<Begin Segment 21>

TI: And then after that, what further contact did you have with your father?

MY: I didn't have any more contact with him until he came home, I mean, he came to Pinedale, came back in June. And I guess other people had it worse, there were some that didn't come back 'til after the war.

TI: And so how did you find out what happened to your father after the immigration building? Where did he go and how did you know?

MY: Well, then they gave him a limit of two correspondence a week. But then December the 29th, I think, is when they transferred him to Montana. And so in his letter, he wrote that, "I'm thinking that I'm going by the Katos and the Hamadas' house now, because they live right along the railroad track. And he says, "I don't know where we're going, but we're on a train." And, of course, later he found out where. And he says, "It's by the, just by looking at the time and kind of guessing," he says, "I'm guessing that I'm, the train is passing through Thomas." And what a feeling that must have been, to know that he's getting shipped away from there and he didn't know where he was going, and to begin with, he didn't know why.

TI: And when you mentioned the correspondence, twice a week, did he correspond in English or Japanese?

MY: English.

TI: By any chance, did you guys keep those letters?

MY: Yeah, I did. I've got a lot of those in the original Densho book that Sheri got those pictures. I don't know who developed them, but... (Narr. note: I think I have most of them written in Japanese and English.)

TI: Yeah, I'd like to, I'll have to take a look at those. So with your father gone, how did, what did the family do to cope with your father gone? What happened next?

MY: Well, the older brothers were around, so that wasn't any problem as far as everyday necessities and getting along was concerned. So... (Narr. note: In hindsight, thanks to Mom's strength, I don't know how she held herself together.)

TI: How did it impact the younger kids? I mean, you're kind of like right in the middle, and so you had the older siblings to help take care of things. What about the younger ones? How did all this affect them?

MY: I don't know. I asked my brothers that, and they says, "Well, we were just little kids, and we just..." my brother says, "well, I guess we just figured this is the way it was, so we just had to go with it day by day as we came along." And fortunately, there doesn't seem to have been any misbehaving or anything at school.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.