Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Susumu Yenokida Interview
Narrator: Susumu Yenokida
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: July 5, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-ysusumu-01-0007

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: Now, what do you recall about the day Pearl Harbor was bombed? Where were you and how did you find out the news of that tragedy?

SY: My brother had already graduated from high school years and years ago. Since he was born 1913, somewhere around 1933 he was already out of high school. Around 1936 he goes to the Merced, no, Modesto junior college to take up aeronautical engineering. And after about four months they call him into the office and says that, "You cannot take this subject because of the fact that you're gonna take this knowledge and sell it to Japan or give it to Japan." And my brother say, "Hey, I'm born here. Why should I do something like that?" And they kicked him out of the school. "You could take any other subject, but not aeronautical engineering."

RP: A Japanese American could not take that?

SY: Exactly.

RP: Exactly. That's... well, along those same lines, were you subjected to any of those type of discriminatory practices? I mean, did you run... did you come across this in the communities or in, in going to school?

SY: Not in our community because we were all mostly --

RP: You were all Japanese Americans.

SY: We had some American friends, yes, through our school, grammar school and also through high school. I went to Livingston High School the first year, then transferred to Turlock High School the second year. But, yeah, we got along good with all the people around there. My dad died in 1942, January the 10th. And my brother had a bad, hard time, trying to get all the permits for the various things that had to be done. For instance, your travel permit was only 5 miles. You couldn't go beyond 5 miles at that time already. And we had to have a reverend come from Stockton, which is close to 55 miles away, and he had to get special permit for that. Not only people to gather, there was only a regulation that you cannot have over five persons in a group to meet at one time. So he had to get a permit for that. And the curfew, which was ten o'clock 'til six o'clock in the morning. So it was, it was hard. That was in January 10, 1942. Military was already doing that.

RP: Right.

SY: Yeah.

RP: That was a month after Pearl Harbor.

SY: That's right.

RP: Uh-huh. And so part of the... those conditions and restrictions and the difficulty and just having a funeral for your dad...

SY: Exactly.

RP: Was part of, part of the reasoning behind you, of later on, taking a course of resistance when the draft came up for you? Was that correct?

SY: Well, now, very definitely yes. Yes. Why should we go and endure all kinds of stuff like that while we're born in the United States and we didn't do anything to, to cause any hardship to the United States government or anything. There's no cause of any espionage or anything. And why is it that we had to be evacuated in such a manner? So when, when my... I was, I went to high school in Amache, Colorado. And through that I... my health was real bad because of the fact that I was so angry at the United States government. My ulcers were bad. A lot of times I couldn't eat at the mess hall because the food there I couldn't consume because it was too greasy or whatever. And, yeah. Mom had a hell of a time with me, yeah.

RP: What caused your father to pass away? Was it...

SY: Evidently my dad died of a stroke. Yeah.

RP: 'Cause he was... you said that he was born in, around 1859?

SY: Yeah, somewhere around there.

RP: So he was very, pretty old man by the time 1940...

SY: Well, I think maybe, maybe my figures might be wrong. But he was seventy-two when he passed away.

RP: When he passed away.

SY: So, yeah, you're gonna have to reverse that and get the correct year. Yeah.

RP: Date, uh-huh. So your father passes away. You've got two tragedies. You've got Pearl Harbor and the attitudes of Americans, the hysteria, war hysteria, the racism, and, and you being blamed for -- not you personally -- but Japanese Americans...

SY: Yeah, well, as a Japanese we were blamed a lot.

RP: Right.

SY: My brother was, at that time he was farming carrots not too far from where we, between, between Cortez and Ballico which is what, 3 miles? So probably about a mile and a half away from home he had rented some ground over there. He was, he was harvesting carrots at that time and the Filipino nationals, they, they objected and they says, "Hey, you're a Japanese." They says, "Why should we work for you?" And they, they left. They left the field. Leaving my brother with nobody to harvest. But you know, you talk to them. You make 'em understand that we had nothing to do with what was, happened in Pearl Harbor. And they did come back after a few days and, and harvested that field for him. Yeah. But...

RP: Because, of course, the Japanese had invaded the Philippines and --

SY: Well, that, too.

RP: -- had eventually taken over it.

SY: And later, yes, yes.

RP: Right, uh-huh. Wow.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.