Densho Digital Archive - Minoru Tajii Interview (denshovh-tminoru

<Begin Segment 16>

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

MT: Gee, not really, except they were helping on the farm. And then we went to school, and hey, "You're a J-A-P." They started pushing us around.

MN: So a lot of the students on Monday harassed you?

MT: Oh, yes. Because, well, we were Orientals there, and you don't have that many Orientals there. And they were all farmers' kids, and we were told not to fight, that they where white, so they're gonna take it out on the parents. So we were told not to do anything. So we were very quiet.

MN: What happened to your father shortly after Pearl Harbor was attacked?

MT: Oh, he was picked up. And he was farming out in the field, and the FBI came and told him, "You're Tajii?" He said, "Yes." They just handcuffed him and took him away. And we didn't know where he was for three days. He had no change of clothes or nothing. They just took him out there with the dirty farming clothes. And then when we found out where he was, then we packed a suitcase and brought it to, came here to Tujunga. He was here in Tujunga from Imperial Valley to here. You know, that was two hundred something miles away. But that's the way it was. We didn't see him until we went to Crystal City, Texas. I never saw my father for how many years.

MN: Now, were you the one that brought your father the suitcase?

MT: No. My brother took it into town, then from town, they brought it over to Tujunga.

MN: The town people did, or who brought it into Tujunga?

MT: Well, my brother was able to help, but they had that restriction on how many miles you can go. So they didn't let him travel too far.

MN: Do you know why your father was picked up?

MT: They thought that he was a leader. They said, "He's the leader." But he was only a farmer from sixteen, he's farming. Well, how are you gonna become a leader? They had a Japanese company in El Centro. That would be about... 1940? Somewhere around there I think it was. They made a Japanese company, and he became one of the board of directors in there. And I think that's why they picked him up a potential leader.

MN: Was your father also involved with the Japanese Association?

MT: No, I don't think so. He was a farmer, he's always in farming, I don't think he can do anything. Even when they had the Japanese company, he didn't have time to go out there to the meetings like that. The only reason why they made that Japanese company was because Japanese people, they couldn't get rich. You had to go through these other companies that was around, so they made a Japanese company, trying to make it so that they could become independent.

MN: Now, from Tujunga, do you know where your father was sent?

MT: From there he was sent to Montana. I don't know where... then from Montana he went to New Mexico, and from New Mexico we went to Crystal City, Texas.

MN: You know, when your father got picked up, how did you feel?

MT: Oh, I was angry because he's the only one that we were relying on. He's the one always telling us do this and do that, and then all of a sudden he was gone and my mother, she was crying all the time anyway. Yeah, it was something, though, to lose your father, the one that used to lead you all the time, all of a sudden gone.