<Begin Segment 60>

AI: So we're continuing again, and just before our last break, you were just at the point of leaving Seattle for the Puyallup Assembly Center. What do you recall of that day and that time?

MY: That was part of the, probably part of the, the period that we seemed to -- Tosh, I mean Joe, I don't know if you remember.

JY: My first recollection is when we got there.

MY: As you said, yeah. So we just seemed to have blocked that out in our mind, is that, I don't even remember the feelings that we had. Whether it was panic, or what. I do remember -- oh, the one thing that I do remember was that we saw a lot of people with big bags, like duffel bags or laundry bags with their stuff. But when we were told to take two suitcases, we took that literally. And we had two suitcases. So, two suitcases, remember? That was the order?

TY: Yeah.

MY: And then there, and then when we got to the bus stop, and then we saw the, we saw a lot of people with huge laundry bags, sacks full of stuff. And we thought, "Oh gosh, we could have taken more." [Laughs] I remember thinking that. They, this one woman had this big, like a laundry bag that was tied on the top. And it looked like it was just chock full. And a canvas, white canvas bag. And I remember looking at that and thinking, "Gosh, we could have taken more," but in our family, we just -- I don't know where we got --

TY: Took it literally, I guess.

MY: We did take it literally. So we just, we had one paper box, kind of, suitcase. And literal suitcases. I don't know where we found ten suitcases. Did we have them?

TY: I wish I could remember, but I don't remember. The whole thing is very vague to me.

MY: Yeah we, and I remember packing the suitcases, but -- and that was the only time that I remember anything about the --

TY: Well, remember that photograph that appeared in Seattle Times --

MY: The Seattle Times? Yeah.

TY: The things we were carrying. What happened to the big stuff?

MY: Was I carrying something? Oh, I don't know if I --

TY: Well, what happened to the big stuff?

MY: You were carrying a bag.

JY: Yeah, I was, I had a shopping bag.

TY: You carried a little bag.

MY: Oh, you had a shopping bag? Oh...

TY: You had a shopping bag or something, too, right?

MY: Oh.

TY: And so what happened to the other stuff? The suitcases.

MY: Oh, maybe they just put them in the bus.

JY: They probably just threw 'em into the train, or something.

MY: That was a bus, I think.

TY: Oh, that was a bus. I think we were boarding a bus to go catch the train.

MY: To Puyallup.

TY: No, no. To Puyallup, because we went by bus.

MY: Yeah.

TY: Yeah, we were going to Puyallup then, right?

MY: And there was one with Mike with that helmet on?

TY: Yeah, he had that -- what?

MY: Safari --

JY: Safari.

MY: Safari helmet?

TY: Yeah, safari helmet, yeah. And I wasn't in the photo.

MY: You were not in the photo. Oh, then that was, that was, then we were going to Minidoka.

TY: Yeah, oh that's right, okay.

MY: We weren't going to Puyallup.

TY: That wasn't going to Puyallup.

MY: 'Cause if it had been a -- so we were leaving Puyallup to go to Minidoka?

JY: Uh-huh.

TY: Yeah, yeah. That's why I wasn't in the photo.

MY: Okay. But so --

TY: I had already gone.

AI: But on the bus to Puyallup, you were all together. You and Mike and your mother were all together on the bus.

MY: Uh-huh.

TY: Uh-huh.

AI: And then also on the bus, were there some of your neighbors and other --

MY: Yeah, the Okudas, I remember now, and our neighbors the Okudas were there.

TY: She remembers the Okudas and I don't. I just, I can't even remember who was on the bus.

MY: I remember Kenji 'cause he was acting up.

TY: Oh. [Laughs]

MY: As Kenji often was doing. But that's, that's the only thing I remember about that trip.

TY: Is that right?

MY: And I remember the bus driving away and our waving to the people goodbye, but, who were left behind, but that was it, that was it.

TY: Well, the Itois was our neighbors, also, and so I asked Henry, I still --

MY: I don't remember them.

TY: -- see him off and on, and I asked him about whether he remembers who was on the bus, whether I was on the same bus, we were on the same bus as his family was. And --

MY: Henry? Hank?

TY: -- he couldn't remember, either. Yeah, Henry Itoi.

Jeni Y. Do you remember what people were talking about while they were on the bus?

TY: Well, no. I don't. My guess is everybody was sort of anxious and not, and not knowing what's -- we didn't know what was coming.

JY: Did you know where we were going?

MY: No.

TY: No. But, even if they had told us that they're going to be taking us to Puyallup Fair, while I'm visualizing -- we'd been to Puyallup Fair when it was a fairground. So I would have visualized the main fairground, and the parking areas, and so forth. And when we got there, of course, the parking area was, nothing -- it was divided into four different sections. Section A, B, C, and the main campground was Area D. And that's where the administration office was, that's where the hospital was located. And we went to Area C originally.

<End Segment 60> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.