<Begin Segment 7>

TI: So you were born in 1935, so when the war broke out, you would be about six years old.

MS: About six, uh-huh.

TI: So this is about the time Pearl Harbor was attacked. Do you have any recollection of that?

MS: Not at all. I only, the only recollection is that I know my grandparents were very, they were talking. But I didn't pay much attention to it, it didn't seem to affect me that much directly. I just remember that right before we had to relocate, my grandmother was disposing of Japanese things, my dolls and things like that all disappeared. I think she buried them in the backyard somewhere.

TI: Oh, so all these, anything to do with, Japanese dolls, books maybe, things like that were all gone.

MS: Yeah, just destroyed.

TI: Now, the property, the house, was that owned by...

MS: No, I think it was all owned by the owner of the ranch. So it's still there. 'Cause I've gone back to visit it with my cousin, the house and all the farm buildings, the sheds and the barns and all that, it's still there.

TI: And so when you go back and look at this, does it look pretty much the same?

MS: The house really does look the same. And even the little shack that my grandparents and I lived in is still there. And we drove by the school, it kind of seemed familiar.

TI: And what was the community name? I mean, you mentioned Stockton, but this...

MS: Yeah. It's closer to Lodi, which is a small town between Sacramento and Stockton. And then if you go west of that, there's a whole series of islands that are in, surrounded by the delta rivers. And the island was called Terminus Island.

TI: And so when people locally would ask you where you were from, Terminus Island would be how you would describe it.

MS: Well, mostly I think we said we were from Lodi.

TI: Lodi.

MS: Uh-huh.

TI: And if you're in Lodi, then you say Terminus Island, for the real locals, I guess.

MS: Right, uh-huh, then they would know what that means.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.