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KM: And so when December 7th happened, I don't know how it can be said that for the AJA member of the

community in Hawaii, that it was completely a surprise. On the Mainland, I'm sure it was a complete surprise. But in Hawaii, we had all of these, we had practices of blackout, even to that extent, already. Blackout was being practiced. On Oahu, every once in a while, the Fort DeRussy cannon would be shot off just to see that it was in working order. These were happening, 1941.

MN: You know, right now you're telling us about all the things --

KM: I'm jumping, I'm leaping ahead of time.

MN: -- all the things are sort of pointing towards the fact that something was impending, and that people had some knowledge. And you mentioned that when you went home one day, these FBI men were in your household, but that was not the first time that they were there. Your father had already been investigated prior to that?

KM: We had already been asked to turn over... you see, my dad, not only was he a Japanese school teacher before becoming a merchant, he was also serving as a volunteer worker for the consul general's office in Honolulu. Remember, in 1940, there was still need to register Japanese citizens. And if families wanted to register their children into the records of their family in Japan, they had to go to the Japanese consul general. And so each island had different representatives, volunteer workers for the consul general's office, as contact men, and my father was one of them. Besides that, he came over as a Japanese school teacher. And besides that, your grandfather and my father went to Japan, I think it was 19... was it 1940? Nisen ryoppyakunen? Two thousand six hundred? And there were about two thousand Japanese Americans in Tokyo attending these big celebrations. And your father and... your grandfather and my father were two of them, and so they were on the list. They were considered as people under observation, I suppose. You remember, I picked this up some time after, I was studying all about what happened before and after. But back in 1937, I think, General Patton was stationed out in Schofield, and he was assigned the task of what to do with the AJAs in Hawaii. And his recommendation? Ship all of the AJAs into Molokai, that was done 1937, General Patton. So 1941, somebody knew what was going on.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2021 Densho. All Rights Reserved.