<Begin Segment 17>

MN: Now, did you and your father get arrested at the same time?

CH: Yeah, same time. We went together.

MN: Where did they take you?

CH: They took us to immigration station, you know, immigration, three or four days. But since I know how to talk Japanese and English, I was an interpreter there for those guys. The main question they asked was, "What part of Japan you come from?" "What you were in Japan or what kind of group you belong to?" That was the main, three questions. And, "Were you in the service before the Russian-Japanese war or Chinese-Japan war?" That was the aid, see. That was the main question and that's it. So when I was at the interview, "Hey, okay, all you guys go home." I was going home, too. They didn't know I was supposed to be in there. One guard finally, "Hey, that guy, don't let that guy go. He belongs here."

TI: Well, let me make sure I understand. So there are other interpreters, and they would go home and you would try to walk out with them?

CH: Yeah, yeah, right, we tried to go home. My two Russian friends, Andy and Jerry Cantwell, they know how to talk Japanese just like me. They were going over there, we went on these things. "Okay, let's go home." "Okay, let's go." That guy, he caught me, man. [Laughs]

TI: Now, when you were interpreting...

CH: Huh?

TI: When you were helping to interpret, what was the mood? Were people, the Isseis, were they frightened or were they worried?

CH: Nah, they weren't worried. Well, worried about the family. The family didn't know where they were going. If you got family, worried. Like me, I wasn't even worried or nothing. I said, "Hell," I say. When they, February 5 or 6, from there, they ship us to Union Station over here, the bus going in, and I see all my friends, "Hey, Oihe, where you going?" "I don't know. Goodbye, might see you later." Everybody, I see all my friends, 'cause their father was taken in. I see all the guys on the bus, then that was it.

TI: So I'm guessing some of your friends maybe were surprised, because they probably thought you were Nisei or born in Terminal Island, not in Japan. So they were saying, "Why you?"

CH: They didn't... one guy, there were a few guys, they knew I was born in Japan.

MN: What was the average age, average age of the Isseis who were taken along with you?

CH: What was that?

MN: Average age.

CH: Oh, they were, most of them were born before, late '80s, 1800s, late 1800s. My father was born 1876.

MN: How old was he at that time?

CH: 1876, so twenty-four plus four, sixty something.

TI: About sixty-five?

MN: And you were how old?

CH: I was nineteen.

MN: So there was a big age difference.

CH: Yeah, well, I was the youngest.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.