<Begin Segment 13>

MA: Okay, so I wanted to talk about Pearl Harbor, that day, December 7, 1941. And if you could talk about what you were doing that day and what you were doing when you heard the news.

NI: Uh-huh, I can tell you, we had bought a home that, in September, I think, and my husband and we were cleaning the thick paint on the walls in the bedrooms in the house, we wanted to repaint it. And all of a sudden, he says, "What's that on the news?" It was radio, yeah, it was radio, we didn't have TV then. And he said, "Japan attacked Pearl Harbor." Dropped everything, that's it. I'm not gonna do that. Oh, I felt, "Oh my gosh, what's gonna happen to us?" That's the way I felt. I was more afraid of anything. Not of Japan attacking us, but I was afraid for our own self here. And it was scary.

MA: What did Charlie say? How did he feel about everything?

NI: Oh, that's what he said, "Well, I guess this is it. I don't know why they would attack us," he said.

MA: What about Charlie's parents? What did they say about it? And your parents, what was the Issei reaction?

NI: I really don't know what she said, she was a widow already. It was really something that I can't even express right now. It's just an awful feeling.

MA: Did you notice a change in the way people treated you after Pearl Harbor in Watsonville?

NI: No, I didn't. I really didn't, because we had Caucasian neighbors, and they were so good to us. They couldn't understand why we had to go.

MA: Do you remember hearing about any hostility or anything, anti-Japanese sentiment in Watsonville or surrounding areas?

NI: Not then. It was mostly just before we were going to evacuate, you know, we had to get rid of, oh, I think they called it a shortwave (...) radio or whatever, and had to take... everybody comes and says, "Would you sell this?" "Would you sell that?" for almost nothing. So, and he just got rid of his car just before we left, took the washing machine to the country where his brother-in-law had a home, in safekeeping or something like that. It was used by the time we came home. You could tell they used it, which was all right, I guess. We, that's the only... and they're gonna come, and, oh, the FBI have come to that house and that house and stories went around that way, too. So we were wondering what we had that they didn't want us to keep. It was radios and things like that, maybe if you had swords or something, take it to the police department. We didn't have too much of those, fortunately.

MA: And did Charlie own the house you lived in?

NI: Uh-huh, we had just bought the place.

MA: And it was just the two of you or was his mother still living with you?

NI: His mother (...), so there were three of us.

MA: And as you were preparing to leave, what happened to the house? What did you do?

NI: Our lawyer, he was able to rent it to, we gave him the, what do you call that word? Where he could do whatever you want, like he owned our place. He was a real good attorney, oh, yeah. He was good to the Japanese, Mr. McCarthy is what they called, his name was John McCarthy.

MA: So he helped a lot of the people in the community?

NI: Oh, he helped a lot of Japanese people. So, also Mrs., Dr. and Mrs. Marshall, they did, too.

MA: Dr. and Mrs. Marshall, okay.

NI: They were real good people.

MA: How did the Chinese community react to the Pearl Harbor and then to the...

NI: I don't know. Someone was saying they, they must have worn pins or something saying, "I'm Chinese," but I never saw that.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.