<Begin Segment 24>

TI: Okay, so you're in Minidoka, and then let's... so what happened next, after you delivered Glenna?

BI: Well, then shortly afterwards, Ken decided that he wanted to leave camp, and they were recruiting farm help. And so he went out to the sugar beet fields, and of course he couldn't take that kind of (physical labor). And then came back in and then went out again, got a leave to leave, and went towards Sacramento. By that time, Sacramento people were going back to Sacramento, so he went out back there to help the evacuees.

TI: And during this time, what was, I'm curious what your older brother was doing, Taki. Was he in camp, and was he...

BI: They were in camp, but they left camp. My brother's wife had a friend that had a farm in Idaho, somewhere in Idaho, and so they went to his ranch or farm, can't remember. So they left camp and left Mother and Dad in camp, and they, my brother and his wife and the children went to Idaho.

TI: Okay, I just wanted to follow up on that. Going back to your husband, was he ever drafted for the U.S. army?

BI: No.

TI: And why, why was that?

BI: I don't know.

TI: Hmm, okay. So he's in Sacramento helping farmers and Japanese sort of reestablish themselves, and then what happened? What was the next thing that happened?

BI: Then they wanted to close the camp, and of course, he didn't, he didn't know what to do. He was helping those people, he couldn't practice law in California, but he didn't want to go back to Washington. So they kept closing one block after another and I would move from one block to the next because everybody else was leaving. And many of the people in camp wondered if, if Ken was ever gonna come after me. [Laughs] He finally came and said that, that we were going to Los Angeles. And so my brother-in-law was living in camp, same camp.

TI: And this is Henry again?

BI: Yeah, Henry. So Henry helped me move from camp to L.A.

TI: Because Ken went ahead to...

BI: Yeah, Ken went ahead to see if he could find a place to live.

TI: Where did your parents go after, after camp?

BI: They went back to Bellevue.

TI: And you said earlier that you didn't want to go back to Washington?

BI: Well, no, I don't remember... I didn't care where I went as long as I got out of camp. I was willing to go, only I didn't want to go to Japan. I thought if I go to Japan I'll be really isolated, and you know Japanese, they stay out all night and the wife is left home. And I thought that was not the life for me. I didn't want to be left alone in a foreign country. [Laughs]

TI: Well, how did you feel about going to the big city, Los Angeles? Here you're a Bellevue girl, and now you're, you're gonna move to Los Angeles.

BI: That didn't bother me at all. I was just glad to be able to get out of camp.

TI: So you, you go to Los Angeles, and during this period, were there a lot of other Japanese and Japanese Americans in Los Angeles?

BI: Yes, they were all coming back.

TI: And so describe that. What was the community like in Los Angeles?

BI: Well, you know, when I came to Los Angeles, I thought we were gonna live in Los Angeles. But the housing was, there was such a shortage of housing, we landed up in Long Beach in a trailer court. And at that time, it was about an hour's drive on the red car from L.A. to where we were living, and Ken had his office in Los Angeles. (Narr. note: The red car was similar to a street car or train.)

TI: So in the Little Tokyo area?

BI: Yeah, in Little Tokyo. And so he'd leave in the morning and wouldn't get home until midnight, very late. And here I'm left there with the two kids in a trailer, and that went on for about six months. And that was almost worse than camp, because I was alone there. Henry had another trailer there in the same camp, but raising those two kids in a trailer house. And now we're on our own, we have to buy our own groceries and whatnot. And they had a community laundry but everybody was using laundry and sometimes the machine was broken, and it was raining, there was no place to hang your laundry. That went on for six months and I thought, "Oh, to heck with this." And then my brother-in-law (Jim Inouye), my (sister Hatsumi's) husband, they were in Manzanar. But his wife and children went back to Bellevue, and he stayed in L.A. Well, he came back to L.A., so he was a, had a very successful business in Los Angeles, and he came back I guess with the idea that maybe he could pick up that business again, but he ended up as a houseboy. And for six, well, I guess for the last six months he did that, and then he decided he was going to Seattle. So I said, he came and said he was going to Seattle, so I said, "Oh, you're going to Seattle? When are you going?" He said, "Tomorrow or day after," or something. I said, "Wait, wait for me, I'm going to go with you." [Laughs]

TI: 'Cause you were tired of living in a trailer park alone, and going back to -- well, because your family had the farm.

BI: Yeah, uh-huh. So I told Ken, "I'm leaving with Jim." And he was a little shocked that I was leaving, but I left. We drove, he drove his car with the two kids and went to Bellevue. Of course, Bellevue, his wife was there, they were living in the old house, and then my sister-in-law was in the new house with her three kids, and then my two kids. And that wasn't a picnic either, so Jim found a place in Seattle and he moved his family to Seattle. So I went there for a while, but he had two kids and I thought, the kids were always, they don't always get along, you know, like adults, so I thought, "Oh, God." Couldn't stand that either, and then Ken wrote and said he found a house in Los Angeles, and that he wanted me to come back. So I decided to go back to Los Angeles.

TI: Before we go to Los Angeles, what was, what kind of shape was the farm in, in Bellevue when you, when the family --

BI: It was pretty bad. My brother had leased it to, I think it was some Italians. And when they got back, the hothouse glasses, glass was broken and then the tractor was gone, and it was pretty, pretty bad shape. So they didn't farm very long after that.

TI: So they sold the land, and then what?

BI: Uh-huh, they sold the land, and they built a house near, closer to Renton.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.