<Begin Segment 13>

DG: So tell me what you remember about the day Pearl Harbor happened.

MM: Do you remember that day, Aya? We came out of a theater? Coliseum Theater? And you heard, "Extra, Extra!" You know, the newspaper boy was shouting and we wondered what had happened. And we bought the newspaper and then we ran, we rushed home and my father and mother are having company, ne? And we told them, and they says... it didn't really surprise them, I don't think. Did they? Ne, Aya?

AM: Hmm.

DG: What were your thoughts?

MM: Oh, my. What went through your mind?

AM: I know some day eventually, they would have come to a clash. You know, my father and mother are talking about that and we knew it's bound to clash. So, it was not very surprising, but, but when it really happened, it's shock.

AM: Uh-huh.

DG: So what did you think was going to happen to you?

MM: We never thought we would go to camp.

AM: We never thought we would go camp.

DG: Right. So when did you start, that day, let's go through the day.

AM: We just say we have to wait and see what happens.

MM: And we were restricted. After certain time, we couldn't go beyond a certain (boundary).

AM: Yeah, at one time, we could not even cross the street after dark.

DG: The street right in front here?

AM: Uh-huh. Across the street.

MM: But later on they kind of made it a little easier, but there was...

DG: Well, let's talk about just the very beginning now and did your father get taken right away?

AM: What?

MM: Father wasn't taken in right away. They...

DG: So did you open the business on a regular basis?

MM: Yeah. But people who were more prominent, active in the Japanese no Chamber of Commerce...they were really picked up fast.

DG: You knew about that, right.

MM: They were picked up first.

DG: So were you worried about your family, too?

MM: Well, he was a member, but he wasn't a very active member. So they didn't come after him. They took him -- just when we were about to go into, ano...

AM: Camp.

MM: Camp, yo. To that ano...

AM: Detention home. Immigration office.

DG: Okay. So you open the store on a regular basis, and then you start having the curfew and then...

AM: After the war started, well, we decided we would have to close. So my brother boarded up all the ano, show windows.

DG: But before that, you bought some things in preparation...

MM: Oh, food.

DG: Right. Tell me about that, Aya.

AM: Shoyu, and...

MM: Sugar.

AM: Oil.

MM: Wesson oil.

AM: Salt, sugar.

MM: 'Cause those things (would be) hard (to get).

AM: Those things, that we might need in the war. In the years to come.

AI: What did your father think about you buying all those things?

AM: The what?

MM: Buying all those things? He was for it.

MM: He said, "Do what you think is..."

DG: By then you were doing a lot of the buying anyway?

AM: After war started, I guess, I told Papa, "Maybe we're gonna be short on sugar and oil."

MM: Uh-huh. And rice.

AM: 'Cause they need that in the war. So, "If you want that, stock up now. Do it now."

DG: And so you did that right after Pearl Harbor?

AM: Pearl Harbor.

DG: Okay.

AI: Where did you put all of this? Where did you store all of it?

MM: Warehouse.

AM: Warehouse.

DG: How much did you buy?

AM: Not too, too much. Two, three sacks of maybe two hundred, three sacks of rice or something. Not too much. But...

MM: Because it used to be 100 pound sack mukashi no ne?

AM: Uh-huh.

MM: And then now you bought Mazola oil. And you bought sugar.

AM: I said sugar and oil is a war need.

DG: How did you know that?

AM: What?

DG: How did you know that?

MM: Well, there's a area, in case of war or something, if you have to evacuate or you have to be in, the shelters, those are the main things that you need.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.