<Begin Segment 6>

FK: Now, going back to '42, did you, did you have any inkling at all about this happening, of us being forced off the island and sent to camps? Did you have any inkling about that happening before that actually happened?

SO: Did I have any idea that it might happen?

FK: Yeah.

SO: No, I don't think so. I think we were all too naive in a way, that is, my age group, then about eighteen, nineteen. I have often wondered, Frank, had we had a large body of adult Nisei -- by adult Nisei I mean those in their thirties and forties -- who would've been in a better position to look at what's happening and maybe to provide some guidance for those of us who were younger who knew very little about what was happening, sometimes I wish if we could ever do it, recreate that particular moment and say, the Nisei stood up and said, "No, we won't go," whereas we played the other game of what we were told -- and this now comes to the Japanese American Citizens League -- that is, if you don't cooperate, I mean, the message was do what is, what you're being told to do because somebody else knows better than you do, and then denying all of the things that had followed since. So that when you ask whether I had an inkling, no, other than immediately after Pearl Harbor -- this is the kind of question we get frequently, how did our neighbors react? Individually, and a couple of the families would, came to us and said, "We know you're loyal, but I can't vouch for the others on the island." Somewhere along there, either we totally, "we" meaning the Niseis, we didn't do our job properly. Maybe we should've had a whole mass of Caucasians saying, these are loyal people, but we didn't, so we all went peacefully because we were told what we should be doing. And I'm sure there's no way we can prove or disprove it, but it's something, an interesting thought, at least for me.

FK: Now, when the FBI came to the island, I think it was sometime in early February, did that affect your family at all, when they started rounding up --

SO: I'm sorry?

FK: When the FBI came to the island, did that affect your family at all, as far as when they rounded up some Issei?

SO: Well, that was a kind of strange thing. At that, on that day when the roundup occurred I was, went to the University of Washington, so I was commuting. I wasn't home, but my brother was. And I have to admire the FBI in a strange sort of way. They apparently swooped down and hit every single family so that we couldn't communicate with one another if we had the ability to do that. And I can remember, and I still have one of the documents that the FBI left with my family. They took a, what used to be that little do it yourself radio kits -- Allied Radio Company would make these, send these kits out and so forth, and the FBI said this is, like contraband. You... so they took that. It was not even halfway completed. It happened to be my oldest brother's hobby that he was doing this, but that's all the FBI did was, in terms of our family, because my dad had died so that there was no adult male other than my older brother. That was the only, as to who it really is handling this particular situation. I know in other families, and this is where, I think, numbers get pretty, all skewed up, the adult males who were the primary movers of the community were removed to detention camps, but many of them also were returned rather quickly. They weren't for the duration. But they, since we didn't have any, in my family, any adult male -- my two oldest brothers were then in the Service so that my brother, older brother, Masakatsu, was the one who apparently was in the decision making role, but it didn't affect us as it affected some other families in which the fathers, the absent fathers created a hardship on those still remaining. In my situation, I started with non father 'cause my dad wasn't there anymore, older brothers were gone, both in the service, and so we had to assume whatever responsibility. The only thing I can recall is we rented our house for twenty-five dollars a month, but we didn't, but it was an exceptional situation because our neighbors said, "Oh, we'll take care of your house." They said, "Our nephew is going to be renting, we'll rent to him because every day going to the shipyards to do the work and so forth," so that the matter of what happened, or how we were able to respond to that, it was no threat to us, no threat to me. I, at that point, peacefully went like everyone else did, thinking this was the better, or lesser evils, or what have you, and it was... so I guess I, maybe I didn't answer your question. [Laughs]

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.