Densho Digital Archive - George Iseri Interview (denshovh-igeorge

<Begin Segment 16>

AC: So you had mentioned that your father was picked up on the evening of December 7th?

GI: Yes.

AC: Tell me more about that.

GI: We were living in Kent across the river, and I guess just Dad was just at home. But a fellow that was either a chief of police or he was a deputy sheriff, his name was Imoff. I can't think of his first name right now offhand. But anyway, he came with the FBI agents I understand to, they never searched for anything that I know of. They just arrested, not arrest, they didn't arrest him. So I imagine if Dad wanted to or we wanted to, we could say, "Wait a minute, wait a minute. You got to arrest him or something. You can't just pick him up and take him," but they did. And kind of a humorous part of the thing was that Dad, I'm told, my sister was there, they Imhoff, he was either chief or deputy sheriff at the time, he says, "Imhoff, you know you've been coming to my house as a little kid playing here. You come here, we give you candy and stuff. You played here." And you know, he was about the age of my older brothers and all, and my dad just gave him hell. And the guy, he was just speechless I guess, and he said, "Dammit, I just can't." The FBI's with him and he's got these orders. They had to take him. And we thought that they would release him in a short while. The reason they picked him up they said was because, primarily because he had just returned from Japan. In October of 1940, he and my mother went to Japan the first time that either one of them had been back to Japan. And they were going as a, well, a big doing in Japan, that was 2600th year of the Japanese history, government history, not the history of Japan, but the historical figures of Japan. And they were there about two or three months. And according to the, by the way, I have that here. There's several different interviews made by the government, the FBI with my dad and several other people. But they tried to pin him down, my dad down as an official representative to Japan for the government celebration over there. And it's, it seemed kind of silly to me because hell, it's a celebration. He went to the celebration, and so why does that automatically tie him into being a subversive person? But anyway, my dad answered the question several times and he said, "No." He said, "I was there in no official way." But in a way, he was because he was the president of the Japanese Association at the time. But the Japanese Association had no tie with the emperor's office or the Japanese government just like the Japanese Association was just disbanded in Ontario just recently, and the one in Portland, the Japanese Association still exists throughout the country. But they're there to help, kind of be a liaison between the Japanese government and what you call, not representing the Japanese government. It's an American association. So I guess that's the reason that they made, didn't make too much of a case out of that. But actually, I didn't see any of this in there, but my parents and anybody that went over there at that time could see that there was problems, that Japan was well equipped as well as they could do with aircraft supposedly hidden and fuel and stuff hidden away and this and that. But the fact of whether they were tied in with that or not is... they couldn't make a case of it.

But let's go back a little further to this deal on my mother's deal, and my dad's being picked up. And when my wife and I got married, we went to California and back and Pearl Harbor happened. Before, my mother didn't, my dad came home on Lincoln's Birthday I think, February 2nd 1941, okay. My mother got home in April of 1941, April 22nd. I think it was 22nd. It was right around my birthday, but day before my brother Mun got married, Manabu got married, so I remembered distinctly the day, I remember those days. And we were on our honeymoon in November 4th, okay. Well then my mother got held back in Japan because her papers weren't in order. That's one thing. Her immigration papers, her visitor's permit and stuff wasn't in order. And then another thing was she became ill about that time, so we were worried that she wasn't going to get home. We knew that, we knew then that there were serious problems with Japan. We didn't know the details, but the ships quit traveling between Japan and the United States in June. Had my mother been held up there until after June, chances are she wouldn't had made it back to America. After all, she was a Japanese national. But she got home in April. The ships... trade was totally stopped at least in June, maybe before, but maybe they're transporting some people back and forth I don't know. But anyway, that happened. So here's Japan sitting there. I'm not pro-Japan, but I'm pro getting the true story. They talk about the sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, and we'll get to that part too. But there was a reason for that, and to me and most of us, when you stop to think about it, if you, people who are young yet today who are twenty-one or so at that time can easily understand that here in Japan we got a kumishime, getting strangled, okay. They're running out of food. They're running out of everything. You get in a fight with somebody, and there's some guys all trying to beat you up. You're going to kick him anywhere. You can get him off your back, and you might kick him where it hurts which in this case Pearl Harbor was a very bad deal. So we knew damn well it was coming.

Except in November, while we're on our honeymoon, this Saburo Kurusu, I think that's what was his name was, onward from Japan, landed in San Francisco, and I don't remember whether he was on a plane or what now, the ship or, yeah, ships [inaudible], but he was on his way to Washington, D.C. And the news of us, his comments was, "I'm going to Washington DC, and I'm hoping for a diplomatic touchdown." That's the very words I think he used. So naturally, that's a pretty smart deal as far as Japan was concerned getting everybody all caught off-guard over here too. They're already having a tough time in Japan. And if you've ever traveled on the Pearl Harbor cruise in Hawaii, you'll get, the last time I was on that cruise, they still had the correct story. It told about how the, how the day before, radar screens showed airplanes and things coming in, and they said that, oh, they must be on our planes coming in and stuff like that. That night before the Pearl Harbor attack, thousands of the servicemen were at a party, okay. What an opportune time to be making a strike, and golly sake, we should have known, in ten minutes, the thing should have been all over it. But on that Pearl Harbor cruise, it leads up to a point where it makes us realize that, I can't tell you exactly how it is because how I think it is it might not be correct in that I might be criticized for it, but it looks like and it sounds like the "big wheels" in Washington, including our President, was encouraging or antagonizing Japan to have a war to bring prosperity to our country. Now that comes out in public records and that's a damn, that's the reason I'm a Republican today. You guys are, it's obvious to me that most Asians in the Pacific Coast are Democrats. We were Democrats and my brother Mun was old enough now and you know and know about politics and stuff. Boy, he got a hell of a bunch of us to Republicans after the war. But you see, that gives you that story I think in that it might help, there might be a lot of Nikkeis who feel real bad about it. I feel real bad about it. It shouldn't have happened, but we, the American, should have been more on the ball when that came. But then if it was intended to be that, how in the hell can you fight that?

AC: So how did your parents and your family react to your father being picked up?

GI: Well, they're marvels about our parents. You know, our parents, I would say that ninety-nine percent of them felt so bad that the war started that they didn't know what to think, but they, it was hard for them to blame Tojo or Hirohito. I think they tried to keep that out of their mind and just think it's a bad thing happened, what's going to happen to us Japanese, we don't know. You kids are Americans, we're Japanese. We all got to be good and do the best we can to survive this thing. I've heard some people say that their parents cussed the United States, favored Tojo and all, but very few who obviously we had some of that type of feeling because if it wasn't for that, we wouldn't have had the repatriates who went back to Japan. But my dad of course was gone then. But my mother, she's always been the strongest one in the family, and she encouraged us, encouraged us all the way through life to make the best of what's happened and things overcome, and I think that's the way the Isseis were. And that's one of the important things that carried us through to today where we're respected as well as anybody.