<Begin Segment 11>

BH: So in September of 1942, you were transferred to Camp Minidoka.

KH: Uh-huh.

BH: So can you tell me about the process that you guys underwent to get from Puyallup to Minidoka?

KH: We were all put into trains, and the trains all had their shades down. We could not look out and see the scenery all the way. And we were separated from my mother, my mother got sick. And I guess her condition was serious enough that she had to go under the care of a doctor on the train, and when we got to camp, she was able to join us. But we found out later that she had to have surgery.

BH: She had to have surgery on...

KH: She had a hysterectomy.

BH: So this was prior to her arrival at Camp Minidoka?

KH: No. She had to have, the hysterectomy was done in camp, down in Minidoka.

BH: So the train ride over, was that a difficult experience for you?

KH: It was hot; it was very hot and very uncomfortable for a lot of us, I think.

BH: And tell me about how your family, how you felt, because you've moved once, you've been taken from your homes and moved to Puyallup.

KH: Yeah. And to be moved someplace so far away, many of us hadn't gone out of the Seattle area to live. This was a new experience for us: "where are we going?"

BH: So was it, in a way, frightening?

KH: Yes. And then when we got to Minidoka, it was quite dismal. Barracks and no insulation, it was, it was going into fall and it was getting cold in the mornings, frost. And then we had a central mess hall, a central washrooms and bathroom facilities, laundry, we had, it was, there was no running water in the units, we all had potbelly stoves that was heated with coal.

BH: Let's go back to your mother for a moment. You said that you were separated from her on the journey in the train. So how did that make you feel? Were you scared that maybe you wouldn't see her?

KH: We were wondering where she was, they didn't tell us that she was gonna be taken in a, you know, separate -- maybe they told my father, but us kids didn't know about it.

BH: And so that, did that frighten you?

KH: So it kind of worried us that she wasn't with us. And then later on, when we were in camp, she did catch up with us.

BH: So that was a really good time for you, then, a really nice surprise?

KH: Well, I can't remember if she was bedridden at that time. She stayed in the room, we were given two, two rooms once we got to Minidoka, and they were opposite to each other, but we had to go through a door to go into each other's unit.

BH: So typically, families at Minidoka were only given one room. How come, was your family just so large that they had to give you --

KH: Oh, it was so large.

BH: They had to give you two?

KH: Yes. The four girls were put in one, one room, and my father, mother and the two boys were in, in the other room.

BH: So you had given a little bit about your mother's medical treatment. She was treated in camp. Was the treatment there adequate? Did they have the proper setup, the proper supplies to do everything they could?

KH: I guess it had to be because she had a hysterectomy operation, and it was done by a Japanese doctor from California who was interned, and he did the surgery for my mother. And she had a large tumor, and they put the tumor into a glass bell jar, and they said it was three-fourths full, is what I remember.

BH: Wow. In regards to the medical procedure, did they have to get any special permission to perform it?

KH: That I don't know. And the, and the worst part is, like, we had the doctors in there working, our salaries in camp, I think we, working as waitresses, got only nine dollars a month. I'm not too sure, but I think the doctors got twenty-seven dollars a month.

BH: So you were paid for...

KH: Yes, somebody else might verify that.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.