<Begin Segment 5>

RP: Share with us your memories of December 7, 1941.

MK: Let's see. In December 1941 we were at church when we learned about the bombing. And we hurried up and went home and we didn't wander out and even go walking as much as we used to before that. 'Cause we were afraid and --

RP: Mentioned your...

MK: -- it wasn't that people were picking, picking up on us and saying things or anything. But I think that's... the difference is that we weren't in Japantown. And let's see... I can remember my older sister being very angry because she was already old enough to know what was going on. My husband was also very angry about the, all this evacuation and what have you. But I think the hardest part was having to leave home. And then like my sister was so close to finishing, finishing her nurses training at UC Hospital and she had to go back at, in later years and finish up. My husband went back to UC Berkeley after he was discharged from the army. He stayed in Japan for a while with the occupation and one day he decided that he needed to get home. So he came back. But I think he learned a lot because he was with the occupation. You know, how the Japanese nationals were reacting to everything and his cousin said that they were told horror stories so to speak. They said when the U.S. Army comes that you'd better hide from them and this and that and what have you. And 'course, none of that happened, which was a good thing. But he, so he was able to visit some cousins and uncles in Japan. He, because he was in the MIS he spoke enough Japanese at that time that he could associate with the people there. When he came back he didn't use the Japanese language and he lost quite a bit of it early on. But we... English has always been our primary language anyway.

RP: What was, what was school like after December 7, 1941, for you?

MK: I just went to school like we always did. I didn't worry about anything.

RP: You mentioned there was one teacher that had a...

MK: Yeah, there was one teacher, the science teacher, and she had a brother who was already in the armed forces and I think he was overseas already and... but she kind of ignored me so to speak. But I... nobody else did. I didn't let it bother me really.

RP: Galileo High School was located right next to Fort Mason.

MK: Fort Mason was back, right there next door.

RP: And you had, you had an interesting ritual that you had to participate in.

MK: Yes.

RP: Can you tell us about that?

MK: Yes. If you could get home in twenty minutes -- we had these drills every so often -- you're allowed to go home. If, you know, if there was an attack or anything. It took me twenty-five minutes but I went home every time. They were shipping troops out of Fort Mason. I figured I was better off getting home. However, whether I had to run or whatever, and I wasn't gonna just sit there and wait for the school to get bombed or anything.

RP: Right, and then that brings up that whole issue of war hysteria, and people really, the fear. Could you, can you express or share with us some of that, some of the... did you feel that from other people?

MK: Not too much. But I think it's because, because I was so young then. And I don't think I was inclined to get as angry. Because even when we were in camp I fell in with this group of boys and girls. There was about twelve of us. And we made our own social fun and what have you and we were deprived of a lot of things but everybody was. I think if some people had more than you and flaunted the fact that they were better off, I think it might have affected us. But I think on the whole my age group kind of made the best of things. And then, like I said before, I got this grant to go out to college and that made a big difference too.

RP: Right.

MK: And a lot of people in my age group went out to college.

RP: Yes. To get back to just after Pearl Harbor, you shared with me that, that your father, even though he was not very active in some of the local organizations, was actually picked up by the FBI?

MK: Because if you were say a leader in one of these Japanese groups, they all were picked up right away. But my father might have gone to meetings and this and that but he wasn't a leader or one of the... I think the ones that were the leaders were probably... like the head of the Japanese school. I really don't know what happened to the minister at our church. Because after that we didn't go to church after that. And but you know to this day. some of those people that we went to church with when we were children, we still know each other. We still associate when we... it's good. I'm afraid we're all in our eighties though.

RP: Right. And he had his suitcase already packed and ready to go?

MK: Yeah. Because we didn't know for sure, and when the men were getting picked up around our neighborhood, you know, you had to be ready more or less. Then my mother worried having all daughters and no sons to help and all this kind of stuff. But I think, well, my father carried the burden. Because it was all girls. You know, like when we were in camp he would salvage lumber and make tables and chairs and this and that and what have you. 'Cause they only gave us the cots.

RP: Right.

MK: We didn't have to sleep on straw mattresses, though. We did have mattresses.

RP: From the very beginning?

MK: Yeah.

RP: Oh.

MK: I felt sorry for the people who spent all that time in, like in Santa Anita and they were in the horse stalls all that time. And we weren't... we were in the barracks.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.