<Begin Segment 7>

KP: Let's kind of focus in right around December 7, 1941. Kind of set the background already, your father's farming?

TI: My father was farming. And after, well, that night of December 7th, Issei meeting --

KP: How did you, how did you personally hear about it and what were your reactions to the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

TI: I don't think we were listening on the radio at that time, although we did have a nice Zenith radio. Because I used to listen to the Lone Ranger back when I was in, like, third, fourth grade. At the time of the bombing, I was in seventh grade. And we went to church, and after church, the Reverend Dillon Throckmorton came. He was from the Trinity Methodist Church, and he came to support us. And that's when I felt, "I wonder how this affects me." I really had no idea. And then the next day at school, a girl in my class whom I had known since first grade, she says, "Why did you bomb Pearl Harbor?" Here I was, seventh grade, and being asked that question, I said, "I didn't have anything to do with Pearl Harbor." And then I realized there would be a connection made by others. I didn't make that connection truly until I heard that question. And so there it was. I don't remember exactly when the curfew and five mile limit, curfew dusk to dawn. And I'm sure while we were going to school, my father must have gone to take the, his one .22 rifle in. It was for jackrabbit killing. And also, I guess he must have taken the radio in to have it so that it cannot any longer produce shortwave stations. And I don't know what all... he was not taken by the FBI.

KP: The FBI would come into your house?

TI: I have no idea. See, we were at school every day, we just took the bus like usual.

KP: Did anything else change noticeably after...

TI: Well, we could not travel back to church any longer, 'cause we had the five-mile limit. And so we had to go to the store in Lamont, which was just a few miles away. And we attended the Sunday school at the Lamont Methodist Church. And then I understand when there was the notice about the evacuation, that's when Emma Buckmaster and Reverend Dillon Throckmorton and Lottie Philips, who was also one of our Sunday school teachers, she taught the older, the youth. And they and some people from Trinity Methodist and First Methodist formed a committee. And that committee was called the Aid to Japanese Methodist Evacuation Committee. And in all my reading, I have not found another local group like that. It was because of Emma Buckmaster. She was just wonderful. She wrote to everybody, and I do mean everybody. We were kids, she wrote to us. My father, who could write some English but not real fluently, she wrote to him. She wrote to every Nisei soldier who left Bakersfield. And there is a man in Bakersfield who still talks about Emma Buckmaster. He was in the Guadalcanal area, interpreter, MIS there. So Emma is, if anybody is a saint, she was. So because of that committee, they stored things in the Japanese Methodist church as well as Buddhist church. Labeled everything, boxed everything. And when people needed something, they wrote to Emma and she shipped it out to them. And I had a card, and I think I've already given it to the Sac State Archives, a postcard that Donald Miyaji, a neighbor, neighbor from Bakersfield who also was a neighbor in Poston, he had received from Emma. And Emma is one of these first grade teachers who writes with a very round, nice cursive writing. And she said, "I'm sorry, Donald, but I cannot find your roller skates." [Laughs] She had looked for his roller skates. So you can see what kind of person she was. She was wonderful.

KP: So when did, when did your family hear about -- what memories do you have of the time of evacuation, hearing about it, how long of a time did you have?

TI: Well, we had been, 'course, reading, I'm sure we must have taken the Rafu Shimpo from L.A., my mother used to take another newspaper from L.A. as well. So they must have had all kinds of stories, first of the people from Terminal Island who had to leave, and people moving more inland, so there were people who moved to be close to their friends assuming Bakersfield would be outside of the line.

KP: And you were on the east side of Bakersfield.

TI: We were on the east side. And people had moved inland to try to avoid the evacuation. Well, all of California was affected. And so I'm sure -- we had a phone, I know that. And people from the, in town probably let us know and let my dad know when he had to go to pick up the tags. Because we, I still, in fact, the original, my original tag or my mother's original tag is at the archives here in Sac State. And so we were told we had to be at the train station, Santa Fe train station, I believe eight o'clock on May 25, 1942. And so we were there, thanks to the... we called him Boss, our landlord. Everything was closed up, I'm sure my father sold everything that he could, or given away. Because we had two mules, a nanny goat, lots of chickens, some guinea hens. I think there were some ducks at that time. So he had to get rid of everything, farm equipment, and things had to be stored.

KP: It's quite ironic that your dad started his work in the United States at the train station, had to go back to the same station...

TI: Same, same train company, yes. So that was my first train ride. And we went across the Tehachapi Mountains. There were lots and lots of tunnels that were fascinating to children. And I'm sure when we got close to the towns we had to pull the shades down. So that's what everybody's experience was on those train rides.

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