<Begin Segment 13>

AI: Well, so then after you resigned from your position, what happened next after that? What did you do?

MN: Well, like a good daughter that I should have been, I should have been home helping my mother pack, but I was off volunteering at the JACL office. And at that time, the JACL office had set up information center for people that needed help in filling out any forms or answering any questions that they needed in order to, for their departure to camp.

AI: So at this point, it had already become well-known that you, the Nisei, the U.S. citizens, everybody of Japanese ancestry was going to be forced to leave. And, of course, it was the end of March 1942 when the Bainbridge Island people were first removed. So was it about that time, about March or so that you were volunteering in the JACL office?

MN: I think so. So there were quite a few of the women that had been fired from the Seattle School District that were volunteering their time at the JACL office.

AI: Had you been involved with JACL before then?

MN: Never.

AI: And what was your impression of JACL at the time?

MN: No impression.

AI: So as you --

MN: I didn't know anything about, too much about them.

AI: And so as you were, and the other women were volunteering, what kinds of information were you providing, or what kind of information did you have available about what was happening?

MN: I don't recall too much about what information we were dispensing, but I know at one time, they had to fill some forms up, so we used to type out the information for them.

AI: And so this was also the period where each Japanese American family was supposed to have their head of household or representative come and register, fill out information on themselves, and they, is that where then they would receive their family numbers and instructions?

MN: I don't remember whether they received the family numbers there or, I know they received their luggage tags, but other than that, I don't know where we got our identification numbers.

AI: What kind of impression did you get about what was gonna happen to you?

MN: Everything was moving so fast, I can't recall too much about my own impression.

AI: And as you say, your mother was very busy at home.

MN: Oh, she had the brunt of the whole household. She had to get rid of all the household goods, and we had a car, she had to get rid of the car, and we had a dog, and she had to find a home for the dog. So it was a great undertaking for her to do it by herself, and not knowing what to take, how long we were going to be gone, was more difficult.

AI: And what about your brother, Henry? Had he then stopped attending classes at...

MN: No, he was still going to school then.

AI: And then there was you, and also your two sisters also at home. What about your own preparation? Were there things that you got together for yourself to take?

MN: I remember my mother said that we could, what we treasured most, we could put it in a little box, and she'll get it stored somewhere. And so we put our precious belongings, what we thought was precious at the time, into the little box. And after the war when I came back and found the box, I was disgusted. Here were all these love letters that I had tied in a pink ribbon, and I go, "Why did I save all this?" [Laughs] So that's how immature I was at that time. There was nothing worth saving in that box.

AI: You were a teenager, and you had some teenage kinds of things that you had saved, it sounds like.

MN: Well, I, we were teenagers, but I think we were very immature teenagers.

[Interruption]

AI: May, just before our break, you were telling about preparations before being forced out of Seattle. And I was wondering if there was anything else you remember about the, kind of the last minute before you were leaving.

MN: No, everything is pretty vague. Everything moved so fast that I don't have any incident that I recall, except when the dog left for his home. That's another interesting story; and the dog, he was in Lake City when my mother was in Idaho, she got shipped to Lake City -- I mean, from Lake City to camp, and she was one of the few dogs in camp. And then when my mother moved to Chicago, she came to Chicago with her, and then when my mother moved to Seattle, the dog moved back to Seattle. A well-traveled dog.

AI: That's funny.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.