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YY: But you know, it was only a matter of weeks... early part of January, when the FBI came to the house and the property to inspect, to search for any contrabands, which was shortwave radio, any weapons, dynamite, flashlights, cameras, other items which they felt that the Japanese might use to aid the enemy. But I still remember them going through the barn and through the house and all over. I don't know, I can't remember if they confiscated anything or not, 'cause we didn't have shortwave radio or anything like that. It was in February that the FBI came back again to interrogate my dad. I could still see him sitting there in the living room and they're questioning him about his activities and all. And he says, "As long as I'm in America, I'm loyal to America." I can still hear him say that. Well, they took him anyway, and that added to our fear. We didn't know what was gonna go on. An hour later we heard somebody knocking on the front door and we were frightened and here my dad had come back. They did not detain him, so we were quite relieved. And he wanted to prove his loyalty. At that time, we had dual citizenship, but he took care of that. He cancelled the Japanese citizenship and also he bought war bonds for each child. In other ways he wanted us to cooperate with whatever that was asked of us to do. It was actually right before the executive order was issued by Franklin Roosevelt that there was this talk about we were gonna be removed from the West Coast. But we didn't know prior to that time who would be removed, just the aliens or the citizens, everybody. And then, where would we go?

Then when... so there were all these questions. But in the meantime, interestingly enough, Tosh and Kay were attending the JACL meetings and they were held, I think, on a weekly basis. They were quite faithful in participating in that. I don't know what all went on, but they did attend those meetings. Actually, we had only about six days of official notice to leave the island. And those were posted. It's not like e-mail or telephone or anything. They were actual written notices posted on buildings and telephone poles around the island to say you must leave the island by March 30th. Just several days prior, my dad went to Wenatchee and I believe he must have gone to see if he could possibly move the family to a safer place. But then he came back the following day and nothing came of it. But I think that's what he had in mind. After the official notice, we didn't have suitcases because we really hadn't traveled or anything. But there were people in the community who donated suitcases so that we would have something to put it in our belongings. We didn't know what to take, what to pack. I mean, did we need kitchen utensils? Did we need other things? As it turned out, it was mainly personal items, you know, your clothing and your personal toiletries and those things that we ended up taking... only what we could carry, what each person could carry. Not knowing where we were going was the biggest question in our minds. I mean, we were going somewhere, but where? And they didn't tell us.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.