Densho Digital Archive - Ernest Uno Interview (denshovh-uernest-01-0003)

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LD: No one helped your family pack to go to Amache? Your father was picked up.

EU: That's right. My father was picked up... I thought it was early February, but it could have been just a little later than that. And so after his internment as an "enemy alien," then the only ones at home, of course, were my sister Hana... well, two sisters, Hana and me, and then my older brother Stanley. So they took over the responsibility really of helping my mother manage the household. And then when it came to packing up to prepare for evacuation, they pretty much had the responsibility of seeing what was to be done, how it was to be done. And those of us, the younger ones, kind of just followed suit.

LD: Mae has expressed some regret about the fact that Hana seemed to have carried so much of the responsibility for a lot of things that happened in the family. Did you, do you feel the same way?

EU: Oh, most definitely. I always have a very warm spot in my heart for my sister Hana, who as eldest at home, took on the responsibility of caring for the rest of us inasmuch as my mother didn't speak English, but just a smattering of it. And therefore when it came to any kind of dealings with, whether it was officials from the government or what, it was Hana who had to take the lead. And as a result, I think she assumed on her own shoulders the responsibility for making sure that the rest of us were cared for and whatever was necessary.

LD: Do you feel that that was a sacrifice for her in some way, that there were some things she passed up in life because of that?

EU: As I reflect on my sister Hana's life and what she had endured through the years, I've often had a personal sense of guilt that perhaps I was among those responsible for holding her back from aspiring for those things that she wanted to do. On the other hand, I look at it too that, you know, we're all part of a family, and each person plays his or her particular role in the family, and she had this role. Perhaps it may be unfair to think of it as such, but I think she accepted it quite graciously to take on the responsibilities that she had. Had she not, I think the family situation might have been quite different in the sense of everyone going their own way in total disunity. But thanks to both my mother and my sister, my older sister Hana, the family held together quite well, extremely well.

LD: What kinds of things were pulling it apart, and what kinds of things did your mother and your sister do to try to pull it together?

EU: When I think of our family and how it held together so well, I think there was an interdependence, and of course, there was a sense of loyalty to the family that is, I think it belongs to every Japanese family. We think of the family first before we think of ourselves. Perhaps if there was anything or anyone in the family that might have thought of breaking up or rebelling from this kind of unity, it would have been one of my sisters who always thought of herself as kind of the black sheep. She was the rebellious one. In fact, even in camp, in the... Santa Anita, the assembly center, had met a man who was much, a number of years her senior, but she felt that they wanted to get married, and over my mother's objection decided that she would get married, and she did. And that was part of the disintegration of the family somewhat.

LD: You always felt that your mother had an uncanny sense of being right, and, in fact, there's a certain phrase that you used about how your mother was always right. You said that was true of Hana and Mae and maybe you, too, I can't remember. What was, what did you say?

EU: As I always think of my mother, she was a very strong-willed individual. She, I think, probably was imbued with the Puritan ethic of work. She was a very religious person. Rather strict in those terms, in terms of morals and ethics, she was very absolute in those things, and she went according to what the bible said. She was not evangelical in terms that we normally think of people who carry the bible and go out preaching the gospel, but she lived a very strict life in terms of rules, what was right and wrong, and we had to pretty much abide by her rules as long as we lived under her roof.