12/7/41 and 9/11/01 “You could see it in their faces”

We were fortunate to have a radio. And the radio was blaring out that Pearl Harbor was bombed and my father said, “Oh, this is not good.” But it was the following morning, Monday morning, when the students would look at you with displeasure. I mean, you could see it in their faces that the racial feeling of Japan bombing Pearl Harbor was directed toward us and, of course, we had nothing to do with it.

Aftermath “We had to move out”

I’m a seventh grader. And all through those seven years of school we were taught that the individual had their rights and that everybody was equal. And here this order comes out saying that we had to move out. We looked at the crop, the crop was doing so well and we thought, well finally the crops would produce enough so that we can have a little money. And, having a large family, money was a very important thing for us. So I was on my hands and knees pulling the weeds when that executive order came out. I dropped my little shovel and I went home. I was devastated.

FBI Investigation “It’s amazing how much the FBI knew”

It was devastating though when the FBI agents came to our home and started to go through all our belongings. And it was at that point that I think my father was really bothered because he was a kendo expert and he was very good at the martial art of judo. And so the FBI came up and said, “Mr. Noguchi,” he says, “we see that you were involved in the martial arts and have you been involved in any other activity?” Well, my father told the FBI agent that that was the only thing that he was involved in as far as the community. The FBI had information from the time my father arrived in the United States to that day. They had kept track of what he was doing. It’s amazing how much the FBI knew.

Internment “The constitution was violated”

Well we had to sacrifice three years and eight months of our lives because of the war and it’s lost. You can never recapture that, those almost four years. And you try to go on with your life, but every now and then you think about what could I have done during those three years and eight months if I wasn’t in camp. So it’s kind of a two-way thing too that maybe, in some ways, we were in camp for a reason and yet you feel that you were deprived and that the civil rights and the Constitution was violated.

Loss “When we got back, none of it was there”

I think my mom was affected most of all of us. Because she had a trunk full of things that her mother gave her when she came to the United States and some of those items were priceless. But we just left it in a trunk and when we got back, none of it was there.

Never Again “Don’t let it happen again”

As far as the Muslims and what is happening to the people from the Mideast, I would say that very much so that they’re going through the same thing we went through 60 years ago. And I feel that, no matter what, we have to educate the American people to let them know that they’re still Americans and they’re human beings. And we do this, going to all the schools, to let them know what had happened in 1942, and don’t let it happen again in 2002.