<Begin Segment 20>

TI: During this period, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, some of the leaders of the JACL became very active in the community, becoming spokespeople for the community. Did your husband ever get back with people, with the JACL, do anything with the JACL or people like Jimmy Sakamoto?

BI: Not actively, no. (Narr. note: According to an Office of Naval Intelligence report, Kenji Ito actively opposed the JACL at Puyallup. The military authorities had delegated the internal administration of the assembly center to the JACL. Kenji Ito and Thomas Masuda, later joined by William Hosokawa, challenged the JACL's authority, asserting that the leaders had usurped the administrative authority instead of having been duly elected by the internees.)

TI: Did he ever talk about, about them during this period, about, or see them?

BI: No.

TI: How about the reaction of the community after he was released, acquitted, and you're in the community, and if you see someone, did you, did people ever talk about the case or anything? Or was there any reaction at all?

BI: Uh-uh.

TI: So how did that make you feel?

BI: Well, it didn't bother me. I was, I didn't care what other people thought. I knew my husband, and we were together.

TI: How about your husband, how did it affect him? Because before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, he was a prominent lawyer in the community, people looked up to him, went to him for help. And then now, after the trial, how did people treat him?

BI: Well, when we went to Puyallup, I had the baby, and at that time there was a very bad case of diarrhea, and Ayleen had diarrhea for weeks. And I was so busy trying to take care of her, and he was busy. I don't know what he was doing in Puyallup, at the assembly center, but suddenly one day he came home around noon, I think it was, and he says, "Oh, you've got to start packing. We have to leave by four o'clock." And I said, "Leave? Where are we going?" And he said, "Well, I don't know, but you better start packing. They're going to pick us up at four o'clock." And I had wet diapers and whatnots, so I threw everything in the buckets and packed up, and there were at least another family, but maybe two families and us, that got on the train, I think, yeah, on the train. And we didn't know where we were going. I guess we did eventually find out we were going to Tule Lake. And it was a long ride, you know, Seattle and Tule Lake, Tule Lake is northern California. It shouldn't be too long, but gosh, we went all over to Montana, down through Idaho, and along, I think we were on that train at least two nights and three days or three nights and two days. (Narr. note: At Puyallup we were given mattress size canvas bags to fill with hay. It was our mattress to put on the army cots. It was infested with fleas and did I ever get bites! I had to pull my pajama sleeves over my hands and tie them shut to keep the fleas out. It was an old train that probably had not been used in years. It was infested with bed bugs. We sat up during the whole trip. The train stopped to let us stretch, in the middle of the desert. The M.P. stood with their machine guns as they counted heads as we boarded the train. Who in the world would want to run away in such a desolate place?)

TI: And how many people were on this train?

BI: You know, there were quite a few Japanese on there.

TI: I haven't heard about this. So there was a group from Puyallup that went to Tule Lake? And do you recall who this group was? I mean, did they go because they had family that went to Tule and that they were reunited?

BI: I really, I really don't know.

TI: Because in your case, it was nice because you were reunited with your, your family. And I was curious if the other families were like that, or what their reason was to go to Tule Lake.

BI: The only, only thing I know of is apparently my husband didn't like the idea that the assembly center was run by the Niseis. "Why are the Niseis running this when the government was responsible for putting us there?" you know. I'm not sure, but there was some, some conflict there, and they didn't like Ken's point of view and so they thought, well, get rid of him, so they sent us off, out of camp, to Tule Lake. (Narr. note: It was the JACL Niseis he objected to.)

TI: But not only your family, but there was a whole group that went down there also.

BI: Not my family. My family went to Minidoka.

TI: Well, yeah, I'm sorry, but you, Ken, and Ayleen.

BI: Uh-huh.

TI: So the three of you, plus, plus other, other people. But again, you weren't sure if they were also, were they sent because they disagreed with how Puyallup was being run, or do you know why?

BI: No, they were just sent there, uh-huh.

TI: Now, was Puyallup overcrowded at this point, was that another reason?

BI: Well, no, not that I know of. But it was such a sudden order.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.