<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Okay, so let's go back to the Redlands.

GS: Redlands.

TI: And after you graduated from high school, what did you do?

GS: Then I had to work at the store. So like I say, 1941, I just graduated, and the opening of the store, and then December 7th we opened the store, and then the radio, Franklin Roosevelt was on there that Pearl Harbor was bombed. Boy, we couldn't believe that, I says, "Oh my god, now what do we do?" Then we heard on the radio that we couldn't travel anywhere, three miles, directions, and so we had to stay home, play Monopoly or whatever.

TI: And so, so December 7th, Sunday, did your store open up on that day?

GS: We opened up that day.

TI: And did any of your customers come in?

GS: Some customers came in.

TI: And was there any reaction from them?

GS: No, they said, "Just sorry to hear that you had to..." but we had one boy, he used to come, and one boy, he used to come, and the first time he came into Redlands, he was from New Jersey and he lived couple blocks away from the store, and his mother would send him down to get some cigarettes. So he'd come to the, our store and he looked, and first time he ever seen Japanese. So he didn't know what to do, so he went back home. So his mother sends him back, and after that, we couldn't chase him away. He was always around the store. [Laughs]

TI: So initially he was, was he frightened, do you think, or what do you think?

GS: He's scared, he didn't know, it was the first time he'd ever seen Oriental. New York, New Jersey, they didn't have Orientals then, so he couldn't see what was going on.

TI: So I'm curious, the days after December 7th, what happened to your business? Did it just stay the same or did business drop off? What happened?

GS: It's, few customers may not have come, but it stayed the same. We still competed with Piggly Wiggly store, and the street peddlers kept bring us fresh fruits. But then when we couldn't travel anywhere, then they kind of go, well, we can't go anywhere, couldn't go to Japanese school, couldn't go anywhere until a few months later, they says, "Well, you can't go to, you're gonna have to go to camp, relocation center."

TI: And before we go there, I'm just curious again, during those weeks when, yeah, the curfew, the travel restrictions, were there any events or incidences of people giving you a bad time because you were Japanese or any comments or anything like that?

GS: No, people around there, they said they're sorry that this thing happened. So the people that came to our store always says, "I'm sorry, I hope everything will turn out all right," and this and that, and they would still come to the store.

TI: Okay, good. Or did you hear --

GS: And we had George Kanatani then and Marian, they lived just about eight or ten blocks west of us. And so we used to get together and play cards and play games and stuff like that, and then it was Kanatanis, Wadas and... what's their name? Makamis, there was about four, those Japanese people that lived in Redlands, close by to us.

TI: And just how about the whole area there? Did you hear any stories of any problems with the Japanese or the Japanese experience?

GS: No, well, we didn't, I didn't hear anything. But the, maybe my other, like in Riverside they had more in Riverside than they did in Redlands. There's only five families in Redlands, so they never did have any problems with them, they seemed to get along. And sorry that we had to leave and stuff like that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.