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RP: Can you share what you recall about December 7, 1941? How, how did you find out about the bombing of Pearl Harbor? Maybe if you, if you had a personal reaction or could you as a young child kind of sense what your, what your parents...

MH: Yes, since it was Sunday and we were at Sunday school, I didn't hear about it until I got home and my father was listening to the radio and he just said, "Well, they bombed Pearl Harbor." He said, "I don't know where it is." And he just said, well, he didn't think that Japan could win the war. That's all I remember about it. He just said, "They don't have a chance to win the war." And he stayed by the radio for a long time. And so that was Sunday afternoon when I found out. And all I could think of was, well, how would my friends treat me at school?

RP: And how did they treat you at school?

MH: No differently, as I remember. You know, and I think the principal had a lot to do with that.

RP: It's just natural to have a, sort of a concern about that as a young child. And obviously after something like that happens and we're at war with the, war with Japan, it's suddenly you feel the eyes of the world upon you.

MH: That's true, yeah.

RP: And you begin to sense you're different in that regard. Is that the first time you really felt that?

MH: Probably. I think that's the first time maybe I heard the word J-A-P, somebody called me that. Other than that, I just, I guess, you know, there wasn't that much racial prejudice in that community. So, it's hard to explain. Now that I'm grown I know that there probably was. I think that when we had to leave then it really struck me as hey, I'm not the same as my white counterpart friends.

RP: Right. Why is this happening to me and not them?

MH: Right.

RP: And then, another terrible blow to you was the passing of your father.

MH: Yes.

RP: That was March 26, 1942, so just what, three, three months afterwards. And if you don't mind me asking, what... did he die of an illness?

MH: He died of a cerebral hemorrhage. He came in from working out in the greenhouse and he lay down and he said he didn't feel very good. And he was on... they used to have those kind of couches, not sofas, but couches. He just laid down there and he never did get up. My mother went to the neighbors because we did not have a telephone and asked them to call the doctor and of course Dr. Tanaka who would have been our family doctor at the time was already incarcerated. And so we called another Japanese doctor and he was reluctant to come but he did come, and he told my mother by then he was unconscious. And so he probably lasted about a few days and, and she stayed up with him most of the time and Mrs. Watanabe, our neighbor, came and helped her. And so when he passed away then we called, or she had somebody call the funeral director and they came and picked him up, Peaks. And they still have the funeral parlor there. Yeah, they were very, very kind to us at the time.

RP: And that was, that was during the time of that five-mile restriction.

MH: Yes. It was during that five-mile time. I think I did leave out the part that, you know, when we burned all the stuff they also told the family that they couldn't have short, shortwave radio, cameras, etcetera. And I do remember my brother and my father taking him to Oregon City which was the county head there. And they were returned to us.

RP: Once you got home.

MH: Yeah, right, after the war you could go back and they picked 'em up, or my brother did.

RP: You talked about Dr. Tanaka being picked up and of course your mother's brother. Did the FBI visit your home?

MH: Pardon?

RP: Did the FBI visit your home at all?

MH: Yes they did.

RP: And were you at home when they did?

MH: No, I was not at home at the time.

RP: And do, do you know, did they question your father or did they search the house or do you have any other...

MH: I have no idea what, what happened when they, when they came.

RP: Had your father been involved in the community locally at all?

MH: No, he really wasn't.

RP: Pretty low key?

MH: Right. So I don't think he was a suspect per se. Right. We're not sure why they picked up my uncle. We just surmised, since he had been back and forth to Japan quite a bit and probably came back around one of the last ships from Japan. And left Japan because he didn't want to be involved in the China war. You know, he probably would have been drafted if he stayed.

RP: Did you have any correspondence from your uncle at all while he was in camp?

MH: Yes. My sister... all of the correspondence had to be done in English. And my mother, as long as she has lived there, you know, she couldn't really write that well. So had my sister write all the letters. And my sister would read the letter to her and try to interpret what my uncle was saying. When she read the letter to us she said, "Oh, there's something that's blacked out." Or they even cut portions of the letters. They were all censored, both ways. So, I don't, I don't know what my sister wrote for my mother. Because that was my older sister's job to do that.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.