Interviews with Japanese in Utah: Seiichi Yei

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Cashiering for them. The war broke out.That Sat­urday night before the war broke out they had the biggest night ever. The next morning the news come out, the bombing of Pearl Harbor so Sunday I called in and I said, shall I come to work? They said, yes, come. We had, I think, two people come in that night. Oh, it ook, I can't recall exactly, maybe two or three months and business would come back to normal again. It was during one of those times, they used to have an old piano up front. We got some, oh, six or seven black soldiers come in and that was alright. So I seated them and pretty soon one of them that could play the piano a little and he got up and went up there and started, they all went then and started raising a ruckus up there. So I just walked over and told them, I said, just can it, cut it off, sit down and eat and behave like gentlemen. I said, I can't have this ruckus up here. I got surrounded. Well, I thought, Jesus, I can't fight these great big black soldiers. I'm going to get killed here. Just then there was a Caucasian lieutenant sitting in the back eating. He comes storming up and he told them, at ease and he said, you soldiers get back and act like gentlemen or leave. If you can't act like gentlemen, just leave. They quieted right down. LK: Close call. SY: Yeah. But I was young. Well, they may beat me up 20