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TI: So going back to Samish Bay, after the two FBI agents talked to your father, what happened next?

EY: The next thing that happened was maybe two or three days later, there were about five younger FBI agents who came over and asked the same thing of my father, wanted to know, see some of the documents. And so my father did that, but he didn't have much of anything there. and so when I... while my father was talking with some of the agents, I walked down the hills. The house was down at the bottom, and the restaurant was up on top, and there was a foot trail. Nothing that was suitable for an automobile, but it was something that we walked back and forth. And when I went down, he came right out and said, "Your father's going to have to come with us." And so he, I guess he went with my father, my father went with them and he was taken over to the immigration station.

TI: Now, did the FBI agents ever question you?

EY: No, he never did ask me anything. He was only interested in talking to my father.

TI: Because it would have been interesting, because they may have then asked you about Pier 9 and all that.

EY: No, never did. So it never came up.

TI: Okay. And so they then took your father into Seattle at the immigration building?

EY: Hmm?

TI: Did you ever visit your father at the immigration building?

EY: Oh, yes, we did. We did. We went down there the next day, and there was a nice agent there that talked to my mother and let her talk with him. So it was not unreasonable, but a lot of the people there, there were many other Japanese people there, and said, "Oh, that man's no good, or that one's okay." [Laughs] They all had an opinion about them.

TI: During this time, how was your mother? Was she worried?

EY: Oh, very much so, very much.

TI: So tell me, how did you know she was worried?

EY: Hmm?

TI: How did you know she was worried? Did she say anything?

EY: Oh, she was, yeah. And she was concerned about food, concerned about clothes, and we didn't have... even then, we didn't have any knowledge about the restriction of travel, so we were running back and forth. Nobody ever caught us.

TI: So how did the family survive with your father gone? How did you make money?

EY: Well, my mother had a small restaurant, and it had a small oyster stand where people came and purchased the oysters. So we survived.

TI: So did the, your neighbors, the white people, did they ever say anything to you about being Japanese? Like did your business go down because of the war?

EY: The people... there was a man that was trying to sell us a refrigerator and a shortwave radio. And so it was all right, she had, for a trial, you know, she had those things. But the next day, he came back, he wasn't trying to sell anything, he wanted to take everything back with him. And so he came and picked up the radio and picked up the refrigerator and that was it. But I don't remember anything very serious. I think the worst one was the, one of our neighbors that had a competitive business, and so he wasn't very kind. The other people that we dealt with in business, we had no problem. The only one was when I was harvesting oysters in the, out in the bay with a lantern, the soldiers were patrolling along the Chuckanut. And so when they saw me out there with a light, they came down the hill like this, you know, and called on me and said, "Come on ashore. What are you doing out there?" And so I said, "Oh, I'm just harvesting some oysters," and I don't remember what they told me, but I don't think I had any problem that day. But along the Chuckanut, there were gun emplacements with nets over it, you know. And the patrols were going by there, military patrols were going by there, oh, every thirty minutes or so. And I think about that time, I wasn't going to school anymore. My father said... my father said, my father was an office person, you know, and he made a living talking rather than working, or physical labor, you know. So I guess there was less for him to do.

TI: But I'm curious, for the oyster business, you need to keep replenishing like seeds and things. So when you had to, when your father left and that you would have to leave, too, who would take care of that for you? How did that work?

EY: Well, the seed, as far as the seed business was concerned, he was expecting some seed to arrive, but it didn't. There was an agent for Mitsui company in San Francisco, and he took over. And even after the war, it was easiest for the government, the military to... there was really a great demand for oyster seed, you know, because people didn't get all the seeds they needed. And so the people were pleading with the army to get the seed over here. And so everything in the old channel, went to the old channel. In other words, the last shipment from Japan was handled by Mitsui, their agent was in San Francisco, a Japanese person. And so those things, it was the easiest for the military to just approach them, and then they can get things done.

TI: Right. But earlier you talked about the seed that came from Hood Canal. So whatever happened to that operation? Because you were developing your own seed.

EY: We were able to be in there. But that was the first and second experience. The first experience for us, you know. And so in spite of the fact that my father was able to explain things to his local customer, it was, he didn't really say that it was something that he was well-versed on.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2014 Densho. All Rights Reserved.