<Begin Segment 3>

MA: But you know that they, your father and mother reunited at some point, is that correct?

EH: Yes.

MA: In camp? Was it in Jerome?

EH: No. I'm guessing someplace, sometime around 1943 in Tule Lake. And my understanding is they were sent to Tule Lake and got reunited because they were on a list to be shipped to Japan on a prisoner exchange type of situation. My mom -- bless her heart -- was an activist. She really gave the government a hard time because she refused to sign the "loyalty oath" thing. Her attitude was, "I'm an American citizen, I don't have to sign this. If you require every American citizen to sign this, I'll sign it. Otherwise I don't have to, I'm an American citizen." And I guess because of that, she was branded or labeled or whatever.

MA: And so she was going to be sent to Japan?

EH: Yeah, sent to Japan.

MA: And then your father was somehow gonna join her?

EH: No. They were gonna get shipped from Tule Lake to Japan, from what I understand.

MA: Okay, so this was in Tule Lake.

EH: Yeah. And as far as accuracy is concerned, I'm not sure, too, because this is hearsay. There's nothing concrete or anything, but -- [coughs] excuse me -- people know that they were putting together a prisoner exchange type of thing. When it happened, not too many people know, and who was on that list, not too many people know. But for some reason, they knew that my parents were on that list, and they weren't gonna send 'em without her kids. I would have been, like, one year old at that time and my sister two and my brother four.

MA: And so... what stopped them from...

EH: The war ended.

MA: Oh, the war ended, okay.

EH: [Laughs] So I keep joking with my friends, if it went on for maybe another six months, I may not have been here. I would have been growing up in Japan.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.