Densho Digital Archive - George Uchida - Leo Uchida Interview (denshovh-ugeorge

<Begin Segment 12>

RP: Do you recall your reaction to the news that Pearl Harbor had been bombed?

LU: Do you remember anything?

GU: No.

LU: All I remember is this was on Sunday. And our family happened to be working that Sunday. And we went to this other place where we was raising the strawberry. And then we came home for lunch, and I think that was for the day. Came home to, for lunch, and then someone turned the radio, and then that's when we heard about Pearl Harbor. You know, until then, I don't remember Pearl Harbor like we do now. I remembered it must be someplace in Hawaii. But anyway, heard it on the radio, that one.

RP: How did your life change after the war started, or did it?

LU: Well, we kept hearing a lot of rumors. "Don't go out at night," and I heard maybe one or two people, they got beat up going to the movies. And as far as... by that time, I was in high school, and I didn't see any big change in high school, when I went to high school, anyway. I don't know about you, in school, grammar school.

GU: I just don't remember anything.

RP: So what... what arrangements were made in terms of any other property, the farm was sold to this family. Did you have to store any other personal property with the neighbors?

LU: Well, you know, we've heard that some people were taken. Day after the Pearl Harbor, the FBI came and, in our town, there was one man, he had a dry goods store, and he was kind of a jovial man, smoking cigars. And so he was kind of like... everybody considered him as a town mayor like. And you know, next day he was gone. They took him, although he wasn't an official mayor or anything like that.

RP: How about members of the church and the language school?

GU: I can't remember whether they took the minister and his wife or not. I don't think they did, although they were teaching Japanese school. Other than that... and then I heard that they started a curfew, as far as, you got to be, you can't be out after about seven o'clock or something like that. And at school, I didn't have much, no problems. It was for a short time, anyway.