<Begin Segment 21>

AI: Were there any other kinds of incidents that stand out in your mind about that time in Tule Lake?

BS: No, I don't remember anything. Well, I know that in Tule Lake, I think they used to have talent shows and, oh that's where they had the Bon Odori, and I don't know where my mother got these kimonos but we had kimonos on and we danced and then they had beauty queen contests and things like that. I remember that.

AI: Well, so Bon Odori was probably, that would have been July or maybe early August of 1943.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: And then some time soon after that, probably, then you were moved to Minidoka.

BS: Uh-huh.

AI: Were, did you have any understanding of what was happening, why you were being moved to another camp or what was going on?

BS: No, I didn't know at the time that Tule Lake was going to become a segregated camp where the so-called "disloyal" people were being sent. And my dad, I don't know if he knew, but he never explained. But, so we were sent to Minidoka. But later on, in his later years he told me that he had, I guess they had a choice. You could tell the authorities that, he told them... 'cause we were a designated to go to Heart Mountain and my father told them that he wanted to eventually return to Oregon when he would be released. And so he figured Idaho is closer to Oregon than Wyoming so they allowed us to go to Minidoka.

AI: Well, now before you actually left for Minidoka, did some of your older sisters --

BS: Oh, yes.

AI: -- go out to... because after answering the so-called "loyalty questionnaire," that was another way that, that was one of the things that was used to decide who would be allowed to go out.

BS: Oh.

AI: And so I'm wondering, now what happened with some of your older siblings?

BS: Well, okay, my sister who was married, Dorothy and her husband Hiroshi Kaneko, they, I guess you had to have a sponsor to be able to go out and find work. So they went to Barrington, Illinois as, I guess she was a cook and a maid or whatever, and my brother-in-law was, became a gardener, to these wealthy suburbs of Chicago. And then, then through that they, I guess they got a job for my sister, my sister Ruth, and she more or less became babysitter, cook, whatever.

AI: So she left Tule Lake also.

BS: Also.

AI: To go to the Chicago area.

BS: Uh-huh, to, that was, I think Arlington Heights. And she and one of her other friends went, the two of them went and they worked in that area, Arlington Heights. So they were, guess they were the only ones from my family that was on a job, that left Tule Lake.

AI: And did you recall any discussion of that? Was that, did your parents encourage or support your sister to go out?

BS: I don't know.

AI: Or, because I know some families were kind of reluctant to --

BS: Yeah, because my sister was, I think she was nineteen. She was, I think she said she was nineteen, and she says, "Oh, my gosh, this is," you know, being from a small, country, she's a country girl to go on this train to big city and... she said she was afraid but she said that when she got on the train and she saw all these soldiers, they were, the soldiers were on there, but they were very kind to them. And so, I'm sure my, my father was concerned, but I guess he probably encouraged them, 'cause to get on with their life, their lives.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.