<Begin Segment 4>

JA: You never had any visit from the FBI, did you?

BS: Yes, we did.

JA: Tell me about that.

BS: We were living in North Hollywood, not too far away from this Burbank Airport. My father was an officer of the Farmer's Association and maybe of the Japanese school, too, but... so on December 7th or December 8th, yeah, it was December 8th, the FBI came looking for my sister because the local newspaper publisher suggested to the Japanese organizations to put the officers into Nisei names. Why, I don't know, but there was a man in the neighborhood who read that and said it's a good suggestion and encouraged our group, the North Hollywood Farmer's Association, or the Japanese school, the judo group, to put officers into the children's name of the men who were officers of the group. So, my father was an officer, vice president or something, and so my sister was the oldest one and she was living at home, so it was in her name. So the FBI came looking for her, they searched our house and they left because they were U.S. citizen names. And so the officers of Farmer's Association and Japanese school, the North Hollywood group never got taken away and arrested by the FBI, compared to the families in Burbank and Glendale and San Fernando, or other areas. So we were very lucky that Mr. Higashida, who was a farmer in North Hollywood, who was an astute man and suggested they change the names into second-generation names, so that saved, saved us from being separated.

JA: When the FBI came in, did they confiscate anything?

BS: No, there was nothing to confiscate. We had a bookcase, so they looked through the books of what we had, and one of my brothers had bought Mein Kampf, but they just looked at it and they left. [Laughs]

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.