Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Ayame Tsutakawa Interview II
Narrator: Ayame Tsutakawa
Interviewer: Tracy Lai
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: June 5, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-tayame-02-0005

<Begin Segment 5>

TL: Do you remember how you felt about the bombing of Pearl Harbor? I was wondering if you could describe that.

AT: So long ago. It was Sunday, I believe. I went to Church and there we were told about the Pearl Harbor bombing, and I thought I'd like to go home as quickly as possible because I thought being Japanese we might be killed on the street. I was so fear so I went home and then, of course, Mother and they were all just gathered and trying to listen to radio. There was no TV in those days so radio was only way to find out more about so we spend, I'm sure, the whole day and even to the evening listening to the radio for what's going to happen to us.

TL: Do you remember anything about what your parents said, or were they also pretty confused?

AT: I cannot recall what they said but, of course, my mother was very worried about having family in Japan. Her sisters and mother and grandmother and even her son was there, so...

TL: Did your friends talk about the event the same way, or did they have different ideas?

AT: I can't answer that. I was seventeen and I can't recall just exactly what was...

TL: How about did you go to school that week and did your teachers and classmates, how did they react to this situation?

AT: By that time I was in high school. I think Japanese students were mostly gathered, and like in the lunchroom, I think we probably sat together and tried keep a little distance from some people just might speak up and call us names or something. So we sort of together with the Japanese students. Of course, I was a few years behind my age group because of starting from second grade.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.