<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Okay, so let's start the second part. And what we were talking about was you were in Chicago, and then you heard that your father had died in camp. So why don't we pick it up from there? So after you heard that your father had died, what did you do next?

WY: Well, my mother didn't tell me that he had died, but he was very sick. So I rushed, I closed my, whatever I had, packed up a suitcase and came back to Poston. I was going to call it home. And he had already passed away. In fact, I was carrying my suitcase and it was night, and they dropped me off at the administration building, the bus. And I was walking home and I could hear people chattering. Because the people had already left camp, most of 'em, and there were just a few left, like my mother's family. She didn't know where to go. My father was ill, and I said, "Oh, he passed away." I left him when he was sick in the hospital, 'cause I wanted to get out of there so badly. He got well, but he did -- my mother tried to make me feel very guilty and said, "He keeps asking what happened to you." She said, "(Wakako) left." Anyway, he got well and he came home for a while. And then when the atomic bomb fell, I guess he just didn't want to go through that again, you know, making a living again at, he was fifty-eight, but that was considered pretty old. And he didn't want to do that again, and I'm pretty sure that's why he had ulcers, which is an emotional disease.

TI: And so you, do you think part of it -- so he had ulcers, he wasn't really that well, but then the atomic bomb dropped in Japan, two of them, and then the war came to an end. And then, essentially, the camps were going to start closing down. So are you saying, or do you think that it was hard for him to think about going back out and restarting?

WY: How could he start a farm, start working in a field at fifty-eight? In those days, it was considered quite old. Like they say, that sixty-two was considered the oldest that people, we used to get, and they didn't think they had to pay all this...

TI: So you think, perhaps, he just, in some ways, gave up?

WY: Yeah, he had ulcers and he started bleeding.

TI: And so how was it for you to hear that your father had --

WY: Well, I felt bad, but I'm a survivor. And I just, I was young, and I thought... I felt bad for him, but I thought that's the way of his escape and I could believe it. I would do that, too. And my mother didn't know where to go, so she said, "Let's go to the place the last group is going, San Diego." And from San Diego I moved to L.A. to go to art school.

TI: Just, I'm just curious, a little bit, so you were one of the last families to leave Poston?

WY: Uh-huh.

TI: So what was Poston like in these last few weeks when people were leaving?

WY: Yes, there was... I can't remember too much, actually, but I find that sometimes... I don't (have) those dreams anymore. But shortly after we left camp, I would dream that I was walking through fields of alfalfa about that wide, and the wind would be blowing and I was going through camp-like (grounds) and I would see people walking around. (They) were walking around so sadly. Because they were homeless. (The government had given) us twenty-five dollars apiece (to relocate from camp).

TI: Now, I'm curious, with your father, what kind of service did the family have, and what happened to the body? What did you do then?

WY: Oh, when I came home, I could hear people chatting, so I said, "Oh, he's dead and this is his funeral." It was his funeral. It was not his funeral, it was his wake. And the next day there was a funeral. My mother had him... there were very few people left in camp. My mother had him cremated, and I remember she was... I think this is in one of my stories. We were going with the last group of people that were just going to San Diego, we didn't know where to go. So she had his remains in her lap and she said, "They're still warm." So that's where we went, where everybody else, the last people were going. And my mother got a job in a tuna cannery, and I left there. Oh, I got a job at Kodak, what do you call, snapshot developer? (Photo finishing.)

TI: Like a photo developer?

WY: Yeah, yeah. That place, and I worked a year or so and then we were looking for a job. My sister and I, my sister was a crack stenographer. She got all these diplomas and all this, she couldn't get a job, racism was so great. And we went to this little (signs), it said, "Help wanted." We got off the bus, it was the last stop the bus made, and we were gonna walk to our trailer camp. And it says, "Help wanted." "I'll tell you what we'll do," I said, "we'll go in there and if they say, 'Oh, we just filled the job,' we'll say, 'Then you won't need this anymore, we'll just tear that (sign) up and leave.'" (But) they said, "Oh, sure. We need..."

TI: Oh, that's interesting. But when you see a "Help Wanted," you would think that if they walked in there and they said, "Oh, no, we filled it," that they were just saying that because you were Japanese.

WY: Yeah, we figured that. So I said, we were gonna say, "(Then) you won't need this anymore," and we'll tear (the sign) up. And that's what we were gonna do. I would have done it, she may not. But she got a job in the darkroom and I got a job developing those pictures. Sitting over this smelly old chemical developing those pictures and throwing 'em into the neutralizer all day long. [Laughs]

TI: I'm curious, what about your, the brother who went to Tule Lake? What happened to him? Where did he go?

WY: He didn't go anyplace. The war ended with the atomic bomb, and he -- oh, he joined the army at that point. He didn't have any skills, no money, anything, he decided to join the army. And he joined the army, and I guess he got out, and then he went to work for a farmer in Escondido or someplace. It was near Oceanside, inland a little bit more. And he was driving a truck for a while, and then he went to... what was the name of that? Occupational school called... I can't remember the name of it (Frank Wiggins School). And he was taking certain technologies like running machines or making machines or something. He ended up working in that field. So it wasn't too bad.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.