<Begin Segment 6>

MN: Now I'm gonna return back to 1941. I know you were still a child, but do you know if your parents' bank account was frozen?

TS: It may have. I don't, they never discussed it with me because I had older brothers. I was the young punk and they didn't consult with me about anything.

MN: Do you know if your parents lost clients right after Pearl Harbor?

TS: They must have. (...)

MN: And once the government announced the camp incarceration orders, do you know what your parents did with the plants and the nursery?

TS: All I know is that the car, we had a pick up truck and we sold it to a guy named Winsel Gibbs' nursery. It was a big nursery in Inglewood. We sold it to them and we came back, the guy sold it back to us. (It was a) prominent hakujin nursery.

MN: They had, was that, did they have a chain of nurseries before the war?

TS: I think (they) did, (yes).

MN: When your family was preparing to go to camp, what did they do with the furniture and other huge household belongings?

TS: We stored it with a hakujin neighbor.

MN: Now, after the war, when your family came back, were they able to retrieve the belongings?

TS: (Yes), and I remember my brother was in the automotive racing business and I remember we stored his engine in (the) hakujin neighbor's cellar. We picked it up after the war and he resumed racing. My brother was very prominent in racing (...).

MN: Now, you were just a child. How did your parents explain to you that you, the family was going into camp?

TS: They didn't explain it to me at all. I knew we were going to camp. They had posters on the telephone poles telling us that we had to meet at a certain place. I think we met at Thirty-fifth and Normandie when we got on the bus to go to Santa Anita. (...)

MN: Do you know how you got to Thirty-fifth and Normandie? Did you walk there?

TS: We walked.

MN: Do you remember how you prepared your suitcase, what you put in there?

TS: Don't remember at all.

MN: So from this gathering place that you think was Thirty-fifth and Normandie, where did they take you?

TS: To Santa Anita.

MN: And how did, how did they take you to Santa Anita?

TS: What's that?

MN: How did you, how did you get to Santa Anita?

TS: On a bus.

MN: Was it an army bus?

TS: Looked to me like a regular bus.

MN: Now, when you got on the bus, did they announce that you were going to Santa Anita?

TS: They didn't announce anything. They didn't tell us anything.

MN: Did you know where you were going?

TS: No. I had no idea where we were going.

MN: Now, as a child, you're getting on this bus, what did you think? Was it scary, was it exciting?

TS: No, it wasn't anything. I just thought, hey, we're going somewhere.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.