Densho Digital Archive - Mitsuye May Yamada - Joe Yasutake - Tosh Yasutake Interview (denshovh-ymitsuye

<Begin Segment 73>

AI: You mentioned that Mike had gotten accepted to school fairly quickly.

MY: Yeah. He applied and he -- well, okay. I think he, he, the Friends, the American Friends committee, people were there helping us contact the outside world. And they, they were, I think Mike applied through him, I remember. And then after he was accepted, which was in 1943, he told me to go and see this person who might be able to help me get a job. Since I couldn't get accepted, he thought I might be able to get a job. He said, "Why don't you come with me when I leave camp?" And I said, "How could I do that?" And he said, well, "Maybe you can get a job somewhere." And then I did get a job in the, at the University of Cincinnati cafeteria, which was about as close as I can get to a university. So I thought, and since Mike was going there I went out with him. So the two of us left together.

AI: When was that?

MY: That was in 1943, I think that Mike got in, I think school started around October. And it wasn't, it was very close to that. We didn't get there until maybe late September, or so. I think it was partly because we were kind of worried about Joe and my mom. 'Cause Tosh left already, for the army. You left in June or something.

TY: Yeah, well, June, yeah.

MY: Yeah, so Tosh was gone, and Mike and I kind of worried about, when we left, what's going to happen to them, and so forth. And then we heard that there was a family camp. And I remember when my mother saying, "Well, a family camp is different from the, it's a real internment camp. It's different from the camps that we were in." And so she was wondering, if he goes, if he goes into such a camp, would he have a record? That would have a criminal record. And my mother was kind of sharp. She worried about how it would impact his... [Cries] But I think that that's the kind of thing that really worried, worried Mom. My mother cried a lot. I've been thinking about her.

AI: We can take a short break.

MY: Yeah. And I was thinking about my mother, and the worries that she had. Actually, she was really quite panic-stricken that he had left. And we were about to leave, we were talking about leaving, and she was just going, "What am I going to do?" Going to be left with Joe.