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BN: I wanted to then go to the wartime.

EO: Wartime? Sure.

BN: And then what, do you remember what you were doing or what happened on the December 7th day?

EO: I was home. I don't know what I was doing, but my brothers were also home, and they were shaking their heads, said, "This is going to be bad." So I went to school feeling a little timid about the whole thing, but nothing happened. But, you know, there was racism before the war ever happened. And when I went to junior high school, can I talk about my junior high? Like in Pasadena, the Japanese kids got together at the Japanese school, and then at McKinley school, the same group would congregate for lunch under a big roof, what do you call, a roof or whatever, a lunch area. The same group, they weren't mixing with the other students. I saw that, and I didn't like that for myself. I thought I wanted to mix with (other) students, so instead I got real active in student body affairs, and I got elected Girls League president, and I ran for student body secretary and I got on the student body. And I made friends with a couple of hakujin girls, and we had lunch together, which was great, but I just didn't want to be isolated from everybody else, and that's what that looked like to me.

So junior high school was great, but when we went up to eleventh grade, everything changed. Well, even in junior high school there was a white, rich clique. McKinley (was near) San Marino, and we were in an area where there were a lot of big homes. Anyway, those kids, they had their own kind of social life. They had assemblies and private parties, and they would talk about it on campus. They had that group, but there were so many others, it didn't seem to matter. And I knew some of the people in that group. But when we went to eleventh grade, PJC, the whole scene was different. All these people, and the people I knew in junior high, who served on student council with me, they didn't know me. In the hallway I would say hello, they'd turn the other way. It was really heartbreaking. And so for lunch, I looked for the group of Japanese who always stuck together, they were out in the backyard with the blacks. Both groups were sitting together, well, within their own groups having lunch. So me, without anyone else to eat with, I went out and joined them, and I ate there until the war broke out and we couldn't go to school anymore. So that's the racism in Pasadena. It was pretty strong.

I remember in junior high school, the teacher, woman teacher, she was in class telling (students) about citizenship, and then she made a point. She says, "Japanese Americans are not allowed to become citizens." So that really bothered me, so I said, "But my father's a citizen." Of course, he's an exception, but she just ignored me, wouldn't let me talk about it. So the racism was even among the teachers. It was a hard thing to fight.

BN: And just to be clear, your father was able to become a citizen because he was a war veteran.

EO: What's that?

BN: Your father was able to become a citizen because he was a war veteran.

EO: Yes. In 1936. He had a high school friend who became a lawyer, and he really took care of my dad. He told my dad that, "Now you can apply for citizenship because it's open (to army veterans)." So he helped my dad become a citizen. And my dad was so proud to become a citizen. After he got his citizen papers, he posted... you know, our market had a center post to hold up the ceiling stuff, he posted his citizen papers on the post so everybody could see.

BN: And then going back to the wartime, what happened with him and the store and so forth?

EO: Oh, one of the neighbors wanted to try running the store, so my dad said okay. But the thing is, the neighbor couldn't make a go of it, so after about two months, he let it go, and so it was just vacant during that whole time, during evacuation. But my dad was still making payments on the property. And my older brother was drafted in the army and he knew about my dad's situation, so he sent his father (army) money to help pay off the mortgage, so we were able to keep the place.

BN: Was your brother drafted before the war, or this is later on?

EO: Later on. So after he finished the University of Nebraska, he got his bachelors, and then he went on... I think that was it. He was drafted, I think.

BN: We'll get back to that. So your father was kind of this community leader, but he was not arrested, he was not one of those who was interned, then, like many of the other Issei.

EO: No. In fact, City Hall liked him so much, they asked him and Nobu Kawai, he was president of the JACL of Pasadena, to serve on this committee with Mrs. Milkin, (wife of Dr. Milikin of Cal Tech), on some kind of committee to oversee the evacuation process, something like that.

[Interruption]

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.