Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Katsumi Okamoto
Narrator: Katsumi Okamoto
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: November 7, 2007
Densho ID: denshovh-okatsumi-01-0008

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RP: Well, let's talk about Pearl Harbor.

KO: Okay.

RP: The attack on Pearl Harbor, specifically, if you can tell us how you heard about the tragic news of the bombing and also your reaction as well as your parents and your other siblings.

KO: Well, it's amazing. I think it was that Sunday morning and I guess I was... I don't know where I was. I was fourteen, wasn't I? Fifteen at that time. Anyway, my sisters called me and they were all gathered around a radio, listening. And I think my parents were in disbelief, they couldn't believe what was happening. I remember hearing Roosevelt, I mean, the voices saying Pearl Harbor is being attacked, and that's all I remember. At that age, you're really not quite there yet, not quite an adult and it didn't hit me as hard as I think it hit my older sisters, because she was going to university. And my mom, especially, it hit real hard. I didn't know what was going on really in a way, what the consequences will be. None of us knew. We thought of ourselves as Americans, yeah.

RP: Many Nisei kids your age remember going to school the next day and what that was like.

KO: Yeah, that's right.

RP: Can you share your experience?

KO: No, I didn't notice really any difference, because I think we had enough Japanese Americans at the school, so people did not. And I think the people that went to Bailey Gatzert, you heard of that school, was all, mostly Asians anyway, and they had a very understanding principal. I think we did, too, so I don't remember any harsh reactions to that.

RP: There were some things that changed, restrictions like curfew.

KO: Oh, yes.

RP: How did that effect, did it have a direct effect on your family? Curfew and restrictions?

KO: Yeah, we followed rather blindly. We're very obedient, we're taught to be obedient, so we stuck to the curfew. I remember a neighbor hopping over the fence to come see my sisters about nine o'clock at night, hopping over the back fence. But they were both going to college at that time so they knew each other.

RP: They were both going to University of Washington?

KO: One of my sisters, yeah.

RP: Was that the plan for you, to go to college, too, eventually?

KO: Well, I don't think I was even thinking that far ahead.

RP: How about your older brother?

KO: I don't, he was thinking, he was more involved in athletics. He was a very good athlete and being the star of the basketball team at Broadway High School, he had a little different circumstance than I did. I was a nondescript freshman and then a sophomore. I remember taking classes and trying to do the best I can. But after the war started and I was going, school didn't seem to matter as much. I was rather mixed up; I think all of us were. What's our next step? 'Cause our parents were very puzzled.

RP: "What's going to happen to us?"

KO: That's right.

RP: Uncertainty?

KO: I was old enough to realize that, but not old enough to really analyze the whole situation.

KP: Can I ask a question or two? Were your grandparents still alive by Pearl Harbor?

KO: Well, I have something interesting on that. They were both alive. After the war started, my grandfather went to -- you probably heard people talking, Thomas, Washington, about Iseris grocery store in Thomas. Everybody knew it, right by the main highway between Seattle and Auburn. And my granddad had gone down there, on the way back, there was a hit and run. Somebody hit my grandpa and killed him. And we don't know whether it was racial or not. But I remember that we had right across the street from us, the highway, there was a Miller's Dairy Farm who held auctions for dairy cattle and things. Now, he's the one I understand that expressed really, anger that he felt somebody might have... 'cause the guy took off as the hit and run. Now, if this guy had cared, he would have stopped. So that was one of the sad situations we had right after the war started.

RP: And so what happened with the farm and your grandmother?

KO: Well, he was renting the farm, so when we left... well, we left shortly after. I felt bad for my grandma, you know, that here she worked hard, but she kept things going, she raised chickens, and my dad sold all the eggs, Rhode Island red, the brown eggs. He'd sell it at the store for her. She grew some crops, though, she grew broccoli, I remember, and she grew peas, a couple acres. She worked, can you imagine an older lady doing all of that? But we had this person that I worked for, that farmer, they were very nice. They came over and they cultivated with a tractor and stuff for her. They were very nice people, you know. We were very fortunate.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2007 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.