Interviews

1. Learning Japanese to speak to relatives in Japan

2. FBI raids home and arrests father

3. Working as a seamstress in Hollywood

4. Learning to be a hairdresser at age 50

5. Husband George in the 442nd Battalion

Kaihara,Miko

(b. 1924) Hairdresser. Incarcerated at Poston, Arizona.

FBI raids home and arrests father

They came raiding all the houses and whatever they saw and they turned the house upside down.

I*: So they came to your home, knocked on the door, came in, and looked through everything, and then what did they do with your father?

He was in his work clothes picking strawberries and the FBI came raiding all the fathers you know and they just shipped them to North Dakota…oh no first to Tujunga Santa Ana jail through Tujunga and then they shipped them to Bismarck, North Dakota and they spent a whole year there and then they joined us in camp.

* "I" indicates an interviewer (Akira Boch)

Bismarck Federal Bureau of Investigation North Dakota searches and seizures United States World War II

Date: June 1, 2018

Location: California, US

Interviewer: Akira Boch

Contributed by: Watase Media Arts Center, Japanese American National Museum

Interviewee Bio

Miko Kaihara was born in Montebello, California on December 20, 1924. She was incarcerated in Poston, Arizona during World War II along with her family. She married her friend's brother George, a member of the 442nd, after the war and raised 4 boys. She worked as a domestic, seamstress, and at 50 years old took a course in cosmetology to become a hairdresser. She retired after 37 years of hairdressing. (December 2018)