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TI: So let's go to December 7, 1941, so let's talk about that day. Again, starting from the morning, this is a weekend.

TT: Uh-huh, Sunday.

TI: Yeah, so were your parents, was your mom teaching that day?

TT: No, she was just home. She used to go to Buddhist church, she was very active. So she went to church, and my father stayed home and worked around the house or did whatever.

TI: And what did you do that...

TT: And we went to the movies. We always, you know, on Sundays, I don't think we went to church. If we went to church, we went to church first, and go to a movie with our friends. And we would walk to the theaters.

TI: And this is all the way downtown?

TT: Yes. And then we walked back. And that was the day when, on 20th and Jackson there was a Corky's Cash Grocery that had ice cream, and so we'd always stop there and have ice cream. And he said, "What are you girls doing here?" And we said, "Oh, we went to the movie and we wanted some ice cream, so we're here." They said, "You don't know what happened?" We said, "No." They said, "Well, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor," and we said, "What's Pearl Harbor?" Nobody knew where Pearl Harbor was. So he told us we better go home, and so we did.

TI: And the proprietor of the store, was he Japanese?

TT: He was Japanese, uh-huh.

TI: Was he Issei or Nisei?

TT: He was an older Nisei.

TI: And were there other people in the shop when he told you that?

TT: No, I think he would tell people, and then they would leave.

TI: Oh, so he was kind of like that, almost like the community bulletin board, people would come by and he'd tell people that didn't know.

TT: Just so we got home by dinnertime, that's all we were interested in.

TI: Well, I'm curious, when you walked from the movie house downtown home...

TT: We didn't run into anybody.

TI: Yeah, so there wasn't like newspaper people saying, "Extra, extra"?

TT: No, not that we know of. We didn't think anything of it until he told us that it was bombed.

TI: So you, at that point, go home, and do your parents know?

TT: Well, yah, they had heard. Because we used to have a shortwave radio, so naturally they used to know all the things going on.

TI: And so tell me, so you walk in, what are your parents doing when you walk in on them?

TT: Probably listening to the radio or just sitting around.

TI: And what kind of reaction did they have when you came in?

TT: Well, they wanted to be sure we got home safely, they didn't know what was happening to us.

TI: And so you got home safely with no incident. How about your sisters?

TT: Yah, my older sister, she had gone to a movie also. But she said when she came out, somebody slapped her.

TI: So tell me more about that? So who slapped her...

TT: Yah, she came out of the theater with some friends, whoever she was with, and she said this hakujin came and slapped her on the face and said, "You Japs," you know.

TI: Now was it a woman or a man who said that?

TT: A woman. She didn't know why she was being slapped. She said, "She came and just slapped me on my face." So that's when we realized how serious it was.

TI: What did you think when you heard your sister, and you said now you realized how serious it was? What were you thinking?

TT: Well, in those days we didn't think that much, you know. Something happened, it happened.

TI: Or what were you feeling? I mean, were you frightened, were you angry?

TT: Well, I felt bad for her that she got hit, but I didn't know what else to feel. War, we'd never been in the war, so what did that mean it was going to be for us?

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.