<Begin Segment 20>
AI: But there's still many things happened before then and, let me see here... I think you were saying then that your parents were transferred to Tule Lake before you and your younger sister and brother.
AO: That's correct.
AI: So they were sent ahead and that was in 1944 that they went to Tule Lake?
AO: It'd be '43.
AI: 1943. And then when did you and your brother and sister go to Tule Lake?
AO: Probably later, latter part of '43.
AI: So maybe before Christmas time in 1943?
AO: It was very possible because we were approximately two years in Manzanar. '42 and most of '43 and '44 in Tule Lake and '45 in Bismarck.
AI: So tell me, what do you recall about leaving Manzanar and going to Tule Lake?
AO: Leaving Manzanar, we had to be bussed to, I don't know whether Lone Pine or San Bernardino, I can't remember. See, from San Bernardino up to, through Manzanar was a narrow gauge, see, it's a different gauge railroad. And so we did go by rail to Newell, N-E-W-E-L-L is the name of the train station. And we disembarked there 'cause that was the main railroad up through that particular area to Klamath Falls, and there we joined our parents. See, my older sister, her husband had already, was there.
AI: And what had you been told about Tule Lake, if anything?
AO: Not really. We just, it was, we were in Block 82 and that was the newest block and they had better-constructed barracks and we were quite comfortable there.
AI: Well, my understanding was that Tule Lake was even larger than Manzanar.
AO: Yes.
AI: Had more people and more, and spread out, physically more spread out, also. What impression did you have as far as other differences or similarities to Manzanar?
AO: Just another camp. And I went to work at the hospital there.
AI: And what were you doing at the hospital?
AO: I don't remember what I was doing but possibly in the outpatient clinic. And I don't exactly remember exactly what I was doing there. But there was one nurse and when the nurse found out that I was gonna be transferred to Bismarck, and I think she asked me why. And she was surprised that I was one of the agitating group. I can remember she has tears in her eyes.
AI: Tell me about that. You --
AO: I think that nurse had a feeling that I belonged here in the United States, and that was the reason. But she never, she never discussed about it after that. She said just, "Why?"
<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.