<Begin Segment 12>

TI: So we talked a little bit about Amache and we talked a little bit about the farm in Utah, so when the war ended, what happened to the family?

NA: I need to tell you a little bit about that Utah, because I go into another camp. I was in, I was in Amache, but the family ends up in Topaz and partly as, as I led you to this one house, farm that my dad leased, he was hoping to at least, with his equipment and all, do onion farming. Now, had to be irrigation because it's dry. Otherwise couldn't produce anything. And I remember that whole area really kind of vividly because my brother and I would go walking down, or we somehow picked up a tricycle and we would trike down, look for berries and all that, bring it home, but we'd also go out to the field towards the end of the day when we knew my dad was coming back with his Caterpillar and my brother Gene and I would jump on and he'd let us drive the Caterpillar, things like that.

But two things happened. One is that ultimately my father was dried out, his crop was burnt out because the farm before him would not release the water when it was my father's time to bring in the water and the irrigation and by the time the next farm down from him was supposed to get the water, then the water was released, so my father couldn't pull that water. It was that guy's, so they really burned him out. That was one. I guess I have two things, 'cause I started school also, on the yellow school bus, and it was probably one of the scariest times. My, my language skill was not up to par, I mean in English, even though my mom was fluent, bilingually fluent. My father was also and so was my grandmother, but main language up 'til then was really stronger in Japanese. So I went off to school and that was really scary 'cause there was no other Japanese or, even in the bus and all the buses looked alike. How am I gonna get on the right bus to get home? Getting scolded by the teacher because I painted the crown on the coloring thing -- and this is kindergarten, right, or first grade, barely getting into first grade, I guess -- I colored it as close to gold instead of the yellow because, after all, crowns are gold. [Laughs] Getting into problems like that, but it was very difficult and scary, and of course what town kind of trips we had, being denied getting an ice cream cone. You'd go, "How come?" And, well, they just kind of like, I don't know what they said, but we just knew that we were denied.

But one night, the house was like, it had two bedrooms and a living room area and kitchen eating area, but the living room had a front window and then the, the highway was running right in front, and my parents had put a daybed as a, kind of a daybed that served as couch during the daytime and at night folded out where, my grandmother and I shared that bed. And my mom somewhere along the way also had this monk's cloth, which she used as curtain and closed it at night, and I kind of remember that monk's cloth in other ways, through this whole camp time, and the big reason for mentioning that monk's cloth then is 'cause this one night I was tucked into bed and I think I fell asleep, but the whole front window crashed in on top of me 'cause there were bricks that were thrown into the house, the window, and basically vigilante activity, right? My father called the sheriff and all, and... but the interesting thing is that my brother and I, as young as we were, we said, "Dad, Daddy, he looks, how come the sheriff's parked right there? If he's gonna catch the bad guys he should be hiding behind the bushes or something." But it was obvious, as kids we even say that's no way to catch bad people. And so...

TI: But after maybe, I want to get clear about this, so your father called the police and the police came and then after that they parked a car out there, essentially to prevent more of that happening? Is that...

NA: Or catching whoever's doing this.

TI: I see. During this time, do you ever remember when you're at school or in town being taunted?

NA: Yeah. It's this whole thing. Yup. Very much. And that's partly, like, it's not so much, it's not like a nursery rhyme kind of thing, but, "Oh," but, "Oh, we don't serve Japs," or it's that kind of thing, so you knew Jap was a bad word, or at least it was said to you and it didn't feel good.

TI: How about schoolmates, sort of children your age? Did you remember anything?

NA: I think what I remember most is they, they didn't have much to do with me, even the kids who I rode on the bus, I think maybe I kind of recognized them in order to make sure I'm on the same bus, or the right bus, but it wasn't like somebody befriended me. So I remember on the school bus I'm sitting by myself and I always try to sit in the front because then I know where to get off, 'cause that's the other scary thing. Partly, that kind of, I mean, I guess that kind of fear of being left behind started fairly early because even, I think, getting on the train or getting off the train, you just gotta make sure you know where Mom and Dad and Baachan were 'cause somehow you knew, you didn't know what was happening and, but they did, so you better be nearby, so oftentimes I think my kind of needing to be prompt comes from, from that time, of not being left behind. So appointments -- other than this morning, which was right on time [laughs] -- was, comes from that kind of, I think, as an adult I think, yeah, why do I have to be there, like, forty-five minutes before or even half an hour before?

TI: 'Cause if you're not there you might get left behind.

NA: [Laughs] Yeah, might get left behind or something, least that's what I thought when I got into my college days, or those days thinking about it.

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