<Begin Segment 9>

KL: We haven't talked about your father's arrest yet, but I would like to hear about that, too. I'm sorry it's a hard subject, but what are your memories of what happened to your father after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

SO: I remember one day my mother said -- it was around dinnertime and she goes, "I wonder where Papa is because he's not home. He should be home." And we waited a little while longer, and then she, I can see the worry in her face, and so I left to go run to the wharf. And as I got there, there were buses all lined up like this, and they were getting ready to leave. The motor was running and as I'm running along the buses there, a man stood up and he waved to me like this, and that was my father. So I went home and I told Mom, I said, "I just saw Papa on the bus, and they took him away." And then I don't remember anything else. What do you remember?

MS: I heard that the... well, he was taken to the federal prison in Terminal Island, and then I heard that they were gonna move the men on a train to Bismarck, North Dakota. So I remember not going to school, and went to see if I could find the train or the path of the train where it might be going. And it did pass by me, but I didn't see him. And so I never got to say goodbye or anything. It seems like, before that, I came home... I don't know, I thought I saw the FBI taking him away to the prison.

KL: You recall the FBI coming to your home?

MS: Oh, yes.

SO: All the time.

MS: Yeah, because they were trashing...

SO: I don't know what they were looking for. But we read in an article they were looking for shortwave radios and cameras and maybe swords, I'm not sure.

MS: I remember especially this one room, do you remember that? Where a lot of the things like that would be in? I remember them going through.

KL: Things like what?

SO: Papers, wasn't it?

MS: Radios.

SO: We had radios in the house?

MS: I think they were looking for shortwave radios, because the fishermen, because he was a fisherman, they were going through everything. They didn't find anything.

KL: And they came several times, you said?

MS: I think so.

KL: Did your folks have things, special things from Japan, keepsakes?

MS: Oh, I'm sure they did, right?

SO: Well then I think more so because my mother came in, our mother came in illegally, and maybe she didn't have the papers, I don't know. I don't know what the heck they're looking for.

MS: She had a green card.

SO: Later, right?

MS: Yeah. Well, I think those cards, it seems like she used to go to L.A., and they used to just get it for her.

SO: I think you just renew it every year, the green card.

MS: Maybe that was illegal, too. You know, in those days, it seems like if you wanted a, they wanted a driver's license or something, they'd go to L.A. and then they'd get a driver's license. So maybe it was just the same kind of thing. That's not tolerated like right now.

KL: You guys were at home when the FBI would...

MS: Were you home?

SO: Yeah, but I ran out of the house 'cause I was so scared.

MS: That was really scary, because, you know, we lived such a sheltered life. We didn't even see other kinds of people living on Terminal Island, that other children might experience going to school, and they get to go to school with all different kinds of (people), we were just us, and just like Manzanar. Until we came out of Manzanar, and it was scary.

SO: But I do remember asking my father later about when he was taken on the bus. He was saying when he came back to shore, the FBI was waiting right there. So he had to leave everything, his catch of the fish, and they just escorted them onto the bus.

KL: Did he fish with a crew?

SO: I don't know. Do you remember?

MS: Yeah.

SO: Oh, okay. But he skippered the boat.

KL: How did you find your father again?

SO: I don't know.

MS: How did we what?

KL: How did you reconnect with your father?

MS: Oh, he came to camp shortly before we left.

SO: No, but how, you know like the letters we're sending him? I don't know. I don't remember.

KL: So he was arrested, and he went to Bismarck, and you went to Compton. How did your parents find each other to write to each other or find out... do you remember finding out that he was in Bismarck?

SO: Do you remember when we found out where he was? Because we didn't know where he went.

MS: But did we write to him?

SO: Yeah, but how did we find out? I don't know.

KL: Where did you think he went?

SO: We don't know. [Laughs] Just that the FBI took him, so wherever. We had no idea.

MS: I think because there were other people at Manzanar from Terminal Island, we probably heard it through them that, "Oh, guess what? They're at Bismarck, North Dakota," and that's where he was.

SO: It was a federal penitentiary. It think it was called Fort Lincoln, if I'm not mistaken, the name of the penitentiary.

KL: So when you were still in Compton, for months you didn't know where your father was?

SO: No. Right? Didn't know.

MS: Until he came to Manzanar in '44, I think. Because I found the...

SO: Oh, here.

MS: ...driver's license mailed to Manzanar from Independence, and we thought, when we found that, she said, "Oh, what's he driving?

SO: I said, "What did he drive? What did he need a license for?"

KL: "Temporary chauffeur's license."

MS: Isn't that neat?

KL: Wow. Do you think your parents had any idea that there would be a war between Japan and the United States? Did they talk with their families in Japan or pick up radio broadcasts, or do you think they were stunned by the attack on Pearl Harbor?

SO: Oh, yeah. Because --

MS: Oh, yeah, they were. They didn't really communicate with their relatives in Japan.

SO: But they came, our father came because he knew it was a better life here in the United States, and so that's why he came. And he said it was far better than the life in Japan, it was far better here, and he would never go back home. So he had no desire to go back.

MS: Yeah, it was a big shock to them, too.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.