There was no panic. I think it’s that’s stoicism of the Japanese, my parents were all…they weren’t panicking or anything, they says well, “what will be will be” “shikataganai”, you know. And they didn’t think they’d be expelled…but my father expected to be pulled in by the FBI because of his martial arts. And he wasn’t picked up with the original sweep of the FBI, but later on he was picked up.
My mother thought she would be picked up because she was a Japanese schoolteacher. But when she went back to Japan to get me prepared to go to Keio a substitute teacher took over my mother’s place at Compton Gakuen. Her name was on the FBI list, so my mother’s substitute got picked up by the FBI and here my mother waiting to be picked up and never was picked up because of that you know. So she went instead [of] into a Department of Justice camp, she went to Manzanar and my father went to a Department Justice camp, yeah.
Date: March 25, 2005
Location: California, US
Interviewer: Sojin Kim
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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