<Begin Segment 11>

AI: Well, that day that you left from Burbank and went to Manzanar, when was that that you entered Manzanar?

AO: April 28, 1942. That has never disappeared from my mind. The gentleman, the gentleman that we had to share the room with was Henry Yuge. He has now passed away. And strangely enough, I met a man named... was, his name was, I can't think... (Ted Hopkins) but anyways, I talked with him and he kept telling me that, about his father. And so I kept thinking, asking more questions about his father, and it turned out that his father was named Yuge and he was a brother to Henry Yuge. And in time, this man's name, and this man lives about half a mile from where we're living today.

AI: What a coincidence. Oh, my.

AO: I'll keep thinking and it'll come out.

AI: Well, April of 1942 you also turned twenty, twenty years old.

AO: Yes, I was twenty on April 10th. So I had turned twenty at the time I entered the camp.

AI: And with you were your parents and your older sister, a younger sister and brother, younger brother.

AO: Yes, at the time we entered the camp was, my father, my mother, older sister, myself, my younger sister and brother, younger brother, that's six.

[Interruption]

AI: So, just before the break you were telling about a coincidence about a person who turned out to be the nephew of Mr. Yuge, who shared your room for a while in the beginning of, when you were first at Manzanar. And this man's name was Ted Hopkins?

AO: Yes, it was Ted Hopkins. And I met him in the neighborhood. And he was trying to find evidence of his father and his father's whereabouts. So during the conversation is that, it was quite a coincidence that his uncle was put in our room at the beginning, at the, the day that we entered Manzanar. And he told me that his wife was having a baby in Los Angeles so she was held back until the baby was born. And Henry Yuge had a little girl with him, their first daughter and so they stayed with, in our room until there was time a when Mr. Yuge's wife and baby were transferred and entered Manzanar. At that time there was more spaces, apartments ready for them to move in to, so they left and we were all to ourselves again.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.