Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mitsuko Hashiguchi Interview
Narrator: Mitsuko Hashiguchi
Interviewer: James Arima
Location: Bellevue, Washington
Date: July 28, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-hmitsuko-01-0043

<Begin Segment 43>

JA: Can you describe the trip from Pinedale to Tule Lake, then?

MH: Pinedale to Tule Lake.

JA: This time you know your destination. [Laughs]

MH: The old train -- [laughs] -- old train taking us up there again the same old way, going on the siding as often as they feel like going. So it seemed like forever it was taking to us get there and we said, "God, I thought that was right there in Oregon, but golly, it sure is far for something that's in Oregon." But I think that took us another couple days or something to get up there, too, because with all the siding stops they make you can't help that because they said that we're the last on the tracks, that's supposed to be on the track, the others. So it seemed like we were always stopped someplace in the dark, and we weren't supposed to look outside so that was out again. We don't know where we're at.

JA: So again, the shades were drawn.

MH: Yeah, uh-huh.

JA: And, again, what were your first impressions when you got to Tule Lake then other than this Seattle advance group.

MH: Oh, you look at the mountain and you think, "Oh, my God, a big dry mountain. Oh my God, look at what a dusty old place, all sand and everything, dry as could be, hot again," and everything else and the desolate. It just feels like we were in the desert or something like that because it was just dusty. Everywhere we go was dusty, and nothing clean about it, but like I said, it was so well-organized that we didn't have too much to complain about to start with.

JA: So at Pinedale you had the tar floors that were melting...

MH: Yeah, that was really (...) (bad).

<End Segment 43> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.