Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mitsuye May Yamada - Joe Yasutake - Tosh Yasutake Interview
Narrators: Mitsuye May Yamada, Joe Yasutake, Tosh Yasutake
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary), Jeni Yamada (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: October 8 & 9, 2002
Densho ID: denshovh-ymitsuye_g-01-0054

<Begin Segment 54>

AI: Before we get too much into the life at Minidoka, I wanted to back up a little bit and back to that period where the government -- you're still in Seattle -- and the government was calling your moving an "evacuation." And you were seeing what happened to the Bainbridge people, you mentioned that you knew your time was coming, that you were also going to have to leave. But hearing the, seeing in the newspaper and the notices tacked up around town, and the government called it "evacuation," what did that mean to you at the time? Do you recall what you thought was going to happen to you, or did it, what did "evacuation" mean to you? That word? What was going through your mind?

MY: I think, well, we still had the house. I think we had the sense that it was going to be temporary. I don't think that we thought the war would last forever, did you?

TY: No, no, of course not.

MY: We just thought that, and so --

TY: No, the whole thing was so unreal.

MY: And so the house -- yeah, and the house was going to be rented. We, one of the, one of Dad's co-workers took care of that. He got some, a couple to rent the house. And so we weren't going to get rid of the house, it was going to be rented. And then our belongings was going to be scattered around to different friends' homes. And I think we had kind of a sense that when this was maybe over in a few months --

TY: We would all come back and go back to normal life again.

MY: -- a year, that we were going to come back, and things were going to be back in place. I don't think that we even had any sense that this was going to be permanent, or that we would never be coming back to Seattle. It might have been kind of blocking it out, but I think that our family was somewhat privileged by, from having such good friends, and so forth, that we, we felt somewhat secure that -- don't you think? That we were going to be okay.

TY: Yeah, I think, in comparison to many of the families, I think we were very fortunate. Because the people who, Dad's immediate supervisor, fellow took care of the house, and he asked the real estate company to take care of the rental and everything. So he took care of everything, whereas lot of the people had, who had businesses, lost it completely. And so I think we were very lucky that things turned out as well as it did for us. Because we, after the war we came back and the house was still there. In fact, I stayed there for two years when I was going back to the University of Washington, so, and that was really nice. We had someplace to go back to. And many of the people didn't.

AI: Did you have any sense of fear or concern about your mother and her status, that, again, she was a Japanese citizen, not eligible for American citizenship, and of course your father was still being --

JY: And she was the same status, too.

MY: I was the same status, yeah.

AI: Yes, and you were also. Did you, so did you have any concerns about that?

MY: No, I don't think so. My mother was kind of a, she was sort of a chronic complainer, if you remember.

TY: She was a worrywart. [Laughs]

MY: She was very -- and she was like that when we were young, because we were so sick, and she was always worried over us, and she, and she complained a lot. And I think we kind of had --

TY: Eminent disaster around the corner. [Laughs]

MY: [Laughs] It had a, kind of had a way of tuning her out, I think. And so if she -- I know, she complained a lot. I mean, she was complaining about the inconvenience, and about Dad, Papa being gone, and what was going to happen to him, and so forth and so on, and we somehow didn't join her with that. We somehow went on, went on with our business without -- and unfortunately, she didn't get too much sympathy from us, because we kind of, had gotten immune to, to getting, joining her with all of her worries. But as far as Mom was concerned, I think that she was pretty intelligent and competent, although she didn't sound like it at that time.

TY: Well, come to think of it, maybe it didn't bother us as much because she did all the worrying for us. [Laughs]

MY: So we decided not to do it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 54> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.