Densho Digital Archive - Helen Mori Interview (denshovh-mhelen

<Begin Segment 8>

RP: Do you have any recollections of Pearl Harbor, December 7th?

HM: No, none. Only thing I remember is... of that day I don't have any recollections. But I remember after that we had to always put black curtains over our windows. And one time I remember they thought it was a enemy plane flying around. We heard, we saw the searchlights and all that stuff. And it turned out to be one of our planes. But they thought it was a Japanese plane. So the searchlights were going all over the place and everything. I remember that, before we had to go to camp. But you figure the war was December of '41 and we went into camp May 15th, '42.

RP: Now, your mom was a language school instructor. And some of the female language school instructors were being picked up by the FBI. Do you remember the FBI visiting your home?

HM: I really don't recall that one, before the war. But I remember she was in the, (back) at the incinerator burning everything, all the pictures, all our... anything that had... especially the pictures. 'Cause in Japan they wore uniforms for school. And she didn't want them to think they were bad. So she burned all our pictures. We don't have any pictures of before the war 'cause she burned it all. 'Cause she knew they were gonna pick her up. The rumors were going around that they were picking up all the teachers, reverends, big shots in the community, stuff like that. So she burned everything. And that's the only thing I remember really. I don't remember the FBI coming. Maybe they did, but not when I was there.

RP: And so what, why wouldn't she have been picked up?

HM: Oh well, she begged them. She says, "What is my poor daughter gonna do? She's only eight and a half. My relatives went some, to some other camp." She says, "What is she gonna do by herself?" I would have had to go to the Children's Village in Manzanar, that's probably what would have happened. Well anyway, she begged them enough. And I guess they realized she's not gonna be a spy, you know, she's not a spy. So they let her go to Manzanar. Actually we were supposed to go to Santa Anita and then she heard... and so she, we moved into Japantown. I lived there, I don't know, I never did ask her how long we were there but I know I didn't go to school like the other kids. It must have been a month or two. I don't know. I didn't go to school. And then we went to camp. And then we went to Manzanar. But she heard this was a good camp so she changed it from Santa Anita to Manzanar or something. Anyway, we ended up in Manzanar.

RP: So she was, when the war broke out the language schools were closed.

HM: Closed right away.

RP: So, what did she do to make ends meet as far as...

HM: Who knows?

RP: Who knows.

HM: Maybe she just helped the farmers. Well, even them, they were probably struggling too. But they're not struggling as much as people getting salary, you know what I mean? At least they can eat and that kind of thing. I don't know what she... I never did ask her what she did to, for a living. Because that was how many months after the war (started)?

RP: I mean, yeah, five months.

HM: That's a pretty long time for a single woman, single mother. I don't know. Gee, I didn't even ask her, "What did you do?" We didn't starve, I didn't starve to death I don't think. I don't remember.

RP: So she burned, she burned all her memories really of Japanese...

HM: No, just, she didn't want them to think she was a spy or anything. She just burned... being a schoolteacher too, you know, she probably had all kind of stuff. She just burned everything, especially pictures. We don't have any pictures.

RP: The other, you mentioned the piano and, and the sewing machine...

HM: Oh that, the piano and the sewing machine, she was making payments, buying it by payments. So they just took it. They just came and took 'em. And her other appliances or anything else she gave away. What are you gonna do? You, you could only take what you could carry. So, she gave it away to our neighbors and friends probably. I don't know.

RP: You had another, you had relatives who were living in Riverside at the time?

HM: Riverside. I had an auntie and uncle and a cousins in Riverside. And I had another uncle and cousins in Irvine.

RP: On which side of your family, father or mother?

HM: My mother's.

RP: Mother's.

HM: My mother's. My mother's oldest sister lived in Riverside. And then... they were onion farmers, grew onions. And, yeah, the one in Irvine was her uncle. Uncle lived in Irvine.

RP: Was there any effort to get both groups of the family together to go to Manzanar together?

HM: Uh-uh. My uncle, another, my uncle, my mother's kid brother, the first son that got born in the family, he lived in West L.A. Yeah, he was a gardener. He taught kendo at their dojo in West L.A. From before the war he was a kendo person.

RP: Did he end up at Manzanar too?

HM: No, he went to Riverside. I think probably what he did was he probably moved to Riverside when the internment story started going around. He probably moved to Riverside. Otherwise he would have ended up in Santa Anita and you know... he went to Poston with my other relatives.