<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So let's, let's continue the story. You said there was this quiet period.

HM: It was very, very quiet.

TI: And then what happened? Something then happened.

HM: And then we were told to evacuate. That was frightening. "You have to evacuate before sundown." You've heard stories, you've read about it, when they say you have to get out by sundown...

TI: And what kind of reason did they give? I mean...

HM: No reason, you just evacuate. Like they did to the Japanese in the mainland.

KN: Can you describe that? They came to your house? They made an announcement and they told you? What happened?

HM: Now how are we gonna get out?

TI: Well, no, so, Kelli's asking how did you find out that you had to be evacuated? So how did they tell you?

HM: That we had to get out by sundown.

TI: And who told you that?

HM: Military. I don't know whether it was army or Marines, but they came.

TI: So did they come to your, your door?

HM: Uh-huh.

TI: And they talked to your mother?

HM: Uh-huh. Okay, in the meantime, we were worried how were we gonna get down, but Mom was very quiet, and those days we didn't have such thing as suitcase because nobody traveled, right? So we, you know what furoshiki is? The big (square piece of material) that you, every, everything was wrapped in furoshiki. Well Mom quietly packed all the individual for us, for she and dad, and she had another one with all her important papers, and then when we were ready to go, how are we gonna get out? No cars. We can't ask the neighbors, right? So I remember every afternoon there was a great big defense truck. We called it defense truck. They took workers, I don't know where they went, but I remember going, seeing them, so they always left about three o'clock, so I told Mom, "Don't worry." I said, "We're gonna hitch a ride," and we hitched a ride. I stood in the center of the street, my legs spread open wide, and I had my hand, held my hand up, so the driver told me to get out, he honked his horn and told me, I said, "No, I'm not getting out." So he came down, so you know what language came with that, but that's okay, but I said, "No." I said, "You're gonna have to take me up because you told me that I have to get out," because he was a military, a defense worker, so I'm blaming him because we have to evacuate. So after bouncing back and forth he said okay, so we had, those days rice came in hundred pounds bag, so when war broke out first thing my dad went to and got groceries for us, so we were well stocked with food in our pantry, so Mom said wherever we go we need rice, so we carried the hundred pound -- it's heavy, hundred pound bag rice -- so we carried it, we carried our own clothing in our furoshiki, then we put the rice, and they didn't even help us. So we struggled, the three of us struggled to put down. So they Mom wanted to get, jump on the bed of the truck. How is Mom gonna get on the bed? I insisted that Mom sits in the front. No, cannot. I said no, Mom's gonna -- so after a while we argued they put Mom in the front.

So we went, and then they, they told that as far as they can take us, Waipahu, from Ewa Beach, so we got and then we got off at, the road was called Danburo. Danburo means "down below," so we got off at Danburo Road and, but fortunately Mom had a friend that lived very close by, so we just meekly went to her house, so she opened the door and let us stay there for a while. Here again, how did my father know that we had to evacuate? But he showed up. Amazing. How did he find out? I don't know. So they told us they'll provide us transportation and housing. Ha ha. No such thing. We had to hitch a ride. No transportation, no housing, so I, then a couple of days my father said we're gonna move to Honouliuli Japanese school, so we moved there. Then we had to leave with the rest -- see, the farmers were able to go in sunup and sundown to finish whatever product, the produce they had, they had to finish it up. There was time limit, I'm sure. I'm not sure about that. So they, we all stayed, and the funny part is that it was not nice sleeping with the mosquitoes every night, but the snoring and the stories that people talking in, in their sleep, oh, it was funny.

TI: So this is at the Honouliuli language school?

HM: Language school.

TI: And all the people sleeping kind of together.

HM: Yeah, in one big room we all slept together. [Laughs] So kind of you couldn't, you had to listen that stories that people talking in their sleep. That was the fun part of the, staying at the... but Mom helped with the cooking. She stayed home.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.