Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Irene Yamauchi Tatsuta Interview
Narrator: Irene Yamauchi Tatsuta
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Laguna Woods, California
Date: October 13, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-tirene-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

KL: Do you have recollections of December 7, 1941?

IT: You know what? As an adult, I didn't even know what, what that was. And somebody would tease me -- I think I was an adult already -- about December 7th, and I didn't even know what it was. I just knew we were in camp because we were in a war, and that was about it.

KL: There was a forty year history of Japanese immigration and Japanese American kind of development, and there was a lot of racism that people encountered. Did you ever have any experiences, or did your family tell you later about any experiences before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor?

IT: No.

KL: Where they were treated --

IT: I didn't know anything.

KL: You were, as far as you knew, you were just growing up in Seattle.

IT: Yeah, right. Because I didn't even know why they were taking us. I thought we were going, like on a vacation. I just...

KL: What do you, what did your parents tell you, or what are your memories of those couple of months in between the attack and having to go to Puyallup? How did life change?

IT: All I remember is we're going to camp, and we have to, they were gonna pick us up at a certain spot and we were supposed to be there. I don't think they had much notice. I'm not sure, but I don't think so. And of course, we weren't anywhere near wealthy or even middle, I don't think, so I know we had a car, and I don't even know, I didn't know that we had to sell it, but of course we didn't have a car. We were, I'm sure we were renting this place. I don't know too much about the house we were living in except that's, that's our home. That's all I, and we had a friend in the neighborhood that we played with, his name was Joe, and that's about it.

KL: Was he Japanese American, too?

IT: No, he was Italian. That's what kind of, I kind of chuckled about it later.

KL: I pictured Joe as an adult, but he was another child?

IT: He was a little child. And I don't even know if he was my brother's friend or we, I guess we just played together outside. And so I kept thinking about Joe, wishing that he could come to camp with us, and then here I find out later about the war and the Italians on the other side, and I thought, "I can't believe this." [Laughs]

KL: Was there anything else besides Joe that was hard to leave, or that you remember wishing you could take?

IT: No. And I do remember my mom sewing us dresses. She was very good, she looked at the catalog and then she would make us a dress from it. And she had this sewing machine, but I can't, I don't know how she got it. I don't know whether she had it before. I don't think so. But she had a sewing machine.

KL: In Minidoka or in Seattle?

IT: In Minidoka. And she was really into me learning how to sew and being a good housewife, whatever. But she was really good in sewing. I'm sure she was a good cook and everything, but she couldn't do any of it when she came back 'cause she had to work.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.