<Begin Segment 20>

MN: Let's talk about Pearl Harbor day. What were you doing on Pearl Harbor day?

TY: I was working on the ranch.

MN: How did you hear that Pearl Harbor had been attacked?

TY: We were on the ranch, my dad, me, and my brother was out on the ranch, about seven o'clock in the morning. Then my sister comes running out to the ranch. "Hey, what Neesan running out the ranch for?" My sister said, "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor." "No. No way." We were just out on the ranch, just standing around, what to do, that day. My dad says, "No." He was kind of downhearted. He said, "No." And I was there, "Can't happen." I told my sister, "You're crazy. Got to go listen to it again. Can't be. It can't be." So that's, that was my reaction. It can't be. So then had to go home and listen to the radio, and then I heard President Roosevelt say, what did he say? Said United States and Japan entered a declaration of the war, or something like that, declaration of the war. I think that's how he said it. And then I just did not believe it.

MN: But your mother had said, when she went to Japan in '36 she said there was gonna be a war.

TY: Yeah. It happened. You know what Mom said? "I told you." [Laughs] Because she said there's gonna be a war. "You're crazy, Mom. Can't be." Well, the big whacking on the Japan Sea every day, see how they're gonna approach, see what they're gonna do, see how they're gonna attack, this and that. She was right. Five years later, boom.

MN: So that evening, December 7, 1941, you already had plans.

TY: Yeah.

MN: What did you that evening?

TY: That evening we had a date already. That was Sunday, so we had a date with the girls to go roller skating. So then three of us and three girls had a date and then we went roller skating to Long Beach roller dome, and then we were skating, skating and skating, all of a sudden the girls came up, said, "Hey, Tak, let's get out of here." I said, why? "The guys are, guys are tripping us." I said, "No, you got to be kidding. You guys must've misstepped and tripped yourself. Keep on skating. Nobody's gonna hurt you." Another comes, girl comes up, says, "Hey, I got tripped from a guy." What's happening? "You guys maybe stepped on your own skates and got tripped." "No, no. No, somebody really tripped me." "Skate around. Anybody that trips you, I'll knock him, knock his, give him a, I'm gonna fight with him, knock him down or whatever." "No, let's get out of here. Let's get out of here." So we just took our skates off and took off. We took off and I guess the guys were watching us, so they followed us and tried to run into us and throw, I think they threw tomatoes or, tomatoes or something at us on the way home. That was it, so we never did go roller skating after that no more. So that was the end of our social life for a while. That's what happened. That was it on the skating social activity. That was the end.

MN: Now, did anyone that you know get picked up by the FBI?

TY: Well, I don't exactly know, but I think some old folks, like the Nihonjinkai people got picked up immediately, as I recall. The folks were saying, my folks were saying that So-and-so got picked up, So-and-so got picked up, so I didn't know who they were, but, I didn't personally know 'em.

MN: But you kept hearing a lot of...

TY: Yeah.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.