<Begin Segment 27>

TI: So these guys, before we go there, I want to talk more about your, your experiences. So eventually it was your turn to go.

HS: Yeah.

TI: And I want you to just describe what that day was like.

HS: It was a, it was March the 23rd or 24th, and it was like, it was just an ordinary dull day in Prince Rupert. And we were told that, my mother, obviously, was told that trucks would come and they would pick up all our luggage and ourselves, we were driven, driven to the train station and then we're gonna be shipped south to Vancouver. By this time, they had decided that we would be all housed in the Hastings Park exhibition grounds. Now, Hastings Park is in the north side of --

TI: I want to go there, but I want to still talk about Prince Rupert. So on that day, you're going to the train station, and so all the Japanese are now...

HS: Are being gathered down there. All the Japanese from Prince Rupert plus a number of the Japanese from the various, various little villages or what you call settlements along the West Coast. Six hundred plus were, mainly women and kids, because most of the men had been sent off -- except for older men. I forgot, but we had some older men, no question there was men there, too, and there were some young men, too, still. But most of them were being, had gone to the work camps, so what was left was the six hundred involved men, women and children, and some older people.

TI: What was the mood like when the six hundred of you were...

HS: Well, we were, you know, in a way, we didn't know what was happening. Myself, I know I came, went down to, we went down to the station, and when I got down there, my grade seven teacher and a number of her students were down there. And they had come to see me off, 'cause they knew that this was happening. And so after all, when you consider the ten percent or more of the students in that class were suddenly told that they're going to have to leave, and we were, we had been in school the day before, next day we're going.

TI: So were you expecting to see your teacher and students there?

HS: No, I hadn't expected to see them, but they were down there to see me, see us off, and certainly they said, well, I still remember this one girl saying, "Where are you guys going?" And I said, "Well, I don't know where we're going." I didn't have any idea where these trains were taking us. We, all we knew was we were getting on the train, and we were going south. I didn't know at that time that we were going to Vancouver, but as time goes on, of course, we're going further south, everybody realized we're going. And then the parents knew, but they didn't say anything about that to us.

TI: Well, how did it make you feel to see your teacher and classmates come see you off?

HS: Well, I was, I really didn't know. I wasn't all that, I wasn't really emotionally depressed about the whole situation. One thing was, in a way, now, I think back, and I think that, I kind of was thinking secretly, "Boy, I'm getting out of Prince Rupert. Isn't it a great thing?" [Laughs] 'Cause the rain and the, and the dismal weather was something that always kind of (depressing). We had spent one summer in Vancouver as a kid, we were sent down there. About two or three years before, we were sent down there, and we thought, "God, wouldn't it be lovely to live down here?" because it was perpetual sunshine. Well, it wasn't perpetual sun, we just thought it was. It happened to be, it happened to be a nice summer. Anyhow, so although we were, in a way, I was, I remember seeing these students that I knew, I was sad in a way of leaving them, but it was like I was going on a holiday, or I was leaving for a vacation or something. So it didn't strike me as, that this was it, this was the last time I'd ever see them again. I still thought somehow, there was this thing that we're gonna be going away for maybe a short time, we should be back within, within six months or more. We'll be back.

TI: So you didn't realize that you were actually saying goodbye to these people.

HS: Yeah. Oh, no, I didn't. But we were, I know that we were told that this was not permanent, and I think that was another reason. Like there were people I know that were in, for instance, Salt Spring Island is right now having a big discussion about what happened. Salt Spring Island is sort of like Bainbridge Island, it's right off, off the coast of... and a big Japanese population there. And this one family being packed up, and they were sent to the same place, the exhibition grounds, where we were. And the mother is saying, said that they, the Mounties had come and said, "Well, you guys gotta leave, this is the order from the government. Don't worry, don't worry, you'll be back, so don't, don't worry about it. You can just walk out, you don't even have to lock your doors. Leave everything as is, we'll look after it, you guys go." She said, "That's what I was told." Of course, that was (not the truth).

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.