<Begin Segment 3>

MA: So you were born in 1937. What were your, what were your parents doing in terms of jobs at that point?

CT: My father was in partnership in a produce business in Los Angeles, and my mother was a homemaker.

MA: Where were you, what area of Los Angeles were you living in?

CT: In the Boyle Heights area.

MA: So you were born, then, four years before Pearl Harbor. Do you have any memories of Pearl Harbor? I mean, I guess you were so young, but...

CT: Yeah. I don't really have memories of Pearl Harbor, but, and I don't even remember very much about going to camp.

MA: 'Cause you were, must have been four when Pearl Harbor happened.

CT: I think I was three. Three or four.

MA: So your family were removed to which assembly center?

CT: We didn't go to an assembly center. For some reason, the area that we were living in, we didn't have to go. And so we went directly to Poston.

MA: Oh, really?

CT: But my grandfather, word had gotten out that we were gonna be moved, and so he sold his business and moved my grandmother and the sister, my aunts, into Los Angeles closer to where we lived so that when the orders came, that we would be able to go to camp as a family. And so all of, both sides of my family, we were all in Poston in the same camp. I mean, in the same, it was Camp One, in Poston. So we were all together, but I think we were pretty fortunate to have everybody at one place.

MA: And you went directly then from L.A. to Poston?

CT: From, that's what they tell me. I don't remember it. I do remember riding a train.

MA: Oh, really? What do you remember about the train?

CT: Oh, just being on a train. But I don't remember anything else. I've read about other people's experiences, but I don't remember very much.

MA: Yeah. So your family was in Poston. And that must have been 1942, May.

CT: You know, I don't even remember the years. [Laughs]

MA: Yeah.

CT: I know I went to preschool there.

MA: Oh, you went to preschool in Poston?

CT: Yeah, I went to, yeah, there was a preschool for the younger ones by the time we got there. I think before that from what I've read, that the army didn't prepare for the educational programming of all of the children that were going to be there. But by the time we got to Poston -- and I don't know the length of time, but I do know that they had school there.

MA: And did you have siblings at that point?

CT: I had a younger brother that was three years younger, and he was an infant. So when we talk, he doesn't remember anything. And I don't remember a lot about camp except a few things. I always tell people this funny story about as an adult, I hated the smell of canned milk and I never knew why. But a lot of people use canned milk for their coffee. And when I would smell it, it would just kind of trigger like, oh, I don't like canned milk. And then one time when we were talking and I was sharing some memories about camp and everything, somebody served coffee and they had the canned milk and I said, "Oh no, I don't like canned milk. I don't like the smell of it." And they said, "Oh, why not?" And I said, "'Cause it reminds me of camp." And that was the first time that I drew a connection that I did kind of remember something, but it wasn't on a verbal level. It was more from an emotional reaction level.

MA: Right. It was almost like that smell triggered...

CT: Kind of triggered this, an unpleasantness that I had.

MA: Right.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.