‘Blitz Boom’ Town : Dec....

ARTHUR TAKEMOTO

Arthur Takemoto is a 70-year-old Buddhist priest, founder of the 11-year-old, 85-family Vista Buddhist Temple. Fifty years ago, he was living in Los Angeles with his parents and three siblings and was attending business school, with ambitions to go into banking. On the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, he had breakfast, went to temple and, afterward, joined six buddies for lunch and a movie--he doesn’t remember which one.

“It was the middle of the afternoon, and we were sitting in the theater when suddenly the movie stopped, and--I think it was on the public address system--there was an announcement, in a very loud voice, that Pearl Harbor had been bombed.

“We immediately sneaked out of the movie, feeling rather embarrassed, rather hurt and rather shocked. We had tremendous fear, because of our facial color, our features.

” . . . My parents were Japanese citizens. They asked us kids what we wanted to do (about loyalty).

“We said we had no alternative, because we were Americans.

“After the war was started, a friend of mine was drafted into the military, and he said, ‘Why don’t you take over my job at the bank?’

“And all the newspapers said, ‘Positions open.’ So I went there . . . and the personnel office said, ‘Sorry, we’re not hiring anymore.’

“I knew right then that I wouldn’t be getting a job anywhere. . . .

“Eventually I was evacuated to a relocation camp in Arizona.

“I was asked, when I got there, if I could serve as a youth leader, to get young Buddhists together. And I then realized how ignorant I was about my own religion, and maybe this was the time for me to investigate it.

“My whole life changed in the six months after Pearl Harbor was bombed--being uprooted from home, being evacuated, and my professional plans . . . wiped out.”