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BN: So as you mentioned, you were in fifth grade, and then December 7th happens. What do you remember about that day and the immediate aftermath?

HK: I had very little or no recollection of Pearl Harbor, what happened, or what happened when I went to school on the following Monday. I don't recall anybody saying anything to me, the teacher or the students. All I can recall is that my parents said, "We're going to move." So when they found out that we are going to have to leave, there was an aunt and uncle that we were very close to that lived in Boyle Heights. And my parents did not want to get separated from them, so their decision was to close up our shop and go live with my aunt and uncle in Boyle Heights, so that if and when we had to leave, then we would be together, and so wherever we were gonna go, we would go together.

BN: Now, this aunt and uncle, on which side of the family was this?

HK: They were the Tamuras, so that's on my mother's side.

BN: And do you remember, like, how long, like how much time elapsed, and was this after a month or a couple of months, or right before the roundup?

HK: My recollection is, we ended up living in the Boyle Heights area, you know, First Street and Boyle, there's a street that connected it called Pleasant, and we lived on this street called Pleasant, that's where my aunt and uncle lived, just a few houses from that intersection. And we must have been there for only a few weeks, because I remember I had to enroll in the local elementary school. And I remember going to the elementary school, it seemed like, for maybe just a few days, but it was probably maybe a few weeks, and then all of a sudden, we're not there anymore, and then all of a sudden we were in Santa Anita.

BN: So what happened then? What happened then to the business?

HK: To the best of my knowledge, my parents just had to leave their business, not enough time to sell anything. So my best recollection is my parents just lost their business, one hundred percent.

BN: Did you or them ever go by, drive by, like, later after the war and see what became of it?

HK: The next time I think I remember seeing that area, it was no longer a cleaner's, it was a Filipino bakery. That was, I think, several years after the war.

BN: Now, the family that they moved in with in Boyle Heights, what did they do?

HK: My uncle worked a produce stand and market that was just right there at the intersection of First and Boyle.

BN: And they had a big enough house that the four of you were able to...

HK: Well, I guess, fortunately, they were in, like a duplex, so they lived on one side, and the other side apparently was open, or vacant, so we lived on the opposite side. So we were in the same building.

BN: Do you remember anything about, like, what you were feeling at that time? Because all of a sudden you've been yanked out of this school that you've been going to for years, you have friends, and now you're across town in kind of this...

HK: Yeah, well, I was ten years old, I think I should have wondered what was going on. But my recollection is no, just follow along. And my parents never said what was happening, they never mentioned anything to getting kicked out of California, we have to leave, we lost our business, never heard anything about what was happening with them. So I just had to just follow along with whatever I was told to do.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.