Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Rose Tanaka Interview
Narrator: Rose Tanaka
Interviewer: Alisa Lynch
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: August 9, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-trose_2-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

AL: I was just looking at school... what do you remember of December 7, 1941?

RT: December 7th was a Sunday and I remember it well. We didn't have, of course, back in those days, TV. The only radio we had was the one that Tom had put together. He was quite skilled in electronics and mechanics, and he had built a radio and we would listen with headsets on when he invited us to do that. And, but on December 7th in the morning, Mrs. Gannon picked me up and we went to church. And at that time, because the World War II was happening in Europe, we had, we could tell that there was a lot of activity, militarily, there was Camp San Luis Obispo, and the soldiers from there would come to our church in Morro Bay to attend church services every Sunday morning. In the evening, for the evening service that she took me to -- and this was the first I discovered -- there were no servicemen there. And, of course, they were grounded in camp because of the attack on Pearl Harbor. That was my first knowledge of the attack on Pearl Harbor. And, of course, I was appalled that this had happened. So that's all I can say, and then, of course, we got the paper, the Hearst newspapers, and I can't remember which one it was, whether it was the San Francisco Examiner or something like that. But the headlines were just terrible, they were vicious as far as, of course, and that was to work up the patriotism on the part of Americans to fight the war against the "Japs." And it was very... then I started to feel very much the pressure of discrimination. I did not feel it from my schoolmates. People in town were just, did not, that I was aware of, did not discriminate against us. We'd lived our whole lives there and were accepted. But maybe I should bring up that Captain Williams at this point.

A few years previous, a military man, a retiree from the U.S. Navy, he was a lieutenant commander, and he'd also been a captain in the merchant marine, retired in Cayucos. He got the land that was next to where we lived, and proceeded to build himself a home. And how did he do it? He bought old railroad cars that he banged down and slapped down in his flatbed truck, and he tore them apart and carefully recycled the materials and built himself a very nice home, a small but modest home on top of the hill. And it was a very good home. He went down and dug himself a well for well water, and he also was a very friendly, sociable person, and he came down and made friends with my father and mother. And he was a man who was interested in many things and had done many things. He would follow my father around and relate all his tales that he had, his adventures from all over the world and everything he had done, and talk to my father and watch how my father farmed and all that. And he was very friendly to us. When the war started, Captain Williams heard about the evacuation order.

[Interruption]

AL: This is Alisa Lynch with Rose Tanaka. This is tape two of an oral history interview on the ninth of August, 2011. And just before our break, you were talking about Captain Williams and his friendship with your parents, and his, building his house up on the hill.

RT: Captain Williams was a remarkable man in that he had this sense of community. When he came into the community, not only did he build his friendship with my father, which was, I thought was very unusual in that he extended this hand of friendship and was also very good to my mother, and treated her with high respect and love. And I don't know that she had ever seen that, living her life just in this secluded relationship with my father. Captain Williams also wanted to help the community he came to. He started up an American Legion unit there and named himself the commander of it. [Laughs] He was used to being in charge. And he also saw that the community could use some recreational facility. He went down to the pier and there was a, sort of a community hall that wasn't being used for very much, and he had it refurbished and turned it into a roller skating rink so that the young people in our community would have recreational facility. It was just a man who, there was no need for him to do anything, but he felt that there was a need there and wanted to help the young people.

AL: Did he have a family or wife or children?

RT: He had a woman who came to live with him and he married her. Her name was Gladys. But he had had a previous marriage, and I don't know what became of that, but he had grown children. So I would say Captain Williams was way up in his sixties somewhere. And so...

AL: What was his first name, just for the tape?

RT: Frank King Williams was his full name. And he was a captain in the merchant marine, and a lieutenant commander I believe I said in the navy.

AL: So would you say he was like ten years older than your father? Twenty years?

RT: Yeah, I don't know really, but I'd say about ten years older.

AL: Okay.

RT: So upon retirement he had enough energy and wanted to do things to help his community. He also used to go up on his flatbed truck and cut trees in the forest. And would open up a Christmas tree lot and sell Christmas trees, which we had never had before. If we wanted Christmas trees, we had to go and scrounge around and find a Christmas tree. But he wanted to serve the community, and that gave him some extra change in his pocket. So when World War II occurred, I think I mentioned that we were all shocked, of course, the whole country was in shock.

AL: Do you remember specifically how your parents reacted, anything that they might have said?

RT: I think they were not terribly surprised, I don't think, because there was such tension internationally. And I can go into what I learned in later years about that, but, of course, Japan was trying to expand its influence in the Far East, being a small island country, and having a lot of pride and determination to dominate, they were going out and were doing all this. And, of course, everybody thought the emperor was doing it while in actuality it was the military machine there that was doing that. My parents were very stoical and accepting of whatever happened, and they did not express a lot of feelings. I think they were torn because they had some allegiance to the emperor of their home country, but they knew the reality was that all the children were American citizens and they themselves were Americans. They had no intention ever of going back, and they knew that hard times were ahead. So I think they had a foreboding of what was going to happen as far as, just from the experience they have had, and that they had been looked down upon and were permitted to participated in the American life fully as they would probably have liked. But they were content with what they were, that they were able to survive financially and to raise a family.

AL: Do you remember Katsuma's reaction?

RT: I really don't remember his at all. I mean, his was like ours, I think, we were just in shock. And he accepted the fact that he was, after all, an American citizen, he was born in this country. And he never was very, displayed any emotions that I know of.

AL: And he would have been, at that time, back in this country for eleven or twelve years it sounds like.

RT: Oh, yes, yes. So he felt much as we felt that this was his country.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.