Densho Digital Archive
Preserving California's Japantowns Collection
Title: Rose Nakagawa Interview
Narrator: Rose Nakagawa
Interviewers: Jill Shiraki (primary); Kerry Nakagawa (secondary)
Location: Fresno, California
Date: March 9, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-nrose-01-0017

<Begin Segment 17>

TI: Okay, so Rose, I'm going to now switch gears a little bit. So I'm going to go to December 7, 1941. So that's the day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. Do you remember that day?

RN: Yeah.

TI: So describe to me what happened that day.

RN: Oh, gee, I can't remember. We just stayed inside and never went out, you know. Kept to ourselves.

TI: How did you first hear about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

RN: It was all over, you heard that. Like they say that Japanese, they say the "Japs" bombed the San Francisco airport or whatever.

KN: Pearl Harbor.

TI: Yeah, Pearl Harbor.

RN: Pearl Harbor.

TI: Now, was the restaurant open on that day?

RN: Uh-huh.

TI: And was it business as usual, or did anything different happen that day?

RN: No, it wasn't... business was not that... white people stayed away. Because we had nothing but white to eat sukiyaki. Japanese don't come and eat sukiyaki, but the white people used to come, and then they kind of stayed away. Some would come back, you know.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.