<Begin Segment 6>

DC: What do you remember about the outbreak of the war, what was it like when you heard about Pearl Harbor?

MM: Well you know what I remember, people were still nice to us. They were really nice, I mean they talked to us and they never crossed the street when they see you coming. But I remember mostly we had to use dark curtain on our windows at night. And I didn't think that was necessary, but again, that's for safety I guess.

ET: But I don't think we were the only one, everybody else had to do it, everybody had to do it. But then if just a teensy bit of light showed, somebody would come and say, "Please, there's light showing." So... but they had to be careful so that was their job.

MM: Yeah, I didn't enjoy that part, putting dark clothes on the windows. But then everybody else must have done it, I don't know.

ET: When you heard about Pearl Harbor, were you worried about what it meant for you as Japanese Americans?

MM: You know what? It never scared me. I wasn't scared at all. And nobody made any kind of remarks to us or anything.

DC: That's good. Did anybody act hostile towards you ever or do anything that scared you?

ET: Not to us, except one... our good customer, she came and said her brother had different feelings than she did, so just be careful, and that's all she said. And he never came around or anything, but then she was one of our best customers and that's how she felt, so she came to warn us, but we never did see him so I guess he didn't want to come. He was scared of us I guess. [Laughs]

DC: Was he a customer before?

ET: I don't remember him. His sister was the one that always came and she was a good customer and a good friend.

DC: So it didn't hurt business at all?

ET: No, I don't think so. But right after that of course we had to sell the place or try to sell, we couldn't sell it. We just had to leave everything as is.

DC: And that's when you had to leave California because you were living in an area that was declared to be part of the exclusion zone?

ET: Well I don't know whether that was the reason, do you?

MM: No.

ET: But my dad just figured that since the war and that they were talking about having to go to camp, and he didn't want us to go to camp, so he contacted our friends here in New Mexico.

MM: Oh, we had some good friends here.

ET: And they vouched for us, so that was nice.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.