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PW: So in December 1941, you were still in high school, yes?

HS: December of '41 I was in high school, that was a three-year high school, so (...) I was a junior, no, it was the second year, I was a junior.

PW: Because there were many Japanese Americans in the school, do you remember what the feeling at school was when everybody heard the news about Pearl Harbor being attacked?

HS: You know, it was Sunday when we heard the radio about the bombing of Pearl Harbor. And it was time for basketball, but it was really very a quiet week around Post and Buchanan, didn't know what to do. And it was awful because journalism was like Fox News today, and you couldn't believe what they (would) say, and they said that the Japanese were dancing in the streets. It's not like Hawaii, dancing in the streets and that we were hiding all our rifles and cameras. (Those items) were banned almost immediately, so when I went to college, they always asked, "Didn't you bring your camera with you?" I said, "We couldn't have any cameras."

PW: Did your family talk about international relations or what had happened with the bombing?

HS: We are not too communicative. We would always read or... the whole family read, we would read for ourselves, and we would listen to the radio. Because... what they call it? Blackouts, we had to have a special, we'd put blankets, because the shades were not good enough, we had, every night we had to close off. Because there were actual bombings, submarines came and bombed Santa Barbara, and there was, I think, something going on in the Northwest, they sent balloons with explosives, hoping to start a forest fire, which was not successful.

PW: Was your father affected directly and immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

HS: The first person in the area (to be arrested) was Mr. Kataoka. They ran a hotel, and the (tenants were mostly bachelors), there were about seven hotels run by Japanese. They had bachelors and those people who ran hotels also ran travel services, too. And I remember, you can cross Post Street in those days, and everybody just jaywalked, and this poor man was in handcuffs, his head was bent, and you could see the fear on his face. He was the first taken because we thought they (were arrested) alphabetically, his hotel was Aki Hotel, so A, and our store was, Uoki was U, so we didn't have... and by the time they came to my family, my father, we had five rooms in the house for the nine children and parents. And the master bedroom was so large that it was, the wall was taken down so there were two double beds in there. My parents was on one side, and my brother and I, Katsu, was in the other. And I knew when they came (to arrest my father), very polite agents came in at seven o'clock in the morning. And we were still asleep, but my mother, of course, was up, and had prepared, they had suitcases. And my father had bookshelves of Japanese books, they didn't even bother with that. They looked in my drawer, and they saw all the things I had made, I wasn't as good as Katsu, but I was fast. So I had made a telegraph set, a model lighthouse, lots of things. Because I was still, I mean, I kept from my junior high school days. And these agents were so good, they're quiet, and then they asked, heard that they're going to arrest my father. They didn't look at anything, they apparently had seen so many before that they didn't care about, or they knew they were not going to find.

But I must admit, my father's store, the family store, also chandlers. Whenever a Japanese ship, commercial, or a warship was sighted coming into the bay, they would receive a phone call from the maritime service. They paid for that service so that that would make him a (competitive)... it would make him a target because he had dealt with the Japanese warships and would provide provisions for them. My brother would (frequently) talk with the agents, and they said the agents would tell them how they were following all the people on the ship if they went from San Francisco to Los Angeles on the cars and they would tail them. He was on good terms with them, but I don't know why... I know my father was involved in the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, so then I knew he would be (arrested). (At) that time, he had (also) sponsored the Japanese (Chamber of Commerce) band, marching band, for the celebration of the building of the two bridges, San Francisco Bay bridge and the Golden Gate bridge. They had a fair in Yerba Buena (Island), so our band would go whenever there was a celebration.

There was also the Boy Scout (troop), they were much better, they had a drum and bugle corps. I'm telling you about that drum and bugle corps because there was an Italian American family that owned United Fruits, United Dried Fruits, and (the owner's son) was a musician besides running the dried fruit producers group. (Fortunately) he heard the Troop 12, and (thought that) they were (not very) good, but (because) he was a musician, he thought they were awful. So he said, he came to the Boy Scouts, it was Troop 12, my troop, and said, "We're going to teach you how a band should be doing." So he came and taught for over two years twice a week. And he was a good friend of Beniamo Bufano, and he was told that Bufano, we had a cemetery in Laurel Heights, that wasn't too far away. But (later relocated in order to gentrify) that area. And that Bufano and he were to go pick up the marble stones, and that's how we would... because stones cost quite a bit. But they did get many awards for their drum and bugle band, and they served a purpose, they weren't as good as, they were so far better than we were.

PW: When did the FBI come to talk to your dad? How many days later? When was this?

HS: We know that it was before February 1942, because he didn't go to, in February of '42, everyone in the Japantown area went to the Tanforan Assembly Center, which was formerly a racetrack, and he was already taken to Missoula, Montana, which was an old fort. And I had written to Ennis of the DOJ, Department of Justice, asking for his release. I also wrote to Eleanor Roosevelt... none of them, and my congressman, or our family's congressman, and none of them replied. But he was the first to return from Missoula to the assembly center before they all went to a more permanent, he liked to call them concentration camp, they euphemistically called them relocation centers. Anyway, so the comment he made was that because he was an enemy alien, he was officially a prisoner of war. So he was covered by the Geneva Convention, so he told my family that food was much better, certainly the living quarters were much better.

PW: I've heard that story also about the DOJ camps. So maybe it was in January? You said before Executive Order 9066 he was picked up and taken to Missoula.

HS: I'm sure 9066... I don't know which month it was.

PW: 9066 is February 19th.

HS: Well, you know that the family already was, a lot of people were already in Tanforan in February, so I don't know the exact date.

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