Stubborn Twig – Excerpt
That night Masuo and the rest of America learned the details of what President Roosevelt was calling “a day that shall live in infamy:” more than two thousand Americans were dead; 150 aircraft and nineteen ships were destroyed. And that same night, the rumors began: the Hood River Japanese had known about the bombing beforehand; they were gathered at the Community Hall late the night before planning a victory celebration; they were flashing radio messages to Japanese submarines lurking off the coast of Oregon; they were plotting to blow up Bonneville Dam; they were conspiring to poison the town’s water supply. The Hood River Japanese–the men and women who had lived, worked and raised their families in the valley for the past three and a half decades–were the enemy.
On Monday, December 8, as Homer and Yuka sat in their Hood River High School classrooms feeling anxious, confused and somehow ashamed, Taiwan-based Japanese bombers struck two American airfields in the Philippines, destroying more than half of the U.S. Army’s Far East aircraft. Fueled by rumors, propelled by panic, the gears oiled by a century of racism, the federal machinery jump-started. The day after Pearl Harbor the Treasury Department ordered all Japanese-owned businesses closed and all issei bank accounts frozen. In Hood River, armed treasury agents boarded up the Yasui Brothers Store and posted sentries at the front door. Masuo and Renichi had to get formal written permission to remove anything from the store, including perishable food items for family use.