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JD: Maybe we could backtrack a little and talk about the war period and the internment. Starting with December 7, 1942, I assume you don't have personal memories of that, but what did your parents tell you about what happened then and what they felt about it?
FK: Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't have personal memories of that day. I know they didn't speak much about that until probably -- you know, we didn't start this oral history project with the island until the '80s, and my father had already passed away. It was... 'cause he passed away in '69. My mother at that time pretty freely talked about it, and I know she talked about how scary it was. Mostly because in early February the FBI came to the island and started arresting people without any trials or anything. I think out of the forty-five families of Japanese descent on the island, thirty-four people were arrested by the FBI. And out of those -- and they were sent to the immigration center on Dearborn -- and out of those thirty-four, my... I think thirteen were sent off to Justice concentration camp, and my father was one of those. He was sent to Missoula, Montana. Some of the other men were sent to Santa Fe, New Mexico, but he went to Missoula, Montana. So he wasn't with us when we went to... when we were removed from the island. My mother pretty much had to take care of the four kids and had to look after us without my father from February 'til March 30th when we left. And I think my father is a very unusual type person. He... a lot of Japanese men are thought of as being kinda meek and just following along, but he wasn't that type of person. He would really get mad. And I'm pretty sure he was kinda always angry about that happening because he didn't feel like there was any reason for him to be arrested. And I think my mom thought it was really scary. I remember her telling me that once she was at home with the four kids and changing Chiseko -- that's my sister Jane's Japanese name -- diaper. She said someone yelled at her through the bedroom window and said, "Pull the blinds. This is a blackout." And she said it scared her half to death that someone was standing right outside her window, as she said, spying on her, while she was changing Chiseko's diapers. 'Cause, you know, our farm... we didn't have very many close neighbors around. So it was 22 acres and not as many houses around there as there are now. So she said it really scared her, 'cause, since Dad had already been taken away. So it really scared her.
JD: Was the Missoula camp and the other one in Arizona, were those for a particular category of people judged to be a security risk or something?
FK: Yeah. They were Justice camps. So there were, I think, I don't know, about nine or ten Justice camps that were run by the Justice Department. And they were the places where people who were thought to be really security risks were taken. Mostly because... well, most, I think almost all of them were Issei or non-citizens or non-aliens, is what citizens were called. So my dad said he was born in Watsonville, California, but he couldn't prove it. He didn't have any records so he was probably considered an alien. And my mother said that she thought maybe he was under suspicion because he commuted to Seattle every day and because he was commuting every day he would take flowers for the greenhouses into Seattle. And most of the greenhouses are along Pleasant Beach and Rich Passage, and along through there, so that's where most of the ships going to Bremerton were. And also because he was selling rings to Japanese sailors, and, and she thought maybe that was why they might have rounded him up. But it could also have been because he was... couldn't prove he was a citizen, either, so...
<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.