Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Shigeko Sese Uno Interview
Narrator: Shigeko Sese Uno
Interviewers: Beth Kawahara (primary), Alice Ito (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: September 18, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-ushigeko-01-0016

<Begin Segment 16>

BK: And this was the intervening months between the Pearl Harbor bombing in December and before you were evacuated? There were things like curfew imposed on the entire Japanese community, right?

SU: Oh, yes. Those of us who had businesses had to hurry up, close up our books and everything, get the money in order, and then rush home.

BK: Because of the curfew?

SU: Yes. And then there was also, you couldn't go beyond so many miles from your home. I forgot what the restriction was. It was during this time that my mother-in-law got sick. And they lived out in Tukwila, as I said. And my father-in-law called. So I told my husband, "Let's get Dr. Suzuki. We're going to go out there." My husband was so scared that we'd be caught, because Tukwila is more than five miles out. We went anyway. But she had died during the, before we got there. So we had that tragedy before camp. And, of course, he was, the father-in-law was picked up soon after Pearl Harbor, because he had served as a cavalry man in the Russo-Japanese War. There's a picture of him astride his horse and all that. Very proud of his Japanese citizenship, I guess.

BK: And he was picked up earlier and sent to --

SU: First to Missoula, Montana. But he was put into that immigration station, we have at, on Airport Way. And I remember going there, 'cause I was working at White River Dairy, and it was just a few blocks away from the immigration station. So I would go there, and start waving and waving. And somehow, somebody must have told him that I was out there on the street. And he'd wave back. So every day -- we couldn't talk to each other -- but at least we waved to each other.

BK: So he was held incommunicado there for --

SU: Oh, yes.

BK: Was it two weeks or three weeks?

SU: I don't remember.

BK: And then sent to Missoula?

SU: And finally he ended up in Crystal City, Texas.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.