<Begin Segment 12>

RP: You, you told me that you, you'd gotten married, I think, was it June 7, 1941?

MS: Yeah, forty, yeah, '41.

RP: And then...

MS: June of, June 7, '41.

RP: And did you say that you were building a house or...

MS: No, we rented a house there.

RP: You rented a house? What, how, what effect did the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th...

MS: Oh, what happened Pearl Harbor, my cousin, distant, second cousin was getting married and she was having a shower at a place in Hollywood, and she was gonna marry, he became a major, but Aiso, he was one of the first Japanese came out a major in the service -- he graduated Occidental College -- so she was marrying him, so we, they were giving a shower for her wedding. So I started out from Terminal Island, I was all dressed up, this hat and purse and glove and everything, and see, it was day of December 7th, the shower was that... so I started off and I got stopped, and they were so excited, these MPs were all over the place and I guess they were startin' to pick up any suspicious characters, so they were picking everybody up, throwing in a lumber yard, always has a big fence around it; you know how lumber yards are. Well, they were using that and they threw us all in there. And I was so mad, you know here I looked and all these dirty Mexicans and all these people were in there, and MP with the guns were around. So finally MP came and he, he was checking out and he said, "Where you from?" And he looked at me and I, he said, "You don't belong here. Get out of here," and he let me out right away, but I, I was so mad. I was gonna, those days you traveled by streetcars, I was going across to catch a streetcar to go out to Hollywood to the shower, and then I thought here is Arnie that he turned to be a major, came out of the service, here.

RP: That was John Aiso, became a judge.

MS: Yeah, he married my second, it's my, it's kind of a distant, but we're distantly related to his wife. You know who he was? So he was --

RP: So where, where were you stopped?

MS: In Terminal Island, just outside of...

RP: Just as you were leaving?

MS: In San Pedro. I was in San Pedro, actually. You know how lumber yards always have those big, so there was already, there were MPs. They didn't know; they were just throwing anybody walking looked suspicious, whether it was Mexicans or Orientals, they were throwing everybody in there. And I was in there all dressed up and I had my nice, I remember I had a nice fur coat, collar, and I was all, had hat and gloves and I was, and I couldn't phone. Then he finally came in and he looked at me and asked me why I was... he says, "Oh, get out of here." He said, "You don't belong here." [Laughs]

RP: Did he tell you about the bombing of Pearl Harbor?

MS: Well, I knew, so... I think I knew it happened, because it, I just, but I didn't think it'd affect us here, so that party, shower was set up so I thought I'd go.

RP: Did you get there?

MS: No. In fact, they didn't have the wedding. They just had a quiet wedding. She had her wedding gown and everything set up, but she, they couldn't even have the wedding 'cause see, he was in the reserves, so he got called in right away, so they canceled the whole wedding because they, so they just had a private wedding before he went, was called.

RP: Was, was he a major in the reserves at that time?

MS: No. Well, he came out a major, but he went in as a private. I mean, he was just the reserve, I think, but he came, became... John Aiso.

RP: Aiso, yeah, later on went on to become the head of the MIS school in Minnesota.

MS: Then, yeah. Yeah, he was quite...

RP: And then he became a judge.

MS: A judge, uh-huh.

RP: Right. Right. Well, tell us about...

MS: That was, I felt, I was so mad that day. I thought, gee, I was a citizen and they treat me like that. I was real upset. But so the FBI man came, he knew I didn't belong there. He let me out.

RP: Were there other Japanese Americans in that --

MS: There were, anybody that...

RP: Who looked different?

MS: Yeah, little bit different, looked kinda dirty was, they threw in there if you looked suspicious.

RP: They might've thrown me in there if I was walking up.

MS: [Laughs]

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.