<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So now, so after several months, eventually you leave the Portland assembly center, what happened next?

ST: You know, that was very sad because that's when they divided up... you remember they had people who wanted to go back to Japan. People signed up for this, whether they wanted to return. And very often it was families with no father that did this. And some of my friends' parents had signed up, and they were gonna have to go. And we just all wept, even at that age.

TI: This was, this was when you were at...

ST: The assembly center.

TI: ...the assembly center.

ST: Yeah. 'Cause they were gonna be sent down to Tule Lake. And so the trains came right on the premises, just like probably at Puyallup. And so we would, we all went down there, and we hugged our friends. And we'd only been there for a short time, and yet, they seemed...

TI: But you recall this at Portland, because most people would have said is that it happened at Minidoka, that that's when the "loyalty questionnaire" and things like that...

ST: Well, that's true, that happened there, but there were apparently some kind of request, that you could make a request to go to Japan. And this was, this, I'm sure this was -- of course, you know, imperfect memory. But I'm sure this was then.

TI: But then you recall some families, someone, the head of the household or whatever, deciding to go to Japan, and that the separation was very sad.

ST: Yeah. Even if we'd only known them for a short time. And then the train came for us to go, too, it was different, and the train came for us to go to Minidoka. And that was an interesting experience. The soldiers and staff on that train were very nice. They really, I think they really looked out for us. We were very fortunate, these were ancient antique cars. But we were very fortunate in that we had the only car on the train that had lights. We didn't know this until it got dark and the lights went on, and we thought, "Oh, that's good." I said, "Gee, they're not bright enough to hardly see by," you couldn't read hardly, they were so dim. And then my friends from the other cars came to visit and they said, "Hey, you've got lights." And we said, "Yeah, don't you?" and it was, "No." That was the only car on the train that had lights. But the other thing was, of course, it was warm. And we had the thing down, windows down. But at nighttime, they had to have all the blinds down. And we said, "Gee, we can't see out." But they called the stations, just like on a regular train, so we knew exactly where we were. I mean, if you knew... we knew when we had gone into Idaho, for instance, because they called the stations. And I remember one time in the daytime it was warm, and so one of the women had wrung out a handkerchief in water and put it over her face for cooling. And the soldiers and the medical, there was a medical staff of some sort on the train, and so one of, either a soldier or medical staff person saw this woman there, and they were concerned that she was not feeling well. So they came back with a nurse and somebody to interpret for them. And they were concerned about her and they asked her if she was okay, whether she needed help. And she was so embarrassed, because here she was just trying to keep cool, and she was trying to keep a low profile and, you know, all that. But so they were, they looked, I think they looked out for us.

In fact, when we, when you look back, all through this time, people were, the people you knew were kind to you. And I'm sure we had many kindnesses done for us that we didn't realize at the time. Things could have been worse, people could have been mean, people could have thrown things at our store and broken windows or written things on the windows, that never happened. We were never hurt or anybody ever said anything to us like when we walked to school, 'cause it was a long walk to school. Nothing like that ever happened. Even when we went to the police station to get our passes to go to the cemetery, to take, make final arrangements for my mother's ashes, they were very nice. And so, you know, I think when you look back, people realized it was a bad situation, and they were trying to do their best to make it comfortable for you. But of course, I was at the age where I wasn't hurt anyway. I wasn't... now, if you were a newly married couple with a baby, of course, this would have been bad.

TI: And that's kind of what... it is interesting, I think age does make a big difference...

ST: Oh, gosh, it makes a big difference.

TI: ...in terms of how this experience felt. And generally, the older you are, the more difficult it was, is what we hear.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.