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TI: The other question I wanted to ask you, your farm was close to or adjacent to the airport.

FM: Well, yeah.

TI: And one of the issues, I think, for people, was they were afraid that Japanese were spying on things like airports, or they were so close to these critical areas like airports or factories or looking at harbors when ships are coming in and out. Did the FBI ever visit or do anything with your family?

FM: (...) December 7th, nobody came. That Sunday, nobody came. But on December 8th, the day after, we had a big contingent of soldiers on the farm. I came home from school and, oh, seemed like there was a bunch of guys, but there must have been a squad of soldiers there. And they were in the house, there were probably two or three or four guys in the house, and they were also patrolling the area around the barn and the other buildings, the outside. I remember walking into the house and one of the soldiers asked me, "What are you doing here?" I said, "Hey, I live here," that kind of a thing. And I think that was fairly common with the most, a lot of the families. Yes, we didn't get any direct problem because we were living there, although I know that second hand or third hand, we heard a number of times that we were placed there by the Japanese emperor or whatever. But then you got to realize that five or six years before then, we were moved once, we were moved again. Essentially, when we were moved, we were there because we just, because of our own personal requirements, that we wanted to be close by. Not that anybody else... certainly didn't have any contact with (...) Japan in any way at all. There were not only us, but there must have been two or three other families that lived around the airport like we did. But I didn't get any, my dad didn't get any hassling, but...

TI: Did they place any restrictions on the families nearby in terms of movement or access around the airport? Do you recall anything like that?

FM: Not that I'm aware of. But we lived within twenty yards of the airport, we were right on the, it would be the east-west runway. Of course, at that time, when they came and they confiscated all of the radios, lanterns, anything like that, we had a couple of guns, we had a shotgun and a .22 rifle.

TI: Now why lanterns? I'm trying to think, why would they take lanterns?

FM: You know, again, signaling sort of thing. We had problems because we didn't have lights in the barn area, and they took our lanterns away (...)... I think they finally, after a while they brought 'em back, you know, they brought 'em back for us. But on the other hand, too, we didn't stay there hardly at all. One of the things that we did, what happened to us right after the war was, since they wanted to enlarge the airport, they made that decision fairly quickly after December 7th. And so we moved, (...) I think in January we were gone from there. And so talking about getting rid of our equipment, things like that, we did that fairly early.

TI: And that would be true then of all the farms or families that owned property in that area, they all had to move?

FM: Yeah.

TI: So it wasn't like the Japanese were singled out, it was more everyone?

FM: Well, we were... I think there was one other family whose land had to be evacuated again.

TI: And were they Japanese also?

FM: Yeah, they were Japanese, Nakamuras.

TI: So the two Japanese farms had to be...

FM: Yeah. I think the other land, there was a golf course there and a couple of other, there was a dairy farm. But we were really close there.

TI: Now did they allow any Japanese farms close by the airport to stay there?

FM: No. Of course, they condemned the land so that... I don't know really how big that was, but I'm sure it was maybe another square mile was taken on the east side of the airport, and it extended it quite a bit.

TI: So I'm trying to kind of piece this together. I mean, is it fair... so it sounds like there were kind of rumors that perhaps you were placed there by the Japanese.

FM: I'm sure there were rumors, but we didn't hear it directly from any friends, but we heard it from, other people said it.

TI: And then it seems like within weeks after Pearl Harbor, the attack at Pearl Harbor, like the next month, in January, they're moving you out.

FM: Yes, we were gone.

TI: And the other Japanese farm that was nearby.

FM: Yeah.

TI: And do you think... and you kind of mentioned it being more like it was just an expansion, or was it really to get you guys out of there?

FM: No, I think it really was an expansion, and we just happened to be there. But we had to move fairly quickly. We were gone within a month (...).

TI: And then where did you go from there?

FM: We went to, from there we went to... I know that we went to, Mr. Okazaki had a farm, probably a couple, maybe three miles away, and we just went and stayed in one of his bunkhouses essentially until we moved completely.

TI: So did your family get compensated for the land that they...

FM: Yes, I'm sure of that, yeah. But we had twenty-five cares, and I don't know what they gave Dad for it, five hundred dollars an acre maybe, or maybe a hundred dollars an acre? I don't know what the money was, but I'm sure he didn't end up with a million dollars. It was very, very minimal.

TI: And yet it may not have been as bad as some other people who...

FM: Oh, yes, who lost it completely.

TI: Yeah, or had to sell kind of, felt like they had to sell that.

FM: (...) A farm has all kinds of (equipment) that we had to work the land with. And all of that stuff went, we had to get something that might have cost us five dollars to begin with, and we got ten cents for it. (...) We had a tractor, we had a flatbed truck, we had a pickup, and we had a car. (...) We had a sedan car for our family. And I know that the tractor probably cost a thousand dollars to begin with, (...) I think he sold it to somebody for a hundred dollars. Dad did not have much time to negotiate selling it, but he sold quite a bit of the stuff. Gave away a lot of the stuff, too, I would imagine.

TI: And are these... and so how well did your father get along with the other farmers in the area? I mean, was it something that they were, like, friendly farmers that he was able to...

FM: Yeah, he had no problems. You mean the non-Japanese farmers?

TI: Yeah, non-Japanese.

FM: Yeah, we had a lot of friends.

TI: So I'm guessing that's who he sold them to, right?

FM: Yeah, to some extent. But a lot of the people came, they were from other areas that wanted to buy stuff pretty cheaply. And they generally got a pretty good bargain, because we knew that we had to get away. When you sell something, you know, ten cents on the dollar, you don't end up with too many things.

TI: And how was the mood of the family? Was it difficult?

FM: The family scenario? No, I thought that they were pretty good. The friends we had stayed friends with us all the way. (...) We never talked to them after it happened. The Caucasian friends that lived in the area, I guess we just didn't contact them too much after the war started. But they weren't... they didn't give us any haranguing business.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.