<Begin Segment 5>

VO: Well, actually, let's go to Pearl Harbor. So how old were you and what do you remember from that time?

YM: I was eight years old at that time, and that was Sunday morning, and I remembered a newspaper boy hawking newspapers on the corner and saying, "Extra, extra, read all about it, Japs bombed Pearl Harbor." And I say, "Well, what is Pearl Harbor?" Then realized that Japan was, started a war against the United States. And at that time, I didn't know what was going to happen, but found out pretty quick.

VO: So what did happen for your family?

YM: Well, my father was arrested December 11th, but they closed the store right after the war started. And the employees took inventory of the store.

VO: So when you say they closed the store...

YM: They actually padlocked the store.

VO: And I had heard that the City of Portland suspended the business license.

YM: That's what I heard too, yes.

VO: So what happened to the store?

YM: Well, after they took the inventory, they told us to sell off all the assets of the store. So they reopened the store and they just had a fire sale of everything, inventory and equipment. And many of the employees felt that they should go back to their families, so a lot of them left and went back to the families like in Salem, or at that time, Montavilla. And some of the ones that didn't have family, they stayed and helped sell off everything.

VO: This is December, so what was in the store?

YM: Well, it was, we were getting ready for Christmas and New Year's, so the store was full of merchandise ready for the holidays. And they sold everything, what was the term they used? Ten cents on the dollar? I guess that's what it was.

VO: Do you remember seeing that sale? Were you around?

YM: I kind of remember it, that they were selling everything off, and the shelves are getting bare.

VO: And then the money was... what happened to the money?

YM: The money, after the sale and after we closed the store, the government confiscated the money and we never seen it until 1956 without interest.

VO: Now your father was arrested December 11th, and what happened?

YM: Let's see. He went to, he was arrested, and I think he was booked at... and he went to Multnomah County jail, I think. And he was there until the end of December, and then they were sent to Missoula, Montana, where he was telling me before that they took his belt off, took his belt away, and they couldn't, they took his shoe strings away. And then they told him, when they fed him, they didn't give him any utensils to eat with, and he said, "You think we're a bunch of dogs?" Then finally they gave them utensils, because they thought that they might use them as weapons. But in December, they sent them, without anybody knowing, I me an, the family didn't know, they sent them to a group of people that were arrested in Portland, they sent to Missoula, Montana. I remember that Mr. Mayeda, Roy Mayeda's father, used to work at the depot. And he tried to go talk to them, but he got pushed back.

VO: When he saw them being...

YM: Yeah, loaded on the train. And I guess it was very cold up there in December, and they didn't have the clothing. Lot of people got colds. And my dad, after we came back, he would tell my mother to make this special cough syrup that Dr. Tanaka concocted, made up of oranges, lemons, honey, and garlic. And the doctor would make everybody drink that when they had a cold.

VO: So at that time, your father was a successful businessman?

YM: I would say he was semi-successful.

VO: And he belonged to the Portland Chamber of Commerce?

YM: Yeah. Now the Japanese Ancestral Society.

VO: Did he ever talk to you about why he thought he was arrested?

YM: No, except that he was one of the business leaders in the community, I guess.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright (c) 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.