Densho Digital Archive
National Japanese American Historical Society Collection
Title: Mitsue Matsui Interview
Narrator: Mitsue Matsui
Interviewers: Marvin Uratsu (primary), Gary Otake (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 12, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-mmitsue-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

MU: Now, we come to December 7, 1941. Where were you when that happened?

MM: I was at home...

MU: In San Francisco?

MM: ...when one of my co-workers called me. And at that time I was already working for the Japanese Chamber of Commerce. Other thing is when I returned (to) the States, I had to keep house until my mother returned, and after that I looked for employment. And the first place that offered me a job was Mitsubishi. I don't know whether it was an (Mitsubishi International) Corporation, I guess it was, or was it Mitsubishi Shoji? A job in New York as a Japanese typist. See, I had that special skill that very few people had.

MU: Yeah, you were the top, top of the class on that one.

MM: They asked me whether I would go to New York. This was quite a distance. I had never been away from home, you see. So my mother said, "Maybe that's a little bit too far to go." And I was also interviewed by the Consul General's office. But I finally ended up at the Japanese Chamber of Commerce, which was officed on Battery Street in the same building as the Consul General's office.

MU: Now, that would be what? 1940, '41?

MM: Yeah, somewhere near there, 1941, '42. And so when the war broke out, they padlocked our office.

MU: Who's "they"?

MM: They padlocked -- FBI padlocked our office, and they, naturally they padlocked the Consul General's office. But what I didn't realize was the executive officer always told me to be careful about the incoming calls, make a record. But as young as I was, I couldn't understand why, but I think they had an inkling of something happening soon. So, I used to be real careful with my responses and made a record of all the calls coming in.

MU: Did any of your Japanese Chamber of Commerce people get taken away by the FBI?

MM: In fact, my boss -- he was quite a golfer -- and I think he was out on the golf course that particular day, and they were waiting for him when he returned home.

MU: They picked him up.

MM: And picked him up.

MU: Do you know where he was sent?

MM: No, I don't recall. But his wife was pregnant and I felt so sorry for her. But eventually the FBI opened up the office for us, and what we did was, since the money was frozen, we had to raise enough money to pay the rent, naturally. But fortunately we had this Mr. Saburo Kido, attorney. He was our attorney and he was there to help us and the rest of the employees were there. And we sold the big conference table or whatever, for a song, yeah, the bookcases and everything.

MU: So that you could pay the rent.

MM: To pay the rent; that's what I surmised, and, but I decided I wanted to keep the type-, Japanese typewriter because it was brand-new and I had ordered it, you know. And I had used it for a while but not long enough to throw out, and so I left it with -- and I won't mention this company -- but I left it with this particular import company. But much later on, when I checked with them, no one seemed to know where it went to, and I can understand that. But in the meantime, strange as it may seem, Fourth Army was looking for a typewriter, and the person that I talked to was a person by the name of Lieutenant Laurence Dowd. How about that? But he told me that they had found one, so then, that's when I decided we'll just keep it for future use, if there was a future.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.