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RP: And you came back in June of 1941 and then six months later war broke out.

SK: Yeah. It was, before that people, yeah.

RP: How did you hear about the news of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

SK: Well, of course we were all shocked. We never knew war with Japan, and then being young, I thought, "Oh my gosh, war. Now what are we gonna do?" But we all kind of stood, the only thing was stick together. That was it, see. My mother and sisters and brother. In the meantime, my brother, of course, yeah, he was in the racing thing. He, my brother was well-known for that. He's the one that borrowed my friend's motorcycle. He only wanted to ride on the motorcycle. And that was when Forestland Drive just opened up, brand new, that's where he started on the motorcycle. And it must've been the time of -- I think it was around October, I'm not sure now -- that's when the sun was just hitting a certain way, and he hit the big pole there, and that's how he landed into the river there. That's how he died.

RP: Can you share with us the experience you had with the FBI after the war broke out?

SK: Yeah, they used to come all the time. They thought we had hidden, what do you call it, these, what do you call those hidden things here and there? I said, "Go look and see. We don't have nothing like that." Yeah. We had, not a cellar, but we, under the house we used to, in those days we used to make pickles. We had helpers, so my mother used to make Japanese pickles. You know the daikon, those big radishes and all that. And that, which that smells pretty bad too, but he said, "What's that?" And they said, "Dump that thing," and all that. Yeah, they used to do all of that. Nothing, we had nothing to hide.

RP: Miyo was mentioning that they took some Japanese swords that you brought back from Japan. Do you recall that?

SK: I didn't, no, I don't think, no, I didn't bring any swords back.

RP: Did you bring anything back from your trip?

SK: No, not, nothing like that. No, I bought a big bow and arrow for my brother, as a gift. I still have that up there. But swords, no, I didn't bring any swords back.

RP: Now, one of the FBI men that --

SK: He was one of my, our customers that we knew. But they turned altogether different when he's an FBI. [Laughs] I was so surprised. I said, he says, "Where do you live?" I says, "Take a look." I wasn't afraid of him. I didn't care what. And then I thought he might take me to jail or something, but I didn't care. If I had to go, I had to go.

RP: And when the notice came that you were gonna be excluded from the West Coast, from your home, you mentioned that a lot of things were stored at the ranch in...

SK: Yeah, that was our place. So we had to put everything, most of the things, we moved everything there.

RP: And there was a person that was supposed to be the caretaker.

SK: Yeah. He was Mr. Esser. He was, he was the old, what would you call it, the peasant from the country. He used to wear these, what do you call those, leghorns they call it, those leather ones, and always wear boots. And he, it's like he never took a bath. I mean, he had pigs, he had cows, he had sheep. He used to slaughter his own animals and he used to make head cheese and that blood cheese, whatever that thing is, bring it to my grandfather. Oh my goodness gracious. I said, "Grandpa, how can you eat this?" Well, he said, "Mr. Esser made it." So he tried it, but I know he couldn't eat it. You know head cheese, blood cheese? [Laughs] He was the one that was supposed to look after the ranch for, watch it. Well, he did alright, but then he was raising alfalfa. You know, alfalfa, when you raise alfalfa it just ruins the whole ground there. It takes up all the nutrients out, see. But anyway, that's the way he made his living. He thought we weren't coming back. And we had a lot of these beautiful knotty pine wood to build another room for my uncle. Anyway, he's taken all that, put it in his living room for his own place. That, I, when we came back we saw all that. That was all gone, but anyway, what can you do? Our garden, Japanese garden, was all butchered up. It was just slaughtered. They vandalized it. Yeah, that was bad too. Anyway, and then we had weeds growing all over the place. I mean, it was like... I don't know how to describe it, but we never lived like that before and we were just shocked. But after the war, my uncle and my, had another helper that came with us, and I was there, the three of us came first, out first, so we're doing the best we can cleaning that place, chopping down the weeds, cleaning up the place so we can come back to it. And we did that, I think we were around for, maybe a week we were out, cleaning up.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.