<Begin Segment 9>

JS: Now... okay, when Pearl Harbor was bombed in December of 1941, where were you when you heard about that?

MN: Oh, we were in San Jose.

JS: Okay, and exactly where in San Jose were you?

MN: Well, I was, I was staying with my cousins, because my sister had to play basketball. They were in a tournament in San Jose, and so they went to play, and I, we didn't... I don't think I went to it, 'cause I remember playing with all my, I had a lot of cousins.

JS: Okay, and how did you hear about the news?

MN: Someone came, came back from the basketball tournament and said that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor so we should go home, so my father and all my sisters and I, we all went home.

JS: Now, how did, how did you respond to the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

MN: Well, you see, I was so sheltered that nothing fazed me; I didn't think anything of it. It didn't... who, who are they? They're, I don't know who they are.

JS: How did your, how did your parents react to it?

MN: They were shocked. They were, they just, were just... they didn't know what to do, what to think, 'cause I had, I had a brother in Japan, and they wanted him to come home, and they didn't know how to bring him back home. They were just, just... I don't know.

JS: Were there any other close relatives in Japan that your family was worried about?

MN: I think, I think my grandparents had been back to Japan, too, at that time.

JS: When did your brother go back to Japan?

MN: When? My brother?

JS: Yeah.

MN: Oh, it was 1939, '38 or '39. He just went for a vacation, and then he loved it so much that when they were, when we heard about Japan and the United States, so my mother sent him a lot of money, I don't know how much she sent him, money to come, bring him home, and he says, "No, it's okay, I don't want to come home yet." And then it was too late; he just couldn't come back.

JS: And he was which brother? Older, he was older than you --

MN: Yes, he was older than me.

JS: But how much older than you were?

MN: He must have been, he's, he must be at least... two, four, six, eight, about eight, seven, seven, six/seven years older than me.

JS: Okay, okay.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2004 Densho and The Japanese American Museum of San Jose. All Rights Reserved.