<Begin Segment 5>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: When you left for Salt Lake City, did you take the train from the King Station?

AT: Uh-huh.

TY: Did you experience things like discrimination at the station?

AT: No.

TY: You just got on the train safely.

AT: Uh-huh, it was nothing. Instead, they didn't open the windows. They left the windows closed and kept it dark in the train. We couldn't look outside.

TY: Is that so. Were there many Japanese on the train other than your family?

AT: Hmm...

TY: Mostly American?

AT: Yeah. We... For family, there are places for families, aren't there? We rented it. And, only children were in the place for families... it had a bathroom, too. In the train. We boarded, and I slept there. Terao slept in the cot with the boy over there.

TY: How much did it take?

AT: I don't remember about money.

TY: Um, time wise, to Salt Lake City.

AT: I wonder how long it took, I don't know. Everything happened was... Terao bought , and...

DG: Then, when you traveled, travel...

AT: When we were leaving, it was there, hmm, it was called something on the Second Avenue. We had them write there. I had them write that we were evacuating to so and so place. We received it, and they stamped it properly...

TY: You received the stamp from the government, right?

AT: That's right. We received it from the government. All the names of people who were evacuating to Salt Laki were written on it. We took it, and when we got off at depot [Ed. note: Mrs. Terao pronounced it as 'rippu' or 'rippo.'] or when we went to hotels, people said that they were sorry for us whenever we showed it to them. Until then, my cousin had farmed there. His father had become a farmer a long time ago. He had already died though. Farmer, he had a land, about a 12-acre-land of his own. He was farming the land. And, he said that it was better there than farming back in Japan, so he didn't go back to Japan. Before then, he stayed at my house, about two years before, about two years before the war broke out, because I lived in Seattle. He said that he was going to stop by at my place in Seattle, then at California. He visited Japan for about a month, and he came back here again. Since he was hiring one farmer, he said that he had to go back to give orders, and he went back. Then, he lived there. Then, the war broke out. So, then, my cousin said this. He said, "Oneesan, it wouldn't be any good if you entered the camp with three girls. Why don't you evacuate and come over here? We have three rooms open on the second floor now. You don't have to worry about the space to sleep. And, you can manage to make living once you find a job." So he said, and our children said... I said, "Well, we will talk with children in case, and we will call you depending on their answers."

TY: Then, you handled everything over the phone.

AT: Yeah, over the phone. We also wrote the details in letters, and, and when we asked our children, they said, "If Kazunori-san, Uncle said so, let's go to Salt Laki all together." So we accepted his favor.

TY: Which month was it? Which month of what year was it...

AT: Oh, I don't remember such things.

TY: It was in 1942, wasn't it?

AT: Yeah.

TY: Which season was it? Was it winter, or was it spring?

AT: It was around fall.

TY: Around fall.

AT: It was right after the war ended. [Ed. note: Mrs. Terao meant 'after the war started.'] I wonder which month it was when people entered the camp.

TY: It was summer, wasn't it?

AT: Oh, that's right. Before that.

TY: Then, winter or the beginning of spring, it must have been around March or April, then.

AT: Yeah, that's right, that's right. The fields were already, when we arrived Salt Laki, they were still plowing the fields.

TY: Then, it was around the season. And, Seattle...

DG: There, how many people were there in the family there?

AT: The family. Two, three... four people, it was my cousin's family.

TY: Father, mother and two children, then?

AT: Two, yes.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.