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MN: Now, before you left, what did you do with your farm?

HY: Oh. The Filipino, we had three Filipino working for us, and they said they would... Filipinos, we gave it to them, in other words. Everything. Just run it as it is. But told 'em, "The first crop, if you could send the money to us," and by god, he did. Yeah, exactly. That really helped us out.

MN: But they got a good deal. They got the farm and a car --

HY: Oh, they got everything, yeah. The whole crop and everything. Everything I had in there.

MN: So why didn't you get a travel permit?

HY: I didn't have time, you know. I guess I could have, but only thing I had was my birth certificate.

MN: And you took one car?

HY: One car.

MN: It was the two Hawaiians and the young boy?

HY: Yeah, yeah.

MN: And yourself.

HY: Four of us.

MN: And what kind of car was that?

HY: That was a 1939, 1939 Chrysler I had.

MN: So it was a fairly new car at that time.

HY: Fairly.

MN: When did you start your drive to Colorado? In early morning?

HY: Early morning, the last day, I stayed 'til. I don't know what day that was, what year, I don't know. I stayed, we slept there 'til the last day.

MN: What route did you take?

HY: 66.

MN: Did you meet other Nikkeis?

HY: Yes, I did. We ran into a caravan near Needles, the border of California and New Mexico, huh? Needles. And lo and behold, I knew these guys. 'Cause one of the, he was our neighbor. And they wanted us to go with 'em. I told him, "We don't have no travel permit, gonna be a lot of trouble for you guys. So we're gonna go ahead of you guys." So we took off ourselves. New Mexico, Gallup, New Mexico. And gee, that's a lot of Indians there, though. And so we got one of the Indians, said, "Is there any Japanese living around there?" "Yeah, yeah," he says. "There are several Japanese living here. There's one working at the garage there." It was in the evening, so it was closed, you know. I think that was that Hershey, that celebrated the Gallup, New Mexico veteran?

MN: Hershey Miyamura.

HY: I didn't, we didn't meet him. And he took us to another Japanese family. And they were nice. They took us in, and her father was a, he worked on the railroad there, fixing those locomotives. And they put us up for the night. They were nice. And how sorry they were, you know, being, house, home and everything else. And the next day, we took off. At the border of New Mexico and Colorado, you know, there's a border patrol there. Oh, he worked us up. He really worked us up, yeah. He almost tore the whole car inside out trying to find something, you know. Held it up, held us up for about two, three hours. They couldn't find, he couldn't find a thing. So he called the FBI up in Denver, tell 'em what he should do with these guys. And the FBI said, "Well, let him go. And when they come to Denver, tell 'em to stop in the office." And man, he got mad, I'm telling you. He said, "If it was me, man, I'd line you bastards up and shoot you." [Laughs] Yeah.

MN: Do you think he would have shot you guys?

HY: Oh, yeah. I think he would have. Yeah.

MN: Now, this is at the border of Colorado and New Mexico.

HY: Yeah. Raton, Raton.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.