Los Gatos in San Jose was a lot friendlier to the Japanese so we didn’t feel any prejudice at all. We were there after camp in 1944. The war ended in 1945. When the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, August of 1945, we still remember the fact that after all it was our relatives, my grandfather’s family who were in Hiroshima. And so we had great concern over what happened to them. Of course, here was no news from Japan at that time. We were very concerned about…my grandmother definitely was.
In 1945 when the war ended, my grandmother and I were in downtown San Jose shopping. When the war ended all the confetti dropped from the ceiling and I remember the day when the war was over. I didn’t know what was going on, my grandmother did, so immediately we came home not knowing what’s going to happen to us. So I do remember the day that the war ended. Our friends were very sympathetic, there was no hostility. The people of San Jose and Los Gatos were very kind to us, so we were very lucky.
Date: March 22, 2018
Location: California, US
Interviewer: John Esaki
Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum
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