Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: May Y. Namba Interview
Narrator: May Y. Namba
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: October 21, 2004
Densho ID: denshovh-nmay-01-0024

<Begin Segment 24>

AI: So I think you had said that about late in 1944, it might have been, because by the end of '44, let's see... or no, I'm sorry, by the end of '44 that Anne had been, joined you already. But then in 1945 then, of course, in August, that was the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the ending of the war. Around that time, do you recall much about hearing anything about the atom bomb?

MN: We read about it and thought it was dreadful, but didn't think too deeply in those days, I didn't anyway.

AI: Well, and, of course, your family was not from that area, either.

MN: No.

AI: So then with the ending of the war, did you -- and your mother had then come out to Chicago, but your father was still being held.

MN: Uh-huh, and my sister recalls that he joined us in Chicago after the war (on May 26, 1945).

AI: So he wasn't released until after that.

MN: Uh-huh.

AI: You had mentioned that your parents were thinking that they would like to return to Seattle, but what was your thought on this?

MN: Oh, I wasn't going back to Seattle. They kicked us out once, and why should I go back to Seattle? And that was my feeling, that I didn't want to go back to Seattle. But my sister was saying, after they came back to Seattle, they bought a house, and so they thought it was ridiculous for us to be paying rent in Chicago, and then, and when we could live there for free. And so they insisted that we come back, and so we finally came back.

AI: Well, before you moved back to Seattle permanently, you visited?

MN: Yeah. Before my parents were even in Seattle, I went back to Seattle for a visit, and we drove from Chicago, and on the way to Chicago, we stopped in Salt Lake City 'cause one of the fellows had a sister there, so we stayed overnight. And then they decided to go to the camp site to look it over. So we went to the camp site, and there was, the gate was shut closed, and there was a big padlock on it, and there were no barracks; it was all barren, nothing there. And we just stood there, 'cause we couldn't get in. And I go, "How did we survive this barren grounds?" And you marvel at the way we had survived our camp days. And it's, it's irony that two years before, we were in camp, we couldn't get out, and then two years later, we couldn't get back in.

AI: So it was all completely...

MN: It was desolate then, and there was nothing there. And just recently, last year, when I went for the first time to Minidoka, there were, it was all green and trees were growing, and, "Oh, this isn't what it was like in camp when we were there."

AI: So these days, it's much nicer.

MN: It's much nicer-looking, 'cause couple of my kids went with me, and I go, "This isn't what I wanted 'em to see."

AI: But at that time, it was still very barren.

MN: Yeah, it was very barren, and we could see the dust moving around yet.

AI: So then from there, after you stopped off there, then you continued to Seattle to visit?

MN: To visit friends, then they, the two men went on down to California and I took the train back to Chicago.

AI: Oh, was that, did you also visit in Oregon at that time, or was that a separate visit?

MN: Oh, during that time, yeah, when I came to Seattle for a visit, I did go down to Portland and saw Tom for a short time.

AI: So by that time, was he out of the service?

MN: He was out of the service, and he was working on the farm.

AI: Back at his family's farm.

MN: I don't know whether it was a family farm at that time, because they lost everything.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.