Densho Digital Archive - Emi Yamamoto Interview (denshovh-yemi-01-0012)

<Begin Segment 12>

MA: And you told me earlier that you met your husband, and you married right after this time, after Pearl Harbor?

EY: Uh-huh, yes.

MA: How did you meet your husband?

EY: Well, I didn't, it was a Japanese-style, but I knew his sister in high school when I was going. But somehow, his sister, younger sister and my sister were in the same class, and that's how I met her, and she kind of liked me. But anyway, my sister, same class with her, and they were friendly, so you know that. And I heard that she, she knew, I got friendly with her, too, being my sister's friend, and then she told my mother her brother was looking for somebody for him. [Laughs] And that's how they introduced me.

MA: And what was your husband's name?

EY: Henry.

MA: Henry Yamamoto. And when did you get married?

EY: After the Pearl Harbor, so it'd be February 15th.

MA: And what was your wedding like?

EY: Oh, it was, nobody could get together. We had a family wedding at the church, but the FBI were picking up everybody, see, so not more than so much could get together. So not everybody in the family even could get together, so just main person and the parents and probably sisters and brothers, that's about it. But they couldn't travel, lot of 'em that lived far away, they weren't allowed to travel anymore. So just the family pictured, got married. And the reverend and some of the main persons... right after our wedding, the FBI picked them up.

MA: Picked him up from the church?

EY: Yeah, church. There was somebody that, they gave the names of the main person, people in the Japanese Association, so when we got married, we weren't allowed to go any further than fifty miles. Then by the time we got married and went up to San Jose and came back, and lot of the main persons and Japanese Association people, FBI picked them all up.

MA: Was your father ever targeted by the FBI?

EY: No. So... but like some of the main Japanese Association persons, quite a bit got picked up.

MA: And for your wedding, it sounds like the...

EY: Only the family could get together.

MA: Right, 'cause the curfew and the travel restrictions, really.

EY: And travel was only fifty miles.

MA: Right.