<Begin Segment 13>

MA: So going back to your time in Fort Lupton, you were living with your aunt and uncle. What were they doing out in Colorado?

NM: Well, my aunt is a baishakunin marriage.

MA: Arranged.

NM: Yeah. And she married someone from Colorado.

MA: And then they moved to Fort Lupton.

NM. Uh-huh, and farmed.

MA: So after Pearl Harbor happened, you were eleven, you were pretty young. Was there any talk of you going back to the West Coast? Did you try to go back? Or were you pretty much going to stay in Fort Lupton?

NM: Yeah, I was going to stay in Fort Lupton, but eventually, I moved back to Denver with my grandparents.

MA: But there was never any talk of you going, like you said your aunt had traveled back to the West Coast. There was never any talk of you?

NM: What happened was there was only room for one person, my aunt had one ticket to go back. And she had to send for her birth certificate in order to go back. And I don't understand that either, because traveling, I thought was restricted. So, I don't know how she got back.

MA: So somehow she got back to --

NM: Santa Monica.

MA: -- Santa Monica.

NM: And then shortly after that, my grandparents and my two aunts and one of the baby cousins came on the train. And they could only carry what they could carry. So my two aunts had to share one little suitcase with all their belongings.

MA: What happened to your grandparents' home and everything that they, their possessions?

NM: I don't know. See, when my uncle was the last one to leave the house, and he just shut the door and came, left, everything was left behind. And I think my grandfather before he left, he buried a lot of stuff under the house. 'Cause the house, I guess, sat on stilts in Santa Monica. And I guess it's still there, or it's disintegrated, I don't know. Yeah, but they lost everything. I remember I had dolls for Girls Day and kimonos and all that, and I don't know what happened to 'em.

MA: Yeah, everything was gone. So was there in Fort Lupton specifically after Pearl Harbor, any sort of, did you feel any tension in Fort Lupton, or any sense of like discrimination or prejudice against the community?

NM: I don't remember.

MA: So in school, you didn't really feel any change?

NM: No. I was just shy anyways, so I wasn't a very outgoing person. [Laughs] No, but like I was telling my oldest, well, my son, and he said that when he was going to school, he had a lot of prejudice. People calling him the J-word and all that. Surprisingly.

MA: And that was in the '50s?

NM: Oh, let's see...

MA: Or '60s.

NM: Yeah, '60. Grade school and middle school. And he just told me this the other day, and I didn't realize that they had problems.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.