Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Mary Suzuki Ichino Interview I
Narrator: Mary Suzuki Ichino
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Pasadena, California
Date: July 17, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-imary-01-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

RP: So were you, were you fearful that your dad might get picked up? I mean, you saw these... can you describe to us the visit by the FBI people?

MI: Well, I just know that they came at night and it was dark. And there was an awful lot of hysteria. Lots of hysteria. Lots of rumors, founded and unfounded, and some of it exaggerated or whatever. But anytime you had anything that was from Japan you were already a suspect. So I remember my mother... we had some beautiful Japanese artwork that she broke up and buried. And I know where they are buried, too. But there's a condo over that now and I bet you they're wondering, "What is this? Where did this come from?" It was some really nice... there was a poem on a piece of glass and it was written in gold calligraphy. And I used to always love that and gee, we broke that up. So anything that was... see, that's hysteria. The artwork, why should that have to say that, oh that because you have artwork that you're suspect, you know. But that was the time, though. That was the time. So people were getting rid of those things. They were burning 'em up. And, and we were burying it in our fireplace with the house darkened. Yeah. I remember that.

RP: A period of, yeah, fear and...

MI: Yeah hysteria.

RP: Hysteria.

MI: Because what we were hearing was these fathers were being taken by... just say, "Get your toothbrush," and that was it, no extra clothing or anything. 'Cause there is a story about one family where the father was taken and I think, I can't remember, where the mother was in a sanitarium? And there was just one little boy, about ten or twelve. And he had to round up his siblings and he had to get the house in order to get out. That's ridiculous.

RP: Yeah, some of them ended up at the orphanage at Manzanar.

MI: I know. I know.

RP: Did Maryknoll have an orphanage at the time?

MI: Oh yeah. In fact, the one of the articles that I gave you tells you about the orphanage, the Maryknoll orphanage and what they did with the children. So, you know...

RP: I think that they eventually ended up in Manzanar, too.

MI: Yeah, oh yeah.

RP: What about... there was no FBI visits to Maryknoll itself to the school to question any of the priests or anything?

MI: Not that I know of. I never heard anything like that, no. It, it was a real crazy time because there were people who would impersonate, too. And there were people who would come to your door for no reason at all but to buy something cheap or... so you didn't know who anybody was.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.