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MN: Okay, let's get into the war years now.
Mo N: Okay.
MN: Do you remember what your family was doing on Sunday, December 7, 1941?
Mo N: Yeah, very clearly, real vividly. We were on our way to go fishing. My dad is a fisherman, and my mom tagged along, made the bento and that kind of thing, to be with her old man. So we were out and on our way to go perch fishing, heading toward the coast. I remember the news coming over the thing, right, Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor. I didn't know, I don't know what they said. But all I remember was Mom saying, "Uh-oh, I think we better turn around and go back," and my dad said, "Yeah, I think we better." We turned around, came home, and no sooner did I get, we got out of the car and stuff like that, my mom runs inside the house. The next thing I know, she's taking all my kazari ningyo, you know, the Boy's Day dolls and all of that, all of that stuff, and I guess my dad was saying his books from Japan and this shit from Japan, she took out in the backyard and set fire to it, man. Yeah, I tripped out on that. All my treasures went up in smoke. So that was December 7th, that's what I remember about December 7th.
MN: Did you know anybody who got picked up by the FBI?
Mo N: Yeah, yeah, but I didn't know at the time, but yeah, the landlord of our house, Mr. Furukawa. He was one of the leaders of the Kyorikai, Seinan Kyorikai. Very strong, good man. Apparently he got picked up, taken away. I didn't know, just... later on I figured it out that he was one of the people picked up.
MN: The next day was a Monday. Did you go to school?
Mo N: I don't remember. My assumption is that probably did. I mean, there were enough of us Japanese living in the area where I think we would have, it would have been a pretty normal thing to do. All that real heightened race attitude, especially amongst black people, doesn't come until after the war, during the war and after the war.
MN: So once the government announced that all the West Coast Japanese Americans had to go into camp, what did your family do with the big furniture and the car?
Mo N: Well, we weren't a rich family. Our family was, didn't have much. But we had a new car, my dad had invested and bought a new car. They must have just got rid of it, somebody must have come by and picked, got whatever it was that we had, which wasn't much, because it was just starting off as a family, too. But the car, what we did was we reported to, I guess maybe people with cars reported to Centenary, and we were lined up out there. I distinctly remember lining up as a family, and this guy, soldier with guns come along and put our family numbers on us. So I remember that. Then we get in the car and we drive to Santa Anita. And then the car is auctioned off at Santa Anita, I found out later. So we drove to Santa Anita.
MN: What about your mother's parents? How did they get to Santa Anita?
Mo N: That's a good question, I don't know. Of course, we had uncles, my uncles were, some of them were fairly old, old enough to take. If not, then they went there at the designated date and they got on buses and then they brought 'em in by busload.
MN: And then by this time, your father's parents had already gone back to Japan, right?
Mo N: Yeah.
<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.