<Begin Segment 5>

MN: On the day your family was to go to Tanforan, where was the gathering spot?

JD: Offhand I don't remember. I know that there was a gathering spot. I just don't remember if it was at, I mean, San Francisco had two Japanese language schools. One was at Kinmon Gakuen, and the other one was at the Buddhist church. I don't remember that we went to the Buddhist church. I, seems to me like we might've gone to Kinmon Gakuen, which was, well, that wasn't too far from the house, but neither was the Buddhist church. But it seems like Kinmon Gakuen is where we had to all gather, yeah.

MN: Did you just walk there?

JD: Probably.

MN: Do you remember being given a family number?

JD: Oh, yeah. I don't know, I don't remember the number, but yes, we did have a family number, and my, when we got to the railroad station -- oh, to the bus I guess it was, to the bus, because it was gonna take us to Tanforan -- I remember my sister saying to me, "If we get separated, remember your family number because that'll hook you up with them." So I said okay, so I did remember the numbers then, but you also had a little tag, I think, that gave the family name and number, but in case I lost that.

MN: So from this gathering spot, how did you get to Tanforan?

JD: I think it was on the bus.

MN: How did you feel about this bus ride?

JD: I don't think it really mattered. The thing that I remember is that here I was, seven years old, never moved in my life, and all of a sudden we're moving. I thought, gee, this is kind of fun. It was very exciting because we were moving. Of course, I didn't know why we were being moved, but the fact that we were moving was, was an adventure for me, so from that standpoint, that's what I was thinking, I probably was thinking that on the bus.

MN: Now, when you arrived at the Tanforan racetracks, what was your first impression of that area?

JD: I don't remember what I thought of it. In fact, I don't remember even arriving there. I just know that we did, and we were assigned one of the stables, horse stables. And I don't know, a few weeks later my sister, one of my sisters got ill because it wasn't very clean in there, and so my mother went to the powers that be and she says, "Look, my daughter is very sick because of the stable. Don't you have anything else or another barrack or something that you could put us into?" Because it wasn't, there weren't enough horse stables for all us to be put into, so there were makeshift barracks that were built as well, and so they found one for us and so we moved into that barrack after that.

MN: And your sister got well after that?

JD: I think she got better, yeah.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.