<Begin Segment 13>

AI: Well, now, in, in such a short period of time, you found out about this position, you found out about the relocation centers, I'm wondering, when you made your application, how much did you know about the relocation centers at that time? Did you have an idea of what they were or what was going on there?

RC: I was going to be going into the unknown. And it didn't trouble me at all. I thought, "This is going to be an amazing experience," which it was, and still is.

AI: What, did you get any kinds of reactions from your friends or neighbors or colleagues about the fact that you were going to be going to do this teaching in a center where all the Japanese American families had been taken?

RC: Some neighbors were ugly. And I knew that my mother was all for it. When I came back from Stanford and I told her what had taken place and that, basically, I would be hired to go to Idaho to teach the Japanese children. She thought it was wonderful. And I said, "Well, what about you?" Well, she had heard (...) that my twin was coming up from Los Angeles. (...) She had worked at an air factory, I can't think of the name of the planes that they made. Anyway, but she had gotten a transfer to McClellan Air Force Base and would be coming up before I would leave. She was (...) practically on her way. Her husband was in France at that time in the army and so I knew my mother would (...) have my sister with her. And so that gave me a sense of relief. But the neighbors were ugly. And my mother just told them it was none of their affair where I was going. They thought it was terrible that one of my brothers was in the Aleutians and there was some skirmishes in the Aleutians, you know, and that I was not fair to my brothers and... my eldest brother, his attitude was, "Well, you do what you want to do." And of course, my mother was all for it. And so I went with her blessing and that's all I needed.

AI: So, it sounds so, it's very interesting to me, that your mother was very supportive, all for it.

RC: My twin was, also.

AI: Yes. And even though some of the neighbors, it sounds like they were actually accusing you of being somewhat of a traitor to the United States because you were going to teach.

RC: (Yes, yes).

AI: Was that the sense of some of them?

RC: I heard the words "damn Japs." And I hated that. And there was one neighbor who (...) said, "Well, you and I part company." I said, "You're not my friends." (...) It was their parents up there in the Placerville area that had the fruit orchards and what have you that, that pulled the dirty work on the Japanese growers up there, and destroyed their orchards. When I came back and heard that, they had moved by that time. And it didn't bother me.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.