<Begin Segment 8>

AC: So was Mr. Glass Sunday school, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, how did you find out that Pearl Harbor was bombed?

MH: I really don't know. It must have come over the radio or something, so we all went home.

AC: How did you feel?

MH: At that time, I wasn't quite an adult, I guess I should say, because I had just got out of high school. I just felt like, oh, that's a stupid thing for Japan to bomb United States. But I didn't give it too much thought. No, I didn't until we found out we had to leave home.

AC: And how did you find out? How did the orders come to you that you had to leave?

MH: Okay. You know, there was placards all over town in different, and of course, our JACL was kind of active helping, we had to get rid of our stuff and everything, so the JACL, we got together, and we tried to, they tried to help us families with that. So we were knowing that we had to leave, but we didn't know when until Roosevelt gave his...

AC: What was the feeling in the Japanese community about Roosevelt when he issued the order?

MH: Well, he was the President, and of course, he's the President of the United States. He had to do what he had to do, but we had to be the scapegoats. And you know, it's funny. I see these notices. It will say a certain group of people will be evacuated from the West Coast, this and this and this, and I still don't see "Japanese" on there. It says certain group. Of course, we know it was us, and General Dewitt was in charge of the Western Defense Command at that time.

AC: The JACLs all cooperated with the, helped you guys get organized?

MH: Yeah. They tried to cooperate. And of course, some of the Japanese thought JACL was stepping out of hand. But they were trying to help, but they couldn't do anything about us going away.

AC: Did you even know where Pearl Harbor was at the time of the --

MH: Yes.

AC: You did?

MH: Hawaii, uh-huh. And I'm surprised they didn't evacuate the Hawaiians when they evacuated the Japanese on the West Coast of the United States. But Hawaiians weren't evacuated, and there's a lot of Japanese over there.

AC: So how did you feel when all of a sudden you realized you had, were you given two weeks' notice to leave?

MH: Well, Dad had to find somebody to take care of our orchard. We had to find someone to, where to put our possessions. We were lucky because we had our place, and we thought we, there was an upstairs to our house, so we tried to put some of the furniture upstairs and locked it up there. But a lot of families had a hard time because they didn't know where to do with it. And the government says we have a place where you can send your stuff, but you had to crate it and ship it, and it took money to do that. And I heard a lot of it was looted after they'd come back, so it was a problem. What are we going to do with our possessions? And also, their land, a lot of the Japanese in Hood River did own orchards like my father, so they had to find somebody to take care of it, and we had a good neighbor, thank goodness.

AC: Do you remember anyone by the name of Reverend Vergoine?

MH: Vergoine?

AC: Vergoine.

MH: He was not, he did not know us. He came to the Methodist church after we were evacuated. But he was an understanding person, and I suppose you know that he won the Jefferson Award. He was sent to Washington, D.C. because he stood up for the Japanese. But he didn't know us at the time. We met him after we came home. I know Reverend Vergoine and his wife. But I have to give them credit because he didn't know any of us before because he came after we were evacuated.

AC: After all the Japanese were gone --

MH: Yeah, we were all gone.

AC: And he still stood up and spoke on your behalf?

MH: Right, right, right. They awarded him the Jefferson Democracy Award or whatever, yeah.

AC: So did you have any family possessions or heirlooms that you had to lock up in your attic essentially?

MH: My family didn't have too much heirlooms or anything like that, but we did put as much as we could in that one bedroom up there. So I can't remember what we did with our car or anything. I can't remember that, but maybe we just kept it at the orchard because so many people who lived in the city and who rented had to just sell everything, and those Caucasians were waiting for the Japanese bargains, you know. It was a big loss.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.