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TI: So I'm also curious, during this time, after Pearl Harbor, the FBI would go into communities and pick up the leaders?

NA: Issei.

TI: The Issei leaders. Did that happen in Lindsay also?

NA: Oh, I'll say it did. And to this day, those families are still bitter. And like the chop suey owner, he got picked up because Japanese people used to go to eat there, and as long as Japanese people used to go eat there and congregate, the FBI picked him up because, thinking it was a Japanese mafia group, if you want to call it. But they weren't, they were just patronizing the place. And then the community leader Imoto, he was picked up. And these Isseis that were picked up, they didn't even have a chance to change clothes or even say goodbye to their family. If they were uptown buying stuff to, for the chop suey house, they were picked up right there and taken. They didn't even get to say goodbye to the family. Same with Mr. Imoto. I think he was out irrigating his field and they came out, picked him up and took him away without even seeing the family. So they're bitter, bitter, bitter, up, even today.

TI: And they're bitter at the government?

NA: Bitter at the government, right.

TI: And why...

NA: Not at the government, at the whole country.

TI: And who else was picked up? Were they the only two, or were there more?

NA: Oh, it was a schoolteacher and other farmers, so there might have been, out of the fifteen to twenty Japanese American families, there might have been about five. So that'd be one, almost one-third of the parents. So those one-third, they are still bitter to this day.

TI: I'm curious if in Lindsay, was there any JACL activity during this time?

NA: Yes, we had our JACL, but it was mostly for social. I was, when I was a senior -- oh, when I was senior in high school, I was the JACL secretary.

TI: And so was the JACL doing anything during this period?

NA: Oh, no, the JACL couldn't because as soon as we protested on any issues the government was pulling on us, like the travel restriction, curfew, evacuation, all that, if we even opened our mouths up, the FBIs would take us in that quickly. So, so the Constitution wasn't worth the paper it was written on.

TI: It's interesting, I'm a little surprised, because Lindsay, as you say, was so far inland, and roughly a third of the families were impacted. So this is a much higher percentage than even the communities on the West Coast right, closer to the coast.

NA: I'm quite sure, even on the West Coast, it was a pretty high percentage.

TI: There were more people picked up, but probably not as high a percentage, because I think there were more families. But this is a, so there were quite a few. And I'm, but I'm interested or surprised because I wouldn't think Lindsay would be such a, a critical area, to pick up so many people. Unless, were there defense-type of installations nearby Lindsay?

NA: No, there was no installation except Tulare, I'm quite sure, had a flight training school, because we used to see the twin wing plane that the air force was, air force pilots were training, and they would fly over our farm and circle around, we used to see them flying around. And let's see, what other installation, army installation were there, around there? I can't think of any others. Hanford might have had one which was about 40 miles away, but Tulare was only 17 miles away.

TI: I'm curious, earlier we talked about your father's boss, Mr. Cairns. After Pearl Harbor, did your father ever talk to Mr. Cairns about what was going on?

NA: About Japan?

TI: Yeah, about what was happening to Japanese Americans, like when your father was trying to sell his property, did he try to sell it to Mr. Cairns, or did he ever try to get help from Mr. Cairns?

NA: Help others?

TI: Or help, try to get help from Mr. Cairns? Given that Mr. Cairns knew your father, did he ever try to help your father?

NA: Oh, no. Mr. Cairns was dead by December 7th already, and the sisters owned the property when the war started, so they didn't have too much respect for Dad after that, Pearl Harbor, so that war really affected Dad, too.

TI: So do you think if Mr. Cairns was alive, he would have done something?

NA: I'm quite sure he would have, because he really liked Dad, definitely. But nobody helped us; we were on our own. Even other Japanese family, we couldn't help each other because of travel restriction and curfew. How are we gonna meet except in the evening, because during the day we still had to work? If we plowed the field under, then we'd have to go to the state pen. for what they call destroying properties, which could have been used for military purpose or something like that, the food for military purpose or for the country, food for the country.

TI: That must have been difficult because here you were tending the crops, but eventually you didn't get paid for them.

NA: Right, we wouldn't get paid for it, and we wouldn't even profit from it, we wouldn't even be able to harvest the crop. We didn't know that we weren't gonna be able to harvest it, so we still had hope, but that hope never came.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.