<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So Yosh, let's go to, so right now we have you at San Jose State College.

YU: Right.

TI: And you were going to school there, but let's jump to December 7, 1941. Can you describe that day for me? What happened to you on that day?

YU: Well, it was a Sunday, and here in California I think it was about ten o'clock, so we got up late, on Sunday we sort of got out late and we would help, say, "Well, when shall we start cleaning the rooms?" And they said, "Well, let's wait. We're, the sun's out." It was a beautiful day. The sun was coming in, and we just sat there and I think we were listening to the radio. Then all of a sudden there was a flash and we're, had just, have a flash news. It says, so we listen, and... well, actually we really didn't listen too closely. All of a sudden says, "We have report that Pearl Harbor was bombed." So my roommate and I, we looked at each other, says, "Did you hear that?" Said, "Yeah." "Pearl Harbor, where the heck is Pearl Harbor?" And so we pulled out a magazine or book or something to look where Pearl Harbor, "Hey, that's, I think it's in Hawaii." He says, "Yeah, it is Hawaii. Now, who the hell would bomb Pearl Harbor?" So we said, "Can't be the Japanese." And so we said, "Well, who else would?" Then all of a sudden, yes, the Japanese planes have bombed Pearl Harbor, and we said, "Oh my god." That was about the only thing we could say, and we just got glued to the radio and listening. And we didn't have too many friends around, so we didn't make any phone calls or anything like that, we just sat there, glued to the radio. And then later in the afternoon we got more news. As the news came in, we got straightened that the Japanese had actually bombed. We said, "Well, what's gonna happen now?" Says, "We don't know." And I think all, we got together down in Japantown here. Right over there, there's a, there's a family here, Nakano I think, the dentist, he was from Hawaii and he had a couple of daughters that also attended San Jose State. And so we came down and we sat around, talked about it, and nobody had any answer as to what was gonna happen. And then we went home. Next day we went to school, and the president of the university stood before the assembly and told us that this has happened and that, "We want, it's going to mean war, and we want all of you people to be ready. And we know that you're gonna be called away soon." The San Jose State football team also was at Hawaii at the time, so the news, the things were a little more intense on the university because here they had the whole football team and they weren't coming back from the way things sounded, because at that time they came by ship, so they were afraid of the ship being torpedoed.

TI: So was there any mention of what would happen to Japanese American students at San Jose?

YU: There was no, nothing said. But everything was quiet, and friends that we had, Caucasian friends, like on the judo team and everything, we, they, we were treated well. They didn't say "get away from the Japs" or something like that. It was just... so as time went on, there were all kinds of rules came out that we couldn't leave our, our apartments or home, and that... it was a one mile radius or something like that.

TI: Yeah, it was like, I think maybe five mile, five mile kind of...

YU: Right, five miles. Anyway --

TI: And the 8:00 pm curfew.

YU: Curfew, right. So, well, I think we figured -- one or two miles anyway -- it was about one mile from school to here, so we used to come in and talk with friends in there. I do remember going to Norm's place -- of course, he was a little boy -- with his, talking with his brother Albert, and he would invite us over. And Mr. Mineta would say that, well, I don't know... I'd say, "What's gonna happen?" Says, "We don't know." And there was also a fear that the Japanese were going to invade, invade... and there was all kinds of news on there. Plus, okay, how do you identify the Japanese, difference between Japanese and Chinese?

TI: Yeah, all of those things. I wanted to ask, during these days right after, the FBI was picking up sort of Japanese with martial arts kind of backgrounds, like kendo, was that happening also in the judo community, that, were judo instructors --

YU: Right, yeah, judo, well mostly they were picking up teachers and people that were prominent in the Japanese community. Maybe like a schoolteacher or a Buddhist priest, somebody that, Japanese association president, somebody that stood out, and usually those people had, were the only one that had education about Japan. The rest of 'em were, we were dirt farmers.

TI: But how about in the judo community, like the judo instructors? Didn't they also have kind of that knowledge and background?

YU: Yeah, they had that, but a lot of that happened after, after they got into their, the camps.

TI: Okay. So in the days after Pearl Harbor, they weren't picked up. It was later on.

YU: Some people were picked up, but not...

TI: Okay. You talk about, it sounds like even though you were from Garden Grove, more southern California, the San Jose Japanese American community accepted you pretty well. It seemed like you were welcomed.

YU: Yeah, we were pretty well, not assimilated but we were, in a way, had neighbors and things friendlier. They, like you would say, like, somebody would live next door to a Caucasian and they lived in, and they were very friendly, exchanged gifts and things like that. So they didn't feel that uncomfortable. But some of the farms way down in Alviso here, they had people shoot into them.

TI: Okay, interesting. But in San Jose it wasn't like that as much.

YU: No, it was not. The shooting was usually not by, by Caucasians. It was by other Asians.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.