Bill Fernandez

Softcover, 247 pp.

Enjoy Bill’s small kid adventures making his own toys because he had no money and there was no place to spend it. Join him in fights with newspaper-pasted-with-poi kites, run alongside the sugar cane train pulling stalks, help him find Santa Claus in the mountains. His pals came from immigrant families from around the world. This carefree life changed when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. The carefree life changed: fear of Japanese invasion, the arrival of thousands of GIs, gas masks, blackouts, racism, shining shoes, and pineapple picking filled the days. A real challenge was delivering cigarettes to the machine gun nest on the beach near his home at night, avoiding the patrols. Old photographs add interest. Part II about the war years is dedicated to the Nisei (Japanese-American) soldiers of the famous 442d Army, 100th Battalion, and the Military Intelligence Service. Their bravery was remarkable at a time when America imprisoned so many of their people.