<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So tell me... well, let's wait a little bit. I want to walk into that, so let's talk about December 7, 1941. And where were you when you heard about... so this is a Sunday. Where were you when you heard about it?

TH: I was at a friend's (...) birthday party. And it was a Japanese family, Hasuikis, and they brought me home, and that's all I remember about that. And that there's a war going on, I mean, that Japan and the United States are going to go to war.

TI: When you heard about this, did they stop the party and then people went home, or was the party about to end?

TH: No. I think we just disbanded, they wanted us to go home, because they knew that there's going to be a curfew and all that.

TI: And at the party, did people talk about it at all? Or what was the mood at the party?

TH: We were more or less (...) kids, but I don't think we talked about it, we just knew that we better get home because there's going to be a curfew. I didn't even know what curfew was, they said it's going to get black.

TI: And when you got home, what was it like at home with your parents and your older brother and older sister?

TH: They couldn't believe what was going on. Well, at that time, about a week later, my parents' friends came to the house and they heard that the parents will have to go to some kind of a camp, but the kids will not have to because they were born in the United States. And so they were kind of sad about that, that they'll have to go to camp and leave the kids. But since I had a brother that was five years older, they felt that he could take care of the farm and all that, but it didn't work out that way.

TI: Did you get a sense, because did your family think about changing any, when they heard this news, changing any of their farming practices? Like you mentioned your father had just gotten into strawberries. Did he think about anything in terms of doing anything differently?

TH: Nothing that I know of.

TI: So he was still hoping that he could farm and harvest the strawberries?

TH: Yeah, my brother would take over.

TI: Oh, that makes sense, okay. Because at that point, your brother was...

TH: Nineteen or twenty.

TI: Yeah, five years older than you were, so he'd be close to twenty or so.

TH: (...).

TI: That makes sense. So at this point, your brother had already graduated from high school. You mentioned...

TH: In those days, if it was a one-room school, and there was only one kid in the fifth grade, they would either put him back in fourth grade or move him up to sixth so that the teacher wouldn't have to worry about that one child. So he got to advance... he was sixteen when he graduated high school, and when he graduated college, he was twenty.

TI: So had he finished college when the war had started?

TH: When the war started. I went to his graduation in 1940, no, 1941, isn't that when the war started?

TI: Yeah, in December.

TH: He went to the University of Oregon, and so my Caucasian neighbor took me to the graduation.

TI: Okay, so down in Eugene, he went down there and he graduated. What did he graduate in?

TH: I think it was a combination of business and accounting.

TI: So he was very well qualified to take over the operations if he had an opportunity. He had a business degree, a college degree, or was he ever thinking that he would try to get jobs elsewhere?

TH: Well, when he graduated, he had a job offer right away. And when the war broke out, he said... you don't use the word "fired," he got laid off because it would harm the business.

TI: And do you know what kind of business it was?

TH: I don't know. It was in town, it had something to do with his accounting, I think some financial company.

TI: Okay. When you say "in town," in Portland?

TH: In Portland, yeah.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.