<Begin Segment 6>

MA: So let's talk about December 7, 1941, the day that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. And can you talk about what you remember about that day and how you heard about the news of Pearl Harbor?

CY: If I remember correctly, I heard, I was at home and we heard it over the radio.

MA: And how did you feel when you heard about this?

CY: Oh, we felt terrible. My father and my mother, too, I'm sure they did. We were kind of devastated.

MA: And was your father targeted by the FBI or was there any worry that he would be...

CY: There was a worry of being targeted, or there was rumors, all kind of rumors. And so we had a Japanese book, great big book like this. My mother and my father treasured that book because it had the history of the Yoshii family. It was written up by somebody, I don't know, but they were afraid that if they held a book like that in their house, they would be suspected of espionage. So they tore the book and built a fire in the backyard and secretly burned all the books. I know that happened. And so I know about that book, that they treasured it. It was like a family heirloom, but they decided among themselves that that's the best way to make sure that we don't have to go to prison. And so my father and my mother tore it up into small pieces so that it wouldn't make a big fire. It made, they made a little fire and they took hours trying to burn each thing up. And then, so after the war, my relative is in the bookstore, so I said, "Do you think there's some way I could get a copy of that book that my father and my mother had?" I said, "I don't even know the name of it, but it's supposed to have the history of Japan. And evidently it has something about the Yoshii family in it, so I'd like to keep it, too, even if I can't read it in Japanese, I want the book." So they said, "Any book like that was all burned to the ground by the incendiary bombs that the United States dropped." So they said, "We don't have any kind of books like that or any records of anything like that." So that was the end of the story.

MA: So you mentioned there was a lot of rumors sort of flying around the community.

CY: Huh?

MA: You mentioned there were a lot of rumors...

CY: Yes.

MA: ...flying around the community after Pearl Harbor. What were some other things that people were saying about what happened?

CY: Well, first, one of the rumors was that the FBI was one block away from our house. [Laughs] And they came to arrest men that were one block away, so the next block is our block. And that's why book burning was decided upon. And then I don't remember the other rumors, but I remember that rumor. And then in camp, there was rumors -- I don't know how they got... but there was a friend of my father's, father who used to come and visit him frequently, and he, it was always about Japan winning this war and that part and this part. [Laughs] And I don't know how they got that information because we don't have any radio or newspaper or anything, and they don't, can't read the English well. We didn't have any English newspapers. So I don't know how, there were all those rumors about Japan winning the war circulated in camp, and to my father's ears.

MA: I think a lot of Isseis maybe thought that about Japan.

CY: But my father was never too much pro-Japanese. And I think it saved us because my father and my mother's philosophy was like that.

MA: Was more, how was their philosophy?

CY: Well, some parents were very agitated and they were very determined that they were going to be on the Japanese side, and that America was not good at all. But my father never said things like that, he was more like a pacifist. He, they thought, well, that word gaman and shikata ga nai, you can't help it if the country went to war, you can't help it. And if you're at war, you would expect to be treated a certain way. And so if they treat you a certain way, it doesn't mean that they're bad or good. I mean, it's, that's the development, the results of war, and so you have to take it. That was his philosophy; he didn't say, "Oh, you should fight against it, they have no right to do this or that." He wasn't that type of a person.

MA: That's interesting.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.