<Begin Segment 4>

MA: So during your time at Poston, you told me earlier that your father was actually able to secure some sort of work leave?

CT: Yeah, at that time, they were, the farmers, the farmers were, had gone to fight during the war. So that it didn't leave a lot of people left to bring in the crops. And so, now I understand that all of the camps, people were able to leave and go work on and bring in the crops. But Colorado, sugar beets was the big cash crop during that time, so they needed a lot of workers to harvest the sugar beets. So my father and couple brothers and two others were able to get leave so then they came to Colorado. We came by train. And I do have memories about that, in that I remember being on the train and that the men had to get off and go into town and get food, you know when... because I don't remember that we were able to go into the dining car. But they would get sandwiches and things and come back when the train stopped. So I do remember being on the train. And then when they got here, then they went to work for a farmer to bring in whatever the crop that they had. And then they finished that, bringing in that harvest, and they moved on up toward the northern part of the state, and through Fort Lupton, and then we lived in Greeley. And then the crops were done and winter was coming, and in other camps, everybody had to go back to the camp after they finished the season.

MA: Right, like a seasonal leave.

CT: But because we were in Colorado and it was kind of considered like a free state, because Governor Carr said that Japanese Americans could come to the state and live, then we were able to stay. So that's why we, and we had relatives here. So that's why we stayed, until it was kind of like safe to go back to the West Coast and then we moved back to Los Angeles for a while. And then we moved back to Denver again. [Laughs]

MA: That's interesting that you referred to Colorado as sort of a free state. And you know, the impact of, I guess, Governor Carr's words and opening up Colorado had a big impact.

CT: Yeah, it had a lot of impact on a lot of people who, because when Amache closed, then they also kind of came up here to the Denver metro area. And then other people, like my husband's family was in Gila and they came to Colorado after they closed the camps. So for a period of time, the Denver area had one of the largest Japanese American communities as people were waiting to be able to go back. 'Cause I'm with the Heart Mountain Wyoming Foundation and the people, the local people there are trying to develop a center, a learning center for the state. And the governor of that state said -- and the people that were around there said, "You need to put them on a train and just send them back to wherever they came from." And so you don't find very many Japanese Americans that are in the state of Wyoming unless they were there before the war. I don't know, I guess I considered it a free state because you were able to stay here. [Laughs]

MA: What year did you leave Poston?

CT: I don't think we were in camp for more than about nine months or so. Because when I came here, again, I continued preschool when school started and then was here in the farming community for kindergarten in the fall.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.