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MN: Now, when were you released from Manzanar?

AM: Well, we were, I was there until about five months before the camp closed. I came to Los Angeles before my family did and I started to work for a photo studio in Los Angeles. So one of the reasons why was because we, the house which my father owned, he had to rent it out to somebody, so the family couldn't come out until, well, even after the camp closed and my family came out, the house was still occupied, so we converted one of the garage into a living quarter and that's where the family was living until the people moved out of the house.

MN: So when you went out by yourself, earlier than your family, where were you living?

AM: I went to live at my friend's home and things like that, which was fairly close to where I, where my home was. So that was a big help because these friends had, they had pretty big houses and so I used to live with them.

MN: Do you have an idea, was it the summer of '45 that you came out, or...

AM: Yeah, it was about summer of '45. Springtime of '45.

MN: Springtime of '45, okay. And then you said you were staying with your friends' house. Was one of them Taro Kawa's house?

AM: Yeah, that was one of them.

MN: I know Taro had a lot of people stay at his house, and he said they used to have to eat in shifts. Do you remember that?

AM: [Laughs] Yeah. Yeah, they were such nice people and they were very generous, too, so, well actually, my parents knew Taro's parents from way back and they were old friends. And they lived fairly close to where my father had his home, so when we asked them if there's any place where I could stay that was one of the houses. And there were a few other people staying there when I was there, but they had such a big house that you wouldn't run into other people that much. So they, the Kawa family came back quite early, I guess. They were in a different camp, but...

MN: 'Cause the Kawas operated the Enbun and I believe Enbun Market was maybe the second business to open in Little Tokyo.

AM: Yeah.

MN: And they, he told me that when they came back they actually went back to Manzanar on a truck and helped people from Manzanar move out. Did you out in any of that?

AM: No, I did not take part in that. The way we moved out was one of the friends that lived in the same block had a truck, so he says, "Somehow if I can get back to Torrance I can go after my truck. I have a farm there and people that's running the farm." He said there's a truck that he could take out, so, in fact, the way we got this one car was kind of odd because this man that lived in Independence used to come and sell eggs to my mother every two weeks and then the last trip that he made he told my father, "Well, I guess this is the last trip because you won't be here anymore, and I guess I won't need this car anymore, so I'm gonna get rid of it." And my father said, "You are?" Says, "What about if, would you sell it to me?" He says, "You want to buy it?" It was a 1929 Model A Ford. And my father said, "Yeah," says, "I'll buy it." And then I think he said, "It would cost you two hundred dollars." My father said, "Sure, I'll buy it," so he bought it. And a little after he bought it this one author that lives in Eastern Coast was putting together a book. It was called Beauty Behind Barbed Wire and it consisted of story about what the Japanese people did during the war time while they were interned and what they did, and one of the things that he wanted to write about was artwork, so he called the book Beauty Behind Barbed Wire. So he needs some pictures for that and he said, not only of Manzanar, but Poston and Gila, so there was a contract for that type of work. It came through the camp director, and so the camp director knew my father was a photographer, so he told my father, "Toyo, do you know there's a job like this, so would you be interested?" And my father, it was right after he got that old car, so he says, "Sure." So he took that job. And then I thought, when he told me he's gonna do this job in Poston and, Poston and Gila, Arizona, said, "How you gonna get there?" He said, "On this car," that old car, barely could run. So I was kind of concerned because it's bound to break down someplace, I thought. So he got this fellow that was a wife of my cousin, my cousin was his wife, and so he found out, my father found that he used to, he knows quite a bit about Model A Ford, so I thought, he thought that maybe it would be nice to take him along as one of the drivers. So he asked him if was he willing to go. Well, so I thought, well, I asked him, "Do you need any help?" He says, "Yeah, you come along, too," he told me, so I went with him and I thought, oh my gosh, this old car. This fellow that my father had helped, my cousin's husband, he told me that, "You know, this car is so old and the bearing's all worn out, you can't go any faster than thirty-five miles an hour." I thought, oh my gosh, how you gonna go all that distance just at that speed? But my father insisted that he could do it. So he came along and it was a good thing he did because right in the middle of the desert engine stopped, and sure enough it was overheated, so he got bunch of gallon bottles and filled it up with water and put it, poured it into the engine and cooled it off and started up again. So from then on we had that, five one-gallon bottles in the back of the car and we would try to stop at every gas station to not just get gas but the water too, because it, he would always have to stop and fill, empty up one of the gallon bottles and put it into the radiator. Well, we actually made it going and coming back, just by using those waters as, not only gasoline, but water too. But we made the trip. Only time we went sixty miles an hour was where there was a long incline where we could coast down the hill, so that was about the only time that the car had a little speed in it. But my father was able to get the work done.

MN: Now, this is 1945, towards the end of the, when people were leaving camp, right?

AM: That's right. Just, about early part of '45.

MN: So what was your impression of going into this different Poston and Gila camp, as, how was it different from Manzanar?

AM: Well, the structure's about the same. The only thing is the weather. It was a lot hotter in Arizona, Poston and Gila, than Manzanar, although Manzanar was pretty hot, too. But it was, they're both, other camps were, Poston and Gila was in the middle of a dry area in the desert, so of course the heat in Poston was terrible. Much hotter than Manzanar. And so, well, I sort of got used to the heat by living in Manzanar, but it was still pretty hot in Poston especially.

MN: Did you meet any of your Boyle Heights friends at these camps?

AM: Yeah, there, there're not as many as I thought I would be able to see, but there were a very few. And, well, it was towards the end of the war, so I guess a lot of the young people must've relocated, going back East and things, so they were not there.

MN: And now, the Arizona camps were a lot bigger than Manzanar. Poston had I, II and III and Gila had Butte and Canal. Did your father take pictures of all, all of those?

AM: No, Poston, just I and II, I think we went, and Gila, it was only one camp that we went to, Gila. I don't know which one it was.

MN: And what sort of photos did your father take at these camps? Did they have people in it or was it mostly scenery shots?

AM: No, it was these artwork that people did, whoever still had it there because it was towards the end, 1945, so I'm sure there must've been more, but then a lot of 'em had moved out. So whatever there was left my father was able to photograph.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.