<Begin Segment 4>

TI: So after... so here's the situation. So your dad is ill after having a heart attack. He at Tule Lake has (four) children from a previous marriage, and they're older, they're educated in Japan, and then staying in his barracks is his wife, and then I guess at that point, four children, four other children from his second marriage. You're the oldest son, and I guess through the questionnaire, his family with his second wife are now scheduled to go to Heart Mountain you said?

TO: Uh-huh, right.

TI: Okay, so let's pick up the story there. So you're now scheduled to go to Heart Mountain but your father is ill. So how does this all work?

TO: I think by then he was able to walk and it wasn't a problem. I don't recall any particular problem going to Heart Mountain and going through the, whatever we had to go through to get there, and even in getting there. And I think, I don't remember what time of year, I think it was fairly cold when we got there, though. I'm not sure when that segregation was, date-wise. I don't have a very good memory for dates anyway.

TI: Do you recall, before you left for Heart Mountain, were other Japanese Americans coming from other camps to Tule Lake at that time?

TO: Yes. I think my youngest half sister, she was in Minidoka because she married a guy and they were living here in Seattle and so they went to Minidoka and then they came to Tule Lake. And I think that was about the time that we were leaving that she came to, she came to Tule Lake. So all four of the older half brothers and sisters were together.

TI: And so this was a real time of transition for Tule Lake. You had people, new people coming to Tule Lake, and some people leaving. Did you get a sense of the... what's the right word? I want to say tension or the feelings of the camp in these last couple weeks while you were there?

TO: I don't recall any, any feelings of that type. Of course, I was a young kid and I didn't see the big picture. But I don't recall any... I think my half brothers and sisters saw us off, so I do recall that. And other than that, I don't remember any violence towards us people leaving camp. Because, of course, there so many of them were leaving. I think by then, I think whoever was in charge, the FBI or whoever, pretty much had things under control as far as rioting or violence and that type of thing at that time. I heard later that they had riots there after we had left, but not when, not at that time when we were leaving.

TI: Okay. Any other memories? I mean, just, that transition period is something that, in some ways, hasn't been well-documented, so I'm always curious if there's memories that people have during this time period when people were coming and people were leaving. Or maybe one question would be, earlier you had this disagreement with your stepbrother. During the farewell, was it still a little tense between the two of you?

TO: Oh, yes, definitely. I didn't want to even talk to him. That's how bad it was.

TI: Was he still trying to convince your father to stay?

TO: No, by then it was too late, yeah. So he accepted that, because my mother with us and she kind of stuck up for us. And they, for some reason, they respected my mother because she cared for them when they first came back from Japan, so they had some respect for her.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.