<Begin Segment 12>

TI: But weeks after the burning incident, the FBI did come. Can you describe that, what happened on that day that the FBI came?

FD: I think I wrote about that in something. Well, my mother answered the door and she said that there were these four gigantic men towering over her, and of course she was intimidated just by their size. And they said they wanted to talk to her husband, and so she went upstairs to my father's study and had him come down. So they, I don't know what they said to him, but they wanted to search the house for, they said, "We're looking for contraband." So they went through the building and peering into closets and shelves and cupboards and stuff. I don't know what they were looking for, they said they were looking for incriminating evidence, whatever that might be. And then they went upstairs and went through all the bedrooms, and then they decided to concentration on my father's study. So they just... well, he had a lot of books, so they would pull the books out one by one and just toss 'em on the floor and leave 'em there because maybe he'd hide something behind the books, so I thought. And they pulled papers out of the files and just let them fall helter skelter. I thought they were awfully rude, and of course their words were polite, but then the things they did were awfully rude. Well, I don't exactly what was said, because most of the time we were told to get out of the way or stay away and be quiet. They had, I think it was four cardboard cartons that they expected to take stuff away in. And so they filled that up with papers and stuff. Just left the house in a general mess. Oh, and then, of course, they took my father with them.

TI: Besides the papers, do you recall that them taking anything else?

FD: Oh, they found his sword. He had a, when he left Japan, his parents had given him a sword that had belonged to his grandparents and great grandparents, they said it was a family heirloom and they wanted my father to take that to America as a memento of his background. And it was... I don't know how good a sword it was, but it was in an ornate case and it had gold filigree on it. So looking back, I think it must have been rather valuable. But anyhow, he used to take it out once in a while to clean it, and he said that it had, the blade had to be polished and kept clean in order to preserve its quality, so he did that only periodically, I don't know how often he did it, but most of the time he kept it in the back of a closet.

TI: Now, a sword that fine is usually an indication of higher class. So do you know anything in terms of what that sword kind of meant to your father, the family ancestry?

FD: I don't know. But since they owned all that property in Japan, it was pretty evident to me that they must have been wealthy. And in Japan, wealthy people usually had political power. And so I thought, well, I guess his family must have been important. And so one day I asked him about his family and he said, "They're erai." And erai in Japanese could mean brave or it could mean important. And I took it to mean that they were brave. [Laughs] And later my sister said, "No, you idiot, he meant that they were important people." [Laughs]

TI: So going back, so the FBI took those papers, the sword, and your father. And where did they take him?

FD: They took him to the city jail first, and they said that we could visit him there in the afternoon, which we did. And then from there they took him to a jail in San Bernardino. And then after, I don't remember offhand, but then they took him to this place in Tujunga.

TI: Tuna Canyon?

FD: Yeah, Tuna Canyon, whatever they called it. And he was there for a while, and so a friend of my family took us to visit him there.

TI: But going back to the Riverside jail, so you said later on that day you visited him. What was that like? Describe what that was like, going to the Riverside jail.

FD: Well, to me it was just all gray. I just remembered that everything seemed to be gray, and that when we went into the jail cell, I remember the clanking of the door. And whenever I see movies about people being in jail and I hear that jail door clank, it reminds me of my father being put into jail. And we talked to him through the bars, they didn't let him come out to visit him or anything, so we had to talk to him in the jail cell. And then I remembered that before we left, he reached out to each of us children and took our hands and said, "Be good and obey your mother," and, "I hope I'll be back soon," he said, or something like that.

TI: Did he say, did you recall anything about, to you directly because you were the oldest?

FD: No, I don't think so.

TI: Okay. And when you went to the Riverside jail, was it just the family, or did anyone else go?

FD: No, it was just the family, I think. Oh, no, we couldn't... it had to have been a family friend that took us there because my mother couldn't drive.

TI: And who was the family friend?

FD: It was a woman called Mrs. Beck, George Beck. No, actually, her name was Helen but her husband was George. Anyway, they were church workers, that is, they were volunteer church workers.

TI: Okay, so your mom called them.

FD: Uh-huh, called the Becks.

TI: And do you think she called them because they were white also?

FD: No, simply because they were close friends. But it helped that they were white, and it also helped that Mr. Beck was tall and husky, and so when he asked the policeman what's happening next to my father, I guess they gave him the answer because he just looked so authoritative. But if we had gone with a Japanese American friend, I don't know whether they would have shown the respect that they did to this big Caucasian man.

TI: Yeah, interesting. And then you also said you visited him at Tuna Canyon?

FD: Yes.

TI: Which was pretty far away, then.

FD: Yeah. So Mrs. Beck drove us there again.

TI: And what was that like? Can you describe what Tuna Canyon was like?

FD: Well, we weren't allowed to go into the building. We just, all the prisoners were in a yard outside the building, and so we spoke to them through the fence. And about all I remember about the surroundings is that the grass was green and lush and it just looked like a beautiful place to be except that he was confined.

TI: But you were separated by just like a chain link fence?

FD: Yeah, a tall chain link fence.

TI: And do you recall how your father's demeanor was or how he looked? Was there any difference than before that you could see?

FD: No, I don't remember.

TI: And how was your mother during this time period, to see her husband?

FD: Well, she was rather upset. She was excitable by nature, so I thought it was surprising that she was as calm as she seemed to be. And, well, I guess under the circumstances she performed as well as could be expected.

TI: Going back to Tuna Canyon where you talked with your father through the fence, before you got to the fence, did you have to check in with the authorities to even go up there.

FD: Probably. I don't remember the details like that.

TI: Okay, so I'm wondering if there was like an outer fence and an inner fence that you had to go through first to check.

FD: I don't know.

TI: And then after Tuna Canyon, where did your father go?

FD: Well, we didn't know. But later on, we found out that he had been sent to Missoula, Montana, of all places. And then there were... and then he was moved to a couple of other places, and he ended up, I think, in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

TI: And during this time, did you have any, did your mother have any correspondence with your father, like letters back and forth?

FD: I don't know.

TI: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see if that happened, because I think many of the men -- especially your dad because he knew English -- may have written letters to her.

FD: Well, I do remember seeing letters that had pieces cut out of them, and I figured, well, that must be the censor's work.

TI: Yeah, that might have been the letters, that it was common to have censored those letters. Everything that went in to him and came out.

FD: Well, I thought that it was curious that they cut those pieces out. I thought, "Why couldn't they just black out the parts they didn't want seen?" But maybe they wanted to be positively certain that it couldn't be read.

TI: And where did you see those letters? Was it something your mother had?

FD: Yeah, my mother those.

TI: So now going back to the family, after Pearl Harbor, how did your mother cope? Now all of a sudden your father's gone, he was the head of the family and the church revolved around him. He's removed, and so what, how did the family cope?

FD: Well, that I don't know. But as far as I could tell, life went on as it did before, it's just that he was absent.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2016 Densho. All Rights Reserved.