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SY: And that was, let's back up just a little, when you found out that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

YN: Yes, it was a terrible thing. One of the things that happened was, I believe I was picking raspberries at the time, and a neighbor came over and told me that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. And, well, it seemed like the whole world kind of bombed out at that time for us because if there's anything you don't want it's something like that to happen. We knew that a war with Japan is not good for us. But anyway, he came over to give us assurance that we're still friends. But the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor, and at that time I was thinking, you know, here's a country that's about the size of California, without the resources of California, attacking a huge country with tremendous resources. Even though the strike was successful for them in terms of military objectives, the fact that they cut the tiger's tail off, you don't live very long if you do that. So I thought that, at that time, it was not a smart thing to do. But Japan had the upper hand at the time, and because of this attack, which was claimed to be a sneak attack, but we've seen headlines in the Honolulu paper where the people were warned a week beforehand that Japan is preparing for war, so it should not have been a great surprise, but apparently the people in Hawaii thought, "Well, Japan, we'll sink them in a day or two. Whatever." So didn't pay much attention, and unfortunately the attack was successful from their standpoint. It certainly destroyed our navy and the port itself, and it took quite a while to restore the capabilities of the navy in Pearl Harbor.

SY: So do you remember specifically anything about the reaction that people had when this happened?

YN: Well, yes... people were mad. And when you're mad you kick the dog or you hit your youngster or something. You take it out on something. And at that particular time the Japanese had captured some American soldiers and we had no soldiers from Japan under our jurisdiction. We had nothing as pawns, and I think that that's one of the reasons for this fervor to incarcerate us, because then we became pawns for exchange or whatever. So there was animosity in certain places. People who knew us, we're friends, you know.

SY: You never got any kind of negative reaction at school? Among your...

YN: Well, no, we had some negative reactions. I know that when the Japanese club met periodically there might be a knock on the door or something like that, but by and large the population there seemed to think highly of us and they didn't think we were disloyal.

SY: So your friends treated you the same?

YN: Well, yes. In fact, one of my friends was even, he got closer. So several of them maintained correspondence with me during the evacuation, afterwards and for a number of years, so we've made good friends, and we kept them. The fellow that I was closest to was Kenneth Morgan. He lived about a half a mile from our house and we became very good friends. In high school I took auto shop and I remodeled his car, and I found out I'm not a very good mechanic. Anyway, I found out that I didn't put the nuts in right or the bolts in right on the differential, so when I started the car the oil spurted out. [Laughs] We learn from these mistakes. But one thing I did learn, though, Max Ireland was the teacher and it isn't the auto shop that was the thing that really impressed me; it's the manner in which he taught. He was an excellent teacher, so that gave me sort of a model in my head as I grew up, that someday perhaps I might be a teacher. And he had a way of presenting material, reviewing material, and he was someone who also kind of looked after you. I would say that there were very good teachers there. And I mentioned the first grade teacher, Ruth Green Paul, well, when I went to high school the advisor to the Japanese Lions Club was her daughter, Madeline Halley, so it was a wonderful connection. And she was very, very supportive of us, so we maintained this friendship with her too and with Mrs. Paul. And my history teacher at that time said, "Yoshio, don't worry, you're an American citizen and no one's going to force you to be somewhere else." Well, he discovered he was wrong. He was as surprised as anyone that we all had to leave. If you recall, the evacuation orders said "all Japanese citizens or non-citizens," so instead of saying "American citizens" we were cast in a different light.

SY: So the teachers that you had, they are the ones that are most memorable in terms of your --

YN: Well, my fellow students, Don McCullough, who engineered our last reunion which occurred last year, said, "Gee," as he was trying to get people together, he said, "You know, if we wait another year we can meet in a phone booth," because so many have passed on. But he was very close to some other Niseis, and so he had high regard for Nisei that he knew.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.