Densho Digital Archive - Irene Najima Interview (denshovh-nirene-01-0014)

<Begin Segment 14>

MA: Okay, so I wanted to ask you about the day that you left for the Merced Assembly Center, your memories of that day.

IN: We were given, I think, about a week's notice. Maybe more, maybe, I don't remember, but it was short. And I don't remember how we got to Merced, but I know it was right after a rain. And they had built these, what would you call them? Barracks? And all I remember is they had sort of leveled the ground, but it was newly leveled, and it was muddy. And I remember plowing through that mud. But it was a very short stay in Merced. I don't remember how long we stayed there.

MA: And what were your living conditions like in Merced? Like the barracks you were in?

IN: It was a barrack, a one-room barrack. They were new, I think they were newly built, but it was just barracks. I don't remember too much about the assembly center. All I know is I remember it was muddy, really muddy. Because they had touched the soil recently.

MA: And so going with you to the assembly center was your mother and all of your siblings?

IN: No, by then, my older brothers were off to the university, or they were going to college. My sister was with me, my two brothers, and myself. The other brothers were all gone by then. Either to the university, or on a job, I guess.

MA: So they, some of your other siblings weren't ever in camp? They were inland?

IN: Right, because one of my brothers had just graduated optometry school at the University of California, and they had waited for him to graduate to induct him. And the minute he graduated he was put into the military. Oh, by the way, he went in as a buck private, and he had a degree. And the highest he got was, I think, private first class.

MA: And did he serve throughout the war, and was he in Europe?

IN: Yes, he served in Arkansas. He never went overseas, but he worked as a optometrist at the camp. But he always worked under somebody else. And he became a private first class. We were very pleased when he, when he got that. [Laughs]