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BY: And so I'm sure you don't remember Pearl Harbor happening, but do you know what your parents were doing in Pearl Harbor and what happened immediately after Pearl Harbor?

HH: Yeah, the story I understand goes like, it was I think Pearl Harbor night, maybe, or it could be the next... anyway, the FBI came knocking at the door around midnight and took my dad and told my mom that he would be back shortly. So six months later, let's see... well, from home, he went to the immigration building and they kept him there for questioning for quite a while, and then was sent to... what did I say? Missoula. Missoula where they had the, a spy camp? Something like that.

BY: Yeah, there was a Department of Justice camp in Missoula, Montana. Do you know why your father was picked up so soon after Pearl Harbor?

HH: He was too friendly with the Japanese soldiers -- not soldiers, sailors who came in on the Japanese ships. They were just there visiting, and the would go meet them and take his countrymen from Nagano to the park or to dinner or whatever, and try to make them comfortable in a foreign country. And that lasted, I don't know, probably a night or two, and then the next fleet would come, then that kind of raised questions among the military.

BY: And so did he do this, was he the only one who did that or were there other...

HH: No, no, there were several people that did that.

BY: And so he was picked up a day after Pearl Harbor, taken to the immigration station, then to Missoula. How long was he in Missoula, or what happened to him after that, do you know?

HH: No, the only thing I know is that he said it was very boring in that camp, they just found ways to entertain themselves. And what he did was polish rocks. They must have had some sort of rock polisher there because some of the rocks are cut very evenly. But the rest of it, he used sandpaper or rags or whatever he could find to polish several rocks.

BY: And so did he ever rejoin the family?

HH: Yes. Seems to me it was probably about six months later, he joined us in Tule Lake. And then evidently we were in Tule Lake for a year, and from there got transferred to Heart Mountain in Wyoming.

BY: And so your father went along with all of that then, too?

HH: Yes.

BY: Okay, so once he was released from Missoula, he joined the family and then remained with the family for the rest of the war.

HH: Yes, uh-huh. [Addressing TI] Do you have any questions for that part?

TI: Just a note that you mentioned during the pre-interview about possibly the FBI kind of surveilling the family? Because your father, as you mentioned, would be a greeter for the Japanese sailors, and it sounds like the FBI was monitoring that, the military was monitoring that. I think you told, you had a bit of information about how they might have surveilled him?

HH: Wire tapping.

TI: So tell me how you heard about that, and do you remember, or is that just something that people in your family just kind of found out later, or what can you tell us about that?

HH: I can't really tell you much, it was just something that my folks had mentioned, and when they got together with friends, this is after the war, they would allude to that, that we were wire tapped and were instructed to speak in English.

BY: So your family decided they should speak in English? Why? Why do you think they did that?

HH: Oh, they were told by the authorities, whoever wire tapped us.

BY: Interesting.

TI: And so it sounds like the government was essentially putting the family on guard also, like, hey, we're watching you. And to help us watch you, speak in English, because if you speak in Japanese, we won't know what you're saying.

HH: [Laughs] Yeah, right.

TI: It's kind of like, in some ways, similar to when people were corresponding. Everybody said, well, if it's in Japanese, it's not going to get through.

BY: Or I was wondering if they were saying, if it was the family decided they'd better speak English because then they might not seem so spy-like. If they're speaking in English, then they're not hiding anything. So that's interesting.

[Interruption]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.