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Pearl Harbor
Can you describe the day that Pearl Harbor was bombed?
The day of Pearl Harbor I was in my room, typing a resolution and a girl came running up and said that Japan had just bombed Pearl Harbor I couldn't believe that Japan would do such a foolish thing To me it was foolish, It was such a small have not country. They had no place where they can get the things that they need for war, oil, steel, metal or anything that they needed. Now the resolution I was typing was a resolution against the United States allowing oil to be sent from San Diego to Japan that was the resolution! That was kind of ironic. We were sending the letter saying that one day they may send this back to us in another form and it did happen. Of course we didn't really believe it that they would really ever do something like that because it was a small country. And it happened like that because once they defeated the fleet at (Midway) Japan was gone, because they had no protection. How were they going to bring things in, how were they going to do I knew right away when they said that they had destroyed the Japanese Navy that they were gone.
Did you see a big difference in the way people treated you after Pearl Harbor?
No not necessarily, of course the army was-because of DeWitt-very racial (racist). The navy was different, two weeks after Pearl Harbor the navy intelligence called and asked me to come over and work as a radio operator. So you can see the difference between army and navy. Navy knew more about the background of Japanese American people than the Army did. They knew that there were people they could trust and people that they cant so that they were going to use the people they can trust, so they called me on that.
Why did they call on you?
Well I was educated in Japan and knew Japanese and I knew English. Also I was progressive and they knew I was not pro-Japan so I guess that was the main thing, that I wasn't pro-Japan. So I said "I listen to the radio all day?" they said "Yeah" and I said "No thanks I don't wanna sit on a radio all day I'd go nuts!" Maybe what I should have done was gotten interviewed by them, they may have given me another job someplace, not on that just radio.
Why were you writing that resolution and who were you writing it too?
We had this resolution- we discussed it in the Nisei Young Democrats club- and we passed the resolution and we decided to send this letter to the American government. So that's why- we happened to have the meeting one-week before that- they asked me to type the resolution. I was typing it up when this happened.
Do you have it by any chance?
We didn't keep records of the Nisei Young Democrats, but they probably have it- have a copy of it in the Navy Intelligence anyway.
Did you get a response to your letter?
No because that resolution wasn't up to date anymore. It should have been before the attack but it was after the attack. We didn't send it in.
Did the Nisei Young Democrats hold a meeting to discuss Pearl Harbor?
Well, we didn't call a meeting right away but we did call a meeting when the evacuation problem came up to discuss what should we do. As soon as that came out we had to decide whether we fight it or not we discussed this we couldn't see what we could do because nobody supported us and we discuss for a long time. We finally said we won't fight it but we don't like it. That's the resolution that came out. We sent it to our President, saying we don't like the idea we don't like the idea of evacuation we don't think that they have a right to do that, we have a right to fight this to stay where we are. So we sent that letter out to the President. When people asked us about it we said we didn't support the evacuation but we just decided to cooperate and not fight it. That was the position that the young democrats took. It was because there was no way of fighting, I went to the steel workers and the mine workers and talked to their leaders - and they said we can't support it because if we support it, it will divide our war effort and we don't want to get involved in another fight because it will divide us. Because of this -the longshoremen were another one we talked to too- of course they were sympathetic but none of them would fight for us. That was the reason that we felt we couldn't do anything either. So we said we will only cooperate to the extent that we won't fight it.
Did the President or anyone ever respond to your letter?
They just said Thank-you for the letter. They never responded because it was not they like. If we sent a letter to them that they like then they'd respond.
Did you ever talk to your family back in Japan about Pearl Harbor?
Not too much. We talked more about the atom bomb being dropped on Hiroshima. That was the thing we talked about mostly. Pearl Harbor was something that - my parents more or less agreed with me that Japan was silly to go into the war with America because America is too big. So they agreed with me on that.
What was your reaction to how the media portrayed Japanese Americans after Pearl Harbor?
Oh yeah there was a big thing after Pearl Harbor because all the papers were anti-Japanese so they worked up all the people. There is a picture of Wanto Grocery Store, right here in Oakland that I am American sign that he put up. He was Japanese American but he had that sight he had to put up because kids would come around and throw rotten tomatoes at the window. Things of that sort were happening and of course one farmer got a shot at - they didn't shoot him they shot his barn and things of that sort. There were some things that happened but it wasn't really that bad. My experience was that in the city there wasn't much. Between the Chinese and the Japanese there wasn't much. I went down to Chinatown and the waitress knew I was Japanese and all she said it must be hard for you now. Among the people there wasn't much hard feelings but every once in a while you heard things that happened. Like the nurseries said that some people threw rocks at their glass houses and broke the glass. There were things that were happening but not too bad.
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