FBI Interrogation Transcript

On January 21, 1942 — six weeks after Pearl Harbor — three FBI agents entered the Garden Grocery at 320 12th Avenue, Seattle and arrested Tamotsu Takizaki, a 59-year-old retired grocer and kendo master.

This 97-page document is the declassified FBI report on Seattle's pre-war kendo community, containing Tamotsu's interrogation transcript from that day. In it, he provides his own account of his life: when he arrived in America, why he returned to Japan, his education, his family, and the kendo club he led. It is the only known record of Tamotsu speaking in his own words about his personal history.

The document was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by researcher Guy Power and published as part of his research into the history of Japanese martial arts in pre-war America. It includes not only Tamotsu's interrogation but broader FBI surveillance notes on the Seattle Kendo Kai and other community organizations.

For the Takisaki family, this document has been transformative. It confirmed Tamotsu's 1907 arrival date, his education at the Tokyo Foreign Language School, his 1916 return to Japan to be with his dying father, and his formal title as Instructor of the Dai Nippon Butoku Kai. It also captures a poignant moment: Tamotsu carefully explaining to FBI agents that his kendo club "did not go through any ritual such as bowing to the shrine of a Japanese god, because he does not believe this should be done in the United States."