Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Richard M. Murakami Interview
Narrator: Richard M. Murakami
Interviewer: Larisa Proulx
Location: Los Angeles, California
Date: November 19, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-mrichard_2-01-0002

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LP: The event of Pearl Harbor, it sounds like there was a little bit of the FBI stuff impacting your family. And from your perspective as a kid, what was that day like and what was that like to hear that information?

RM: Yeah, I know, I've tried to remember that, and I don't remember too much except when it happened, we had some real good friends, and all I remember is in the farm, the man that was in charge of the water company and his assistant, they came over and said, "Don't worry, we'll take care of you." And they took care of us, and they told us what we should be doing, like my father had guns and things like that. So my father gave him whatever guns they had for safekeeping, and they told us what to do so they kept us calm and that's what happened. So we stayed there until we moved. And when we moved, my father had a, my parents had a home, house, and the person that moved into the house was my father's foreman, Tony. He moved into the house so that when we came back, the house was still there. So we were lucky to be able to move into a house when we came back.

LP: When you heard Pearl Harbor had been bombed, so there's someone trying to help the family and keep everyone calm, but was there an undercurrent of concern, and any idea of maybe what the camp would happen, or what was their...

RM: Okay, see, I was ten years old. When Japan bombed Pearl Harbor, I didn't know what was happening. At that time, you just didn't... we didn't know. I knew of Japan, but other than that, I didn't know anything. So all we knew is that, what happened. And so I really didn't think too much about what happened. The school that I was going to at that time, I was in the fifth grade, in the school that I was in, there were only three minorities. Myself, I was the only Japanese American there, and two Mexican kids. Julian, who was my best friend, and his brother, Rene, the three of us, that was all. So I never even thought about myself being actually different. And I tell people, you know, people said they were called "Japs" and all that. When I was going to school, I don't ever remember being called a "Jap" or anything. I was just like all the other guys. So I never really thought anything about that before the war, never happened to me. So like I said, I never thought I was different.

LP: Do you recall... somebody I interviewed yesterday, his family lived in San Mateo and he remembers the posters being posted throughout the town about being evacuated, and some folks in his neighborhood were, like, Italian immigrants. Was there, in terms of your neighborhood after Pearl Harbor, maybe nothing targeted specifically at you, but did you notice, like, changes in the atmosphere of your neighborhood? Were people maybe not reacting to you, but the general concern about what Pearl Harbor was?

RM: No. See, when I was living down here, nothing. I don't remember any anti anything. Now, when we moved from here to Florin and went to school in Florin, Florin was, the school I went to was completely opposite. It was maybe ninety percent Japanese Americans in the class, maybe only about three whites, Caucasians, in the class. It's completely different. I didn't really think about it then, but I realized that it was different. And as a ten year old, maybe I was naive or whatever, but I never really thought anything about that, I never really did. Actually, it wasn't 'til after the war when we came back, is when I really started feeling something. Well, I shouldn't say that, it was when I was in camp, it was in Heart Mountain, Wyoming. See, in Tule Lake we never got to get out of camp... see, I went to three different camps. First to Tule Lake, the first year, and from there, when the "loyalty questionnaire" came up, my father took the family, except one family, we went to Jerome, Arkansas. From Jerome, Arkansas, we went to Heart Mountain. And when we were in Heart Mountain, you were able to leave camp to go to the close by town, Cody or Powell. So when we went to Cody, that's the first time I saw the word "no Jap" and things like that, that's the first time I ever experienced that. Until then I never did experience that. And then when I came back after camp, that was kind of a different experience, too.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.