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BF: When, when news of the relocation first came out, do you remember whether -- what the ministers were actually saying to the congregations about it? I mean, what -- ? I'm curious as to what they could say, to offer comfort or to calm their fears. And I wonder if you remember whether any of them said something specifically or...?

PN: Well, you're speaking about the Japanese...

BF: Ministers.

PN: ...ministers to the congregation? Yeah, it was a time of real apprehension. And there was no real understanding what the future would hold. So as I remember, the whole idea of, of faith in God, and actually that things will turn out better later on -- whether it be Heaven or whether it be after this terrible trauma -- it'll turn out okay because God is with us. Fact is, if I may go ahead of myself again, we have just published a book entitled, Triumphs of Faith. And there are fifty-two testimonies of the Japanese Christians. How faith helped them through the trauma of the war years, and that's available. But it expresses how it was so important for them to have faith in God, at that time that was so unclear and apprehensive. And those are the kinds of messages that were presented and very helpful. And the singing, I thought, helped a lot in my own experience, and I was about twenty years of age at that time. I used to lead the people in songs of assurance and praise and thanksgiving, in the midst of the dismal future. And that helped a lot. It was therapeutic for them to feel that strength at that particular time. So this is kind of the spiritual feeding that the people had.

BF: Do you remember a favorite, what your favorite hymn from that period was?

PN: Well, this is interesting, in that I had a few friends of mine, and we put out a little chorus book. We called it 101 Choruses. And we called our little group, "His Majesty's Envoys." And we had these little books printed -- not the music, but just the words -- and 101 of them. We circulated to all the churches and then eventually into the camps. But they're all these little choruses that they sang -- "Oh, Wonderful Love," "The Love of God For Me," "It Is Spring Time in My Heart" -- these hymns of assurance and joy. Choruses, so they can just remember them. And you can just sing them one after the other, you know. And as far as young people go, in that I was young then -- we just -- and even in the cars, the train that going over to one of these concentration camps, they didn't know what was befalling them. But we would have a good sing-fest in the coach. And it was very therapeutic. I thought it meant so much, just for them to have that very naive and simple faith in God in a time of uneasy, unknown future.

BF: That's great. I have this wonderful image of the Japanese Americans being loaded onto these trains by these, these MPs and National Guards, singing these favorite Christian hymns. And I wonder what the guards were thinking.

PN: Yeah.

BF: What could be going through their minds.

PN: Well that's great, great -- it's great history, yeah. Yeah. Those things really stand in my memory.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.