<Begin Segment 24>

BT: Did you notice that the WRA wardens would be visiting you more frequently?

JT: No.

BT: It wasn't like you were on parole, that they would be checking up on you?

JT: No. We had no visitors from WRA or anyplace else. But after we came back, it was still warm. Because that picture that we have of the group, the way the picture looks, nobody's got jacket or clothes, heavy clothes on to keep warm. So I think we got back, it was still warm. And then several months later, they told us that they're gonna send us home. We probably knew probably about three or four weeks before we left, that they was gonna take us home to Gridley. We couldn't believe it, because we says, "The war is still going on."

TI: And so in terms of time period, this is, you said cold, so like in 1944, like in the January, February timeframe? Is that roughly about when you're talking about?

JT: Yeah. When we left, I think it was still warm. When we took the picture, I know it was warm. But when the two or three months we spent before we came home, I think the weather, it was fall, and it was getting cooler. And finally when we did come home, it was February 26th, end of February. And the reason that I can remember February 26th was a certain variety of peaches bloom at a certain time. And that particular year, that particular variety was late.

TI: And that's 1944?

JT: '44, February 26th.

TI: So this is really interesting. Because from what I've read, the government really didn't open up the West Coast until after the Endo case, which was the very end of, or beginning of 1945. And so they released you almost a year earlier than they officially opened the West Coast.

JT: I think we were the first group of prisoners that was released. I'm not sure about that, but I think we were. And I don't know how they picked my father and mother and my sister and I and my younger brother, how they picked this...

TI: So was it just your family or was it a group that was released?

JT: No, it was just us. There was five of us. My mother and father, my sister, and my younger brother and me. We got on the station wagon, we got our baggage, and we loaded it on. And they drove us home, right to the door.

TI: And why do you think your family was released so early?

JT: I have no idea, other than the fact there was two things, or two or three things. First, when we got incarcerated, Japan was advancing. And when we were released, Japan was being pushed back. Another thing was we had a home, we owned a house, we had a place to go. And my father had asthma, and up there at Tule Lake, some mornings, we thought we'd lose him because he couldn't breathe. Maybe that had something to do with it, too. But other than that, I have no idea why they picked on our family. And it wasn't all our family, it was just part of our family. Why it was my brother George or why it was me, why it was my sister, I don't know. All I know is February 26th, we were home in Gridley.

TI: And how did it feel to be back in Gridley?

JT: Oh, it's just completely different. You can get out and do what you want, you can shout, you can holler, you can do anything you want to do. The only thing was that we didn't have a car. And my brother that was in Moab eventually got released from Moab and ended up back in Tule Lake, and eventually, I don't know what year that was, but he eventually got out of Tule Lake and came home. And we were still looking for a car. You couldn't buy a new car even if you had finances available. You had a list. The first thing we went, we had to buy equipment for farming, 'cause we were back in farming. Says, "Well, we can put you on the list," and our list is about ten, fifteen names ahead of us. And he says for a couple of hundred dollars, we can move up a couple of notches, you know. Anyway, we had to have a car, and my brother had just been released, Mike had been released. And that day it was raining, he went to Sacramento to buy a car. And he found a car that he thought was okay, and he bought it and was coming home, got in an accident. The funny part of it is... I don't know if it was funny or not, but President Roosevelt put us in jail, put us in the concentration camp, his wife Eleanor heard about this accident. And this guy that owned the car that run into my brother, or the accident, I don't know which, how it happened, but it was an accident. And that guy says, "I'm gonna make an example of this 'Jap.'" And Eleanor Roosevelt heard about this, and she wrote a letter to this lawyer, I don't know if it was his car or if he was the lawyer that this guy, the other car, and he dropped it because of Eleanor. And she wrote a letter to Mike, my brother. And I says, to my nephew, I says, "Can you find that letter? It's worth something. Even if it's just... you got the First Lady sending you this letter, the copy of the letter that she sent to this guy that says, 'You'd better drop it or we're gonna put the hammer on you.'" And, of course, they dropped it and nothing happened. One man put us in jail and the other man backed us up. Other lady, the First Lady backed us up.

TI: That's a good story.

BT: Let me clarify. So when you were, you got out of Tule Lake in February '44, and at about the same time, Masashi was released from Moab?

JT: No. He was eventually released from Moab. I don't know if it was the same time or not. All those people that's in that second picture, they were all released and they went back to their address.

BT: So, but did Masashi rejoin you before the war was over?

JT: No. The war was over when he was released.

BT: Oh, okay.

TI: Going back, so that you were released early, like February 26, 1944, the first family back. Did the officials give you any instructions like, in terms of restrictions? Like did they ever tell you, "Don't go to San Francisco," "Don't go to Sacramento," anything like that?

JT: No. We were free. There was no anything to... they says, "You guys are home now, you're free." And there was no restrictions, we could do what we wanted to do. But we didn't have a car, and they had gas rationing. If we had a car, I think gas rationing was probably, they had alphabets on it, I don't know what they stood for. A, B, C, D. And the farmers had, they were, they could buy as much gas as they wanted. I think the A was something like two gallons a week, it increased depending on what your business was or what you was assigned. But all I know is the farmers, they got all the gas they wanted. If they needed a hundred gallons, they got a hundred gallons. If they needed two hundred gallons, they got two hundred gallons. So the people that leased our land, the Portuguese friend, we used to ask them, "Can we use your car? We got to go grocery store," or something like that. And yeah, we just used their car. And then when Mike came back, I said, "It's time that we got our own car." And we couldn't buy a new car because we was on the bottom of the list, even if we could afford it.

BT: So Mike came back after the war or before the war?

JT: I think he came back after the war was over. I'm not sure about that.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.