<Begin Segment 20>

TI: Well, let's talk about, so while you're in camp, Dr. Hasegawa told you to take your two sisters and leave, and so you said you found a sponsor to help you to get to Chicago? Is that...

MH: We had to have a sponsor to get out, and there were organizations of, where once people got out they became sponsors, and all they did was to say, "I will find a place for them to live," or whatever.

TI: And this was more to, a sponsorship to, it was like a... oh, what's the right word? I mean, work, a work release program, kind of? That you would find a job?

MH: Yeah, well, they, they said that they would. They didn't, but they said they would see that she's taken care of, but it was kind of a verbal thing and they didn't have to go through with it. So they were not of much help. We had to find our own.

TI: Right. So, so you went to Chicago with your two younger sisters. What was that like?

[Interruption]

MH: My sisters, through our church, through the Congregational Church, got acceptance to Berea College in Kentucky. Very, very different kind of college. And so they left -- well, before they left, we went to Chicago and we found a room, and, an apartment place. And so my two sisters and another friend of theirs and I lived in this... I guess it was an apartment. And so we were there maybe two weeks. One day we come home from -- we all got little jobs. My sisters got jobs being secretary, and I got a job at the YWCA manning their telephone, and so we came home one day, and the place just smelled so bad. They had brought in a new couch, and they had insecticide smell on it, and you open the couch, it was black with bedbugs. Just black with bedbugs. [Laughs] Oh, we couldn't stand it, so we took all our clothes and we went out to the fire escape, you know, they had these metal fire escapes. Fortunately, it was summertime, so it was hot. We sat out, out on the fire escape, we slept out on the fire escape, and we had to look for a place to live immediately, just immediately.

So among other things, we had doors slammed in our face, but one place -- after we had experience having doors slammed in our faces, I called one place and said, "I'm interested in renting your attic apartment. Do you have restrictions?" So she said, "What do you mean by restrictions?" I said, "Well, will you rent to anybody? Any race?" "Well, so long as you ain't a Jew," and never would I in my right mind rent a place where the landlady said, "Never a Jew, so long as you ain't a Jew," but I was so desperate. So I went, went down and took a look at the place, and it was truly an attic apartment, but it was safe. So I took it, and then later on this lady tells me, "You know why I like you Japs?" I said, "Why?" She said, "Well, my son was in the army in the hospital, and a Jap-boy went and bought him a Coke, a bottle of Coke. And he didn't charge, he didn't even charge him. He didn't take any money for it, he gave it to him. His name was I-too." I said, "I-too, that's not a Japanese name. Oh... Ito. You mean Ito." "I don't know, it's spelled I-T-O, I-too." So "I-too" was the one who made it possible for us to rent that apartment. And as bigoted as she was against the Jews, at least we had a place to stay. And so the influence of one person just buying a Coke goes far. Isn't that an interesting story?

TI: Yeah, that really is. While you were in Chicago, did you come across any other Japanese Americans?

MH: Uh-uh. Oh, maybe one girl. I went to work at the Y, YWCA, and there was one girl there that was staying, that's all.

TI: You said earlier your sisters were going to go to college? Did they eventually go to college?

MH: They, they did go down.

TI: Okay, so then you were left alone then, by yourself.

MH: Uh-huh, I was alone. And it was all right, I worked at the Y and got my meals. And then my sister, my other sister and her husband and two children came, came by, and they were driving to New York. They were released, they were driving to New York. So I said, "Can I go with you?" So that's how I got to New York.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.