<Begin Segment 25>

TI: Okay, so let's go back now to Prince Rupert. When did things start happening? I mean, when did you first hear this --

HS: It happened, it happened February.

TI: And what did you hear? I mean, what happened?

HS: By, by February it happened, by February they just, Order in Council was done where decided that they would, they decided to remove all people of Japanese ancestry (...) within a hundred miles of the West Coast. People of Japanese ancestry could not be closer than a hundred miles from the West Coast line.

TI: How did the Japanese community find out about this?

HS: That came out, it came out mainly through The New Canadian, because they had to -- and, of course, they put up public notices all over.

TI: And how long did the community have to, to react to this?

HS: Well, they just, there was no, there was no, nothing said, other than that. Next thing you know, then they decide -- then it would have to, then after that, then they said, well, they would, you wouldn't, you were not allowed to be a hundred miles within the West Coast, well, we're all on the West Coast. Nine-nine percent of Japanese people in the West Coast were within a few miles of the coastline. So that meant, basically, all of them had to somehow get out of there.

TI: So at this point, what did your parents or your dad do with...

HS: Well, at that point, he decided he didn't, he couldn't sell his business, so he decided he would go and talk to the Gurevichs about maybe they would be willing to rent his place and pay him rent to use it.

TI: So explain to me who the Gurevichs were.

HS: Those were, the Gurevichs were the, were the people that owned the taxi, remember? And then their son was the one that was killed by the, by the RCMP.

TI: And so they were, like, friends, was he a friend of your father?

HS: They weren't, they weren't particularly friends, we didn't, my dad didn't socialize, but he, he sort of felt that they were probably more sympathetic because they already had their run-in with the government, but he also knew them. He knew them 'cause he had -- and so he approached them about renting, and they agreed to take over the restaurant and run the restaurant and pay rent. And that was the idea. So he thought he had that settled. Now, when the order came for us to leave the West Coast...

TI: And about when was that? When did you leave?

HS: That happened in March. And in actual, when in March is I can't, I can't tell you how the word came to us, but the word obviously came to the, my parents, and it may have been people going, no, the RCMP coming to visit us and saying to them, "You have to leave, and there's a train being arranged for you on the 23rd of March." We didn't have any idea of this happening, except my mother told us we have to get ready to leave.

TI: And what did that mean, getting ready to leave?

HS: Well, we were all given, we had to pack a suitcase each. So every child was given -- I think each child was given fifty pounds, and that was, fifty pounds, and each adult, I think, was seventy-five pounds, and each family was given another allotment, was 150 pounds. So it depended, so everybody, every family would be in the neighborhood of about three or four hundred pounds of material that you could take with you.

TI: So what did you pack in your fifty pounds?

HS: Well, mostly clothes. Mostly clothes. I took, I think I took a few toys that I wanted to put into my -- but we were given, my mother got some suitcases, old suitcases, and she said, "Put this in," she had some old suitcases. And then she packed everything else and put it in storage in the, in the storage room. We had a storage room in the hotel, and she put everything else in there. And dishes, everything. And, but of course, the restaurant dishes and pots and pans were left just like that, because my father rented the restaurant out to Gurevichs.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.