AznSnstn

The government told us that the Americans attacked Pearl Harbor since a large portion of the people there were Japanese. The government made a broadcast claiming that we could not stand by this injustice and had to make the United States pay. I never found out that we attacked Pearl Harbor until the end of the war.

We lived in the country when I came to America and our neighbors were very nice. When they heard that there was a Japanese person living nearby they came over and were amazed that my skin wasn't yellow! I had to ask my husband what that meant and he explained that "yellow skin" was a stereotype of the Japanese.

We had been told so many times that we were going to win that when the Emperor announced our surrender I didn't believe it. It took a few days for it to sink in and for me to realize that we lost. I really began to understand once the officers began to leave their posts and return home.

I thought of them as allies, and of course I was in support of them. Our government was always telling us that they were our allies against the Americans. However, I didn't have any strong feelings towards them, and neither did anyone else from what I could see.

When I found out about what they did I was in disbelief. I couldn't believe that they had done that to all those people and couldn't help but wonder why our government had hidden it from us (I found out several years after the war had finished).

Absolutely. We were repeatedly told that all our troubles were due to the Allies and the bombing raids. As a result I blamed America for our shortages.

My grandfather was a Buddhist priest, so we prayed to Buddha. Buddhism was the most popular religion. Shintoism was rarely practiced, and I don't remember anyone who believed in it.