<Begin Segment 85>

MY: So you got into -- so, so he went to Crystal City. Crystal City? Is that what it was called?

JY: Uh-huh. Crystal City.

MY: Crystal City.

TY: That was in '44 then, you said?

JY: '44.

TY: Fall of '44.

MY: And the Peruvians were, there were Peruvian Japanese were there. And that's another whole story about how...

JY: Yeah, I guess.

MY: -- how incredibly, I mean, how did, what business did the United States government have in incarcerating Peruvian, Japanese Peruvians?

JY: They were almost literally kidnapped from South America, from Peru.

TY: Well, I, the understanding I have was --

MY: No, I thought there was an agreement between --

TY: -- they were going to use them as an exchange.

JY: Exchange, yeah.

TY: For Americans in Japan.

JY: Right.

MY: Oh.

TY: That's why, that's why they...

JY: That's why they were, they were kidnapped from Peru.

TY: That's what I heard, but I...

JY: Peru, yeah. No, that's true...

MY: Is it kidnapped? I mean, they said that --

JY: Well, they had an arrangement with the --

MY: Government.

JY: -- with the Peruvian government, who were kind of -- from what I've read -- were kind of interested in getting rid of the Japanese there anyway. So, they kind of had an agreement of some sort that they worked out, and they moved them out.

MY: So the, so the Japanese, Japanese Peruvians were very different from the Japanese Americans?

JY: Oh, very much so. Well, they spoke Spanish, like we spoke English. Except that their Japanese connection was much stronger, in the sense that all the kids, like my age, spoke impeccable Japanese. I mean, and they, like Japanese kids, they had shaved hair, the way the Japanese students --

MY: And the school was conducted --

JY: And they had... I don't know if they had school in Spanish or not, but I know that they did have a Japanese school, yeah.

MY: Japanese school, yeah.

AI: Well, it must have been, in a way, it must have been a great relief for the two of you, knowing that your father was out of --

MY: Yeah, it was a great relief for me, yeah.

AI: -- Lordsburg, and then reunited with Joe and your mother.

MY: And, it was a great relief to me that my mother and my dad were finally together.

TY: Well actually, I didn't know this was happening.

JY: Yeah.

MY: Must have written to you about it, in my, all those letters I wrote.

JY: [Laughs] That you destroyed.

<End Segment 85> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.