<Begin Segment 8>

RP: We were talking earlier about after Pearl Harbor and the evacuation, and how you were conscious of the trauma that occurred with your dad having to give up his restaurant. Can you talk a little bit about, first of all, Pearl Harbor, the bombing of Pearl Harbor? I know you were young but you might have a memory of that day.

JN: It was a Sunday, I remember, and we all congregated at a guy named Yutaka Onodera's (house). Incidentally, the Onodera family were members of our church and they sent three sons into the 442nd, into the service, one died. And we were at Yutaka's house and the F-O-X, the Fox Patrol was our patrol and he was our patrol leader, and we had these little crystal sets and we heard that Pearl Harbor was bombed. I didn't know where Pearl Harbor was, but you (knew) it was obviously one of our possessions. I remember running home, I don't know why, maybe we just went home. It was somewhat a sad day, because the atmosphere was, the Seattle newspapers had extras almost immediately seemingly on the streets. Yeah, Pearl Harbor was not that traumatic to me.

[Interruption]

JN: But Pearl Harbor, as I was saying, was not too traumatic. I mean, we knew it was a horror, well, the news, if you might recall... you wouldn't recall, you're much too young. But the war in Europe, there was always news about the war in Europe. And indeed, the Pacific where the Japanese were running all over the Southeast, Southeast Asia, and Pearl Harbor was not that traumatic. We thought it was just another possession and then we realized it was indeed part of our country, not that it was a state at the time. I... we were very patriotic. Not patriotic in that sense of being patriots because of the war, we were just patriotic. I mean, we pledged allegiance to the flag without knowing why we did that, we sang the national anthem. And I think... well, I don't know what to think about what I thought about Pearl Harbor when you ask like that.

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