<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Now, you, while you were working at the car garage, you saw this line, the caravan of people coming down one day.

HY: Oh, yeah, yeah.

MN: Can you tell us that story?

HY: That's... I went to gas up on Wilmington and Avalon, it was that gas station I know. And there was this caravan coming, you know, towards us from San Pedro on Avalon. I guess it's just a line, I don't know how long. It was a long caravan from Terminal Island.

MN: Would you say it was about a mile long?

HY: Maybe longer than that, maybe. Yeah, lot of people from Terminal. There was a lot of fishermen there, you know.

MN: Why were they caravanning?

HY: Huh?

MN: Why were they caravanning?

HY: They had to get out. They were the first people that were instructed to leave, leave your home.

MN: So what were your feeling when you saw this?

HY: I felt, gee whiz, you know, it wasn't right, you know. And to leave your home, can't even sell it, leave everything in the, carry only a few belongings. Then they, you know, put us in the, I call it a concentration camp. I know somebody don't like the word "concentration camp," you know. It was just like those American Indians, put 'em in a reservation.

MN: So the government allowed this small window, three weeks, for Japanese Americans to move out of the West Coast military zone. And I've read that some of the neighboring states didn't want Japanese Americans to come to their state, and even the JACL Utah chapter didn't want Japanese Americans to move to Utah. And yet, you decided to move. Why?

HY: Yeah, we had, people who knows people in, lived in Colorado. And the governor said that the Japanese are welcome in Colorado. That was, I believe his name was Governor Carr at that time. And I moved my family to Colorado before evacuation. And I was the only, I was the, me and another kid, you know, one of our, what do you call it, friends' kid stayed there and farmed a year in Wilmington 'til the last day.

MN: So your mother, your mother went first.

HY: My family, yeah. My mom and a friend, two friends.

MN: How did they get to Colorado?

HY: Train. I put everything on the train.

MN: There was no problem with that?

HY: No problem. Heck, bedding and stuff, you know, throw it in there.

MN: Now, you said you stayed behind. Why did you stay behind?

HY: Why did I stay behind? I just... because I wanted to take my car, that's why, too. I had two cars, but I had to leave one out here, to the guy who owned the garage. And I took my other car and a couple of Hawaii boys that I met at the auto school, they were caught, you know. They couldn't go back, so they said, wondered if I would take them to Colorado.

MN: So was it --

HY: And we get, we didn't get any, he didn't get any traveling permit. I didn't get any traveling permit. I told him that and he said, "I don't have it either." Well, only thing to do is take a chance. Only thing you could do is put us in the camp if they catch us, so we went.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.