<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Well, so after they expelled people from Terminal Island, eventually they, they started removing people from Los Angeles.

HN: Yes, right.

TI: So talk about that period, when you started seeing, or knowing that you had to leave Los Angeles. Describe that time.

HN: Well we, at that friend's house on 37th and Normandy, we used to go downtown with him, just to Little Tokyo. We had a friend who used to have a sushi shop in Little Tokyo. They were from Shizuoka prefecture, too, and my mother knew them real well. So once we got... their family talked my mother into coming, moving closer to them because they're from the same prefecture, so my mother, we moved right into downtown Los Angeles, just before the Executive Order 9066 was proclaimed. And I don't know if it was February, was it February?

TI: Yeah, February. February 19th. Okay, so you moved from your friend's into, into actually Little Tokyo.

HN: Little Tokyo. A hotel, yeah. It was a hotel where most, a lot of the, most of the customers were Japanese Americans around there.

TI: Now, during this time, did you know where your father was? Was there any contact or communication with your father?

HN: I think so, yeah. I think he was in Montana. Missoula, Montana.

TI: Missoula, Montana. Okay.

HN: Then somewhere along the line, he was sent over to Bismarck, North Dakota, then Fort Lincoln, where I ended up. I don't know the timing there.

TI: Okay, so Missoula then Bismarck.

HN: Then my father was returned while we were in the camp.

TI: Right, okay. So you're in Little Tokyo for a little period of time, and then you get your orders to leave. And so describe Little Tokyo during that time. What was that like when people had to leave?

HN: Well, it was... we, since we were outsider we never, we didn't intermingle too much with the people, except for the people living in the hotel. And people living in the hotels were most of 'em bachelors and singles, so they, they weren't too much commotion. They would let us go and so forth. And at the day of the evacuation we went to the place where we designated to board the bus.

TI: And do you remember where that place was?

HN: Yes. You know where the Japanese American National Museum is? Right beside it, just maybe one block down. Right there. And the only people out there more or less trying to make us comfortable was the Quaker, the American Friendship Society, Friendship Service. They were out there serving coffee, you know. I remember that.

TI: And can you recall about how many people were out there when this was happening?

HN: People who were gonna be evacuated? I don't know. There were buses after bus, you know, way on line, so probably a few thousand from Little Tokyo. All of the people living in Little Tokyo, where they got on the bus from that particular location.

TI: And how about people who weren't leaving? Were there people just watching?

HN: No, I didn't, I didn't see. The Little Tokyo in them days was strictly Japanese town, you know. So when we vacated, there weren't anybody living there.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.