<Begin Segment 10>
RP: Do you recall December 7, 1941? Where were you and how did you...
KN: Yeah. You heard it on the radio and we just panicked 'cause right away they said we can't, we couldn't go anyplace. December, after December 7, Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, we, we couldn't go anyplace. We were just, we had to stay home. And so it didn't take long for us to be evacuated into camp.
RP: Right, there was a travel restrictions.
KN: Oh, yeah.
RP: And so how soon after the war broke out were you, were you laid off?
KN: Right away.
RP: Right away?
KN: Right away. So there's no job. So by that time they're talking about putting us in a concentration camp so that's what happened.
RP: Now, your, did you know your husband before the war? Tom?
KN: Oh yeah, we went to high school together.
RP: You went to high school together?
KN: I was a year ahead of him but... [Laughs]
RP: That's where you met him?
KN: Oh, oh we all same town. We knew everybody.
RP: Were you guys dating?
KN: Not at.. yeah, senior ball or junior prom or something but about once or twice.
RP: Uh-huh. So what were your impressions of Tom as a young guy?
KN: Nice guy. He wasn't a very good dancer but we went to dances anyway. [Laughs] I was a year ahead of him at school anyway. But he was real matured for someone younger than me.
RP: So you guys weren't serious at that point, were you?
KN: Not at that time. Not when we were going to high school. We just, we just knew each other but later, later on he went to Manzanar and I went to Fresco Assembly Center so we got, we got split. So we didn't see each other until way later, about three years later.
RP: Were you, were you aware of the FBI coming around and arresting Issei?
KN: Yeah, yeah. A lot of people that we knew got arrested.
RP: Like who?
KN: Like church, big wheel at the church, Buddhist church. And some grocery owners. Some that's kind of prominent, they all got picked up. But we were nobody so they never bothered us. Only the nobodies didn't get bothered. All the people that was... Japanese school people or Buddhist church or somebody that was important got all picked up.
RP: Like your language school teacher?
KN: Yeah. And the grocery store man, and the Buddhist church minister, they all got picked up. For doing nothing, you know, just being who they are. But they got picked up anyway. We were nobody so they didn't bother us.
RP: Did you have any... well, there was the travel restrictions and then there was a curfew.
KN: Yeah. You couldn't travel.
RP: Right. And then they wanted you to turn in certain contraband like guns or...
KN: Yeah, yeah.
RP: ...cameras.
KN: Cameras.
RP: Did you, do you remember your dad having to turn things in?
KN: Yeah, cameras and... we didn't, we only had cameras. I don't know what else... and whatever, we just turned it anyway, mostly cameras.
RP: Now how about items that had a connection with Japan or Japanese culture?
KN: I guess so. But we didn't have anything like that.
RP: Swords, pictures of the emperor...
KN: Yeah, yeah, a lot of people that had those Japanese swords and stuff, they all got picked up.
RP: They did.
KN: But we didn't have anything like that so.
RP: So you don't remember your dad burning anything or burying anything?
KN: Yeah, some papers he burned in the backyard. Oh, thing that Japanese passport or whatever, anything that had Japanese word on it, I think he buried it in the back yard and he burned it.
<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.