Densho Digital Archive
Bainbridge Island Japanese American Community Collection
Title: Eiko Shibayama Interview
Narrator: Eiko Shibayama
Interviewer: Debra Grindeland
Location: Bainbridge Island, Washington
Date: November 5, 2006
Densho ID: denshovh-seiko-01-0005

<Begin Segment 5>

DG: So also at this period, now after Pearl Harbor, and the United States is at war, the FBI started coming around and having FBI roundups of a lot of male heads of households. Can you tell me what you remember of that and if that affected your family?

ES: Well, that part I don't remember either. I just remember my father was taken away for a while, and that we had to clear a lot of the... I forgot what they were saying, the things we had to clear out of the place and get rid of or something. Whether our, our, some of our Japanese neighbors told us that, or told my parents that. I'm sure they were communicating each other, with each other more than they did with us. They just went ahead and did all these things, lotta time without even mentioning it to us. I don't know if it's to protect us or to not scare us, that, that I don't know. But I remember that they did more communicating with each other of their own, the other Isseis, more than us.

DG: And so, do you remember at all how you were feeling while your dad was away? Or...

ES: No. I think just my mother told us he was away, and they did it so quietly, I don't... I don't really remember that part. Maybe it'll come back to me, I don't know. I should ask my brother about that, yeah, 'cause I really... maybe he could refresh my memory with that. 'Cause he was older and then they... so my sister and my brother would be more attuned to those things than I, I would have been. Since I was second from the youngest, they seemed like they always kind of tried to shelter me or protect me. I don't know why, but that was the feeling I always had.

DG: And how long was your dad away for?

ES: Well, after we got to Manzanar, it wasn't too long that he was returned to us. So he didn't travel with us on the way down. But when we got there, then... it wasn't too long, I just remember. That's another thing I have to find out... how many days. But I, I kind of vaguely remember it wasn't that long.

DG: And do you remember what it was like when he returned?

ES: When he was what?

DG: When he returned? What was that like?

ES: He didn't say much about what happened. And I don't remember what part, to the area that he was sent to either. I mean, that I don't remember either.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.