<Begin Segment 18>

TI: So what happened after Pearl Harbor, up to the point where you were removed to Puyallup? I mean, what kind of preparation, what kind of activities happened for you?

MH: What happened... what did you say?

TI: So after Pearl Harbor...

MH: After Pearl Harbor?

TI: Yeah, what happened after that?

MH: Gee, I don't know. We continued on with our daily life, except we couldn't go downtown to shop, like we couldn't go to Frederick's, because that was too close to the ocean. And then we take the streetcar to go down, we could, we had to get off at a certain point because... I remember one woman saying to me, "What the hell are you doing there? Get up, give me the seat." Just insisted on it, on taking my seat, even if we were not in the... what do they call that area? Restricted area around the water. And there were rude people, made terrible remarks, had to take them. No use fighting it.

TI: And so you said eventually you had to go to Puyallup, but your mother didn't go with you because she was in the sanitarium. And what was Puyallup like for you?

MH: Well, we got in there, and there were, there were soldiers with bayonets. I don't know what they're gonna use it for. But anyway, we got in, and the first thing they made us do was go, they gave us a big white sack, and they told us to go to the hay, bales of hay and fill the sacks with hay, and then they told us where our barracks were, so we had to drag this thing to our, and that turned out to be our mattress. There were cots, and the particular room we had, my dad and my two sisters and I. Yeah, four of us were in that one little barrack, and four cots, and one... no, there wasn't a stove in there. That was at regular place. Anyway...

TI: And your younger brother, where was he?

MH: Well, he went with his friends. They, see, he was, he had a teenage group of friends that he wanted to be with, so he went with them. So we didn't see too much of him.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.