Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Yukiko Miyake Interview
Narrator: Yukiko Miyake
Interviewer: Sara Yamasaki
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 4, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-myukiko-01-0025

<Begin Segment 25>

SY: So go ahead. You were telling me that you really -- how you were feeling.

YM: I still resent it. They had no right to pick up anybody. I still feel -- and so when I hear about people going in because one person I know was just a janitor, a janitor of a warehouse. Not janitor, he was a janitor of Bartell Drug store. He lost his job, but they picked him up too, the poor man. To this day December 7th -- nowadays the kids think differently, but this is how I feel. They had no right to pick up anybody unless they had gone to court and had said this man is a criminal, something like that, then you can't help it, but they were not criminals. They were just having a birthday party and it is too bad.

SY: Who was having a birthday?

YM: Huh?

SY: Who was having a birthday party?

YM: Oh. Mr. Kihara and his group were having a nice birthday party, and they were drunk. You know, they were having a party. I don't think the woman were there or maybe they were in the kitchen. I don't know. But all I remember is the next day, we heard -- next day I heard, really, that Mr. Kihara was picked up. And I said it's not possible. It couldn't be, but they did.

SY: Do you remember any of the details about how he was picked up?

YM: No, I don't because I wasn't there, but I just heard they were picked up, and then they took him to immigration. They all went to immigration office and then they were sent to Montana. Most of them were sent to Montana. And really this one man, of course, he wasn't picked up on December 7th, he was picked up later, the poor guy. He was just a janitor at Bartell Drug store, and he says Nani mo. "I didn't do anything." Of course, he didn't. He was just a harmless old man. That, I resent to this day, I do. And I think some of the hakujins are very sympathetic, but like I told Don, if you were that sympathetic, why didn't you do something? But she was young yet, that's true. I think I spoke -- I started because there was no one to speak for me, I started speaking out more and... did I tell you about what I told the guardsman?

SY: Oh, this is in camp now?

YM: In camp.

SY: So you started speaking out more because Henry was gone and so then you actually went to camp with Kako after...

YM: Henry was picked up.

SY: But let me just back up a little bit. What did you do with the studio?

YM: I'd rather not talk about that.

SY: Okay, sure.

Yukiko M. Interview - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved. - <End Segment 25>