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BF: We talked, we've been talking a bit about what the community was like in the early -- the Christian community was like in the early '20s and '30s. Let's go to the period -- let's jump ahead to the period right after Pearl Harbor was bombed. There's tremendous amount of confusion prior to the actual moving of the community off the West Coast. During that time period, what can you tell us about what the Japanese American Christian churches did to help their people during this time period? What was going on? What sort of things?

PN: Well, as far as the evacuation process was concerned -- and I could speak more specifically about Terminal Island because as far as the American Baptists, we had one of our larger church there, churches there. We had about 500 in the Sunday school and about 300 in the young peoples' department, so it's a large Japanese American colony there on Terminal Island. And with only 48-hour notice they had to move out of there. So we who were other Japanese Baptists -- and in this case in Los Angeles, and part of our whole American Baptist concern was to help them evacuate and get resettled in the area that wasn't restricted at that time. And our whole denomination, of course, was trying to help wherever they can because it was such an emergency. But it was the initiative of the Japanese Baptists that got all of the things started. And the major, the larger denomination as such, began to express themself a little bit later. In our case, we had what is known as the -- Los Angeles area -- Los Angeles Baptist City Mission Society that represented the denomination. And the head man of that was Dr. Ralph Mayberry. And he was a -- they called him a "Jap lover". But he really went to bat for the Japanese Americans and for the Japanese community, not just the Baptists but the Japanese community. And he went and wrestled with the FBI and so forth, in trying to bring all of this to a halt or to help wherever he could. And then, of course, the denomination became interested and involved. So this is the way in which the denomination did help with the evacuation program.

Then, of course, when the time came when they were not only evacuated from the original places -- Bainbridge Island in this area, and then in Terminal Island, were placed in the, what they call relocation centers. Well, at that time, the church came to the rescue by providing a luncheon and refreshments for them as they took the train. And some of the missionaries became teachers in these -- we call it, euphemistically, relocation centers, but they were really concentration camps because you were incarcerated there as prisoners. But the denomination helped in every way they can. And we don't want to get ahead of ourself, but when it came to relocation or resettlement, that's when the denomination helped a lot. There were so many that are indebted to the denomination for scholarships to go to the university back East or Midwest. And that's where it got a lot of our start.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.