<Begin Segment 20>

NA: So one day, here it is, that we were to leave the camps and I know my parents were talking to us about how it might be outside, saying all kinds of different kinds of people out there, friendly, good people, but different color people, and some of the soldiers were mainly white that we saw, so it was just mainly white and Japanese in most of the, if and when we got to go out to the town, which we did one time to Delta. I was denied ice cream cone, but again, that was all Caucasians. So I know they had talked like that, so okay, here we are, we get on the truck or bus, and we get to the train. We are, and it's on VJ Day that we are at Salt Lake City Train Terminal, on the train. I know that we didn't get off, but my father was able to get off because right alongside of our train was a trainload of soldiers. I was, I remember this 'cause it's one of these frightening things, I was wearing a little, a lounge, best way to call it is a lounge pajama. It was red with a little mandarin collar and all, kind of silky. And I was curious, so peering out to the train next door, and somehow the process, my father was, because they themselves, the soldiers couldn't get off, they had asked my dad to get newspapers and then they were, I guess, exchanging oranges and stuff, but, so my father had gone after. But so we were kind of curious looking over there, and there was this one soldier says, "Hey, look at her. Let's take her home as a souvenir." Promptly got ill with asthma. I just kind of, just fell apart and just scared to, I was petrified.

That, and years later I often wonder how, what, how I would feel if I ever got back to that train station, which I did as an adult, going towards the, going towards Heart Mountain, the barracks and doing outreach in Salt Lake City. And thank goodness I had worked enough of it out because it wasn't a freaked out place or anything. But of course it's changed and I'm not in a train sitting there or anything, but that, that I recall so, just really scared. The other memory's we get to San Francisco, or it's Oakland that the train stops at, and we then, my father had come out to the San Francisco before, before he moved all of us out and getting everything ready in the property that they own, so we got on the ferry and coming across, and that was really another kind of frightening experience, like the fog and were we going into an unknown, and so this whole thing of, again, just really be there on time because they know where we're going. I don't. If I'm lost I really am gonna get lost, and that fear kind of thing, and then looking around, of course you see different kinds of people. Oh, they're different, you know. But we get to San Francisco and I think Mrs. Williams was there at the ferry station and we got into cabs, I think, or one, some of us in her car or, I... anyway, we get to the place of the house on California Street. Now, my parents had bought this property before the war, as investment, and it was then, I think I described it, it was three flats with a basement, or kind of basement alleyway that brought you to the back and the three story flat Victorian, and back there was a two story cottage and with a garden around. The --

TI: Before you go there, I want to know, is this a place that you were familiar with?

NA: [Shakes head]

TI: So you had not seen it. And during the war, what, was Mrs. Williams able to, like, rent it out?

NA: [Nods] And then they had a good manager. Mrs. Reyes was the manager.

TI: Okay. So you have this actually large property, with three flats and...

NA: Three flats and they had converted the first two flats into two, so there were two, four apartments and the top third floor was one big flat, and then the two, the cottage with the two flats, two floors. So that's six rentable, seven rentables, and during the wartime apparently they were rented to families and then the top floor they had made into single rental for, single room with a communal kitchen kind of thing. So with us coming back they, one, the top floor of the cottage was vacated so that we could have a place, and eventually the top floor of the flat was being released and that's where our family eventually moved in after about a month or so.

TI: And what were your impressions of San Francisco, because I guess you grew up more on the farm?

NA: Well, we had come into San Francisco enough times, because my brother's birthing, I remember being right in front of the children's hospital, and those are real strong image before the war that I have. I remember City Hall because there were a lot of, lot of hatopopo, pigeons. And we'd be feeding and it turns out that's when my father was in court over a probate for Ojiichan's stuff, but playing around that area. So I guess I saw enough, but coming back and then living there, hey, just another adventure, I guess. But the, this is on California Street and that's when the cable cars still ran up to Presidio and all the way down to the Ferry Building on California Street. Right now it stops on Powell Street -- no, not Powell, Polk Street. So the California cable car ran up and down, and our school ends up being about two and a half blocks down, so we would walk to school, but sometimes when we were really late we would jump on the cable car. And we got to know a couple of the cable car guys, like, Tommy, Tommy the conductor, and so sometimes we'd see him and he'd ring the, clang the bell and all that.

TI: And he just let you guys jump on?

NA: Well, yeah, but he says, "Alright, come on. Get off, you guys. You shouldn't be on here." So it was that kind of thing, but that becomes kind of like that memory, but actually being in the city, of being in awe or anything, I think we're just too naive and it's a new experience and all.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.