious or not I wasn't gonna wait around to find out, but he said, "Hey, you little Jap, I'm going to cut your head off." And he was rattling the drawer, so I just took off. It must've been a good seven to ten miles away and I just ran all the way home and never went back to Sunday school. It's kind of ironic too, because when I came back to Redlands and went to high school I ran into a couple of kids, one girl and one guy that said they were in that Sunday school class. They remembered that. So I was surprised 'cause I didn't remember the kids' names at that time because after going to camp for three years it's kind of hard to remember who was in that Sunday school class. But they did say they remembered that happening.

When they were evacuating us the Baptist church baptized us all. They wanted to baptize all the Japanese before they left for the camp, so as we were walking down the aisle to get baptized the Sunday school teacher came, just scooting through the pews there, then came out to the aisle just holding me and just telling me not to be angry and that man didn't mean it. She was apologizing and walked and kept going with me all the way right up to where they had, I guess it's a tub or whatever, the baptismal place. And she was just trying to get me and I distinctly remember her saying, "Don't go away with hatred." She was very, very apologetic, so that was something that brings tears to my eyes 'cause I just, I remember that and I remember how I felt as a kid. I just didn't acknowledge her. I just kept walking with the family, so that was the one bad experience for me.

MN: You mentioned about how you felt. How did you feel when she came up to you and said that and walked with you?

RW: I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't want to answer, I didn't want a conversation. It was like, go away, leave me alone. I was too hurt and I didn't want to talk to her, I didn't want to acknowledge her apology. I think that was probably the only hurt that I really had. I think it's more of a hurt than my being put in a camp, because that was totally unexpected and totally out of context. My brother's in the army; why am I a Jap, you know? My brother was already in the army at that time. Even when we went to camp he was in the army.

MN: Did you ever see this man again?

RW: No, he was much older so I would assume he's probably long gone.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.