<Begin Segment 6>

TI: Before we go to Manzanar, do you recall your neighbors, white neighbors, saying anything to you?

PT: Especially one neighbor immediately adjacent to our place. As soon as he learned that my father was not paying any payments on the place -- and my father stopped paying it because he doesn't know what was going to happen. He was about two or three months behind and they cut it. They came with the sheriff, and then he came with a lawyer and came with the real estate people. They had, in the meantime, sold it to this neighbor who had a cow, and they bought it for probably nothing. So he lost everything.

TI: That must have been devastating for your father.

PT: Yes, but, you know, he couldn't maintain the payment anyway. There was no money coming in once he went to camp. So it's interesting what he carried, what we can carry. So he carried his Bible and a tsuri, and he didn't give a shit about the clothing and so forth. [Laughs] Those were the two things that were important, and a tablet. I really didn't care, I didn't have that much clothing. But the other thing they carried was my brother's...

TI: The ashes. During this time, were there any acts of -- maybe kindness is too much -- but any signs of sympathy or anything?

PT: Yes. From one family, and I still see them. The mother is a Bolshevik, and the father has since died. And we're still in touch. The mother has died, and when I first met him, they had that goodbye. When I went to see him, years and years later, I understand how a Bolshevik gets by in this country. What he did was he bought about five thousand acres of land and then planted it with alfalfa. Then he would have some sheep to help keep the place clean, some parts of it, and the other part is all automatized. No horses, it's all power equipment, and so it's just with two or three workers that he managed the place. And become not a millionaire, but very, very comfortable, and you could give your finger to the government. [Laughs] "Try and get me."

TI: But that's interesting because Bolshevik, sort of Communists, it sounds almost capitalist in terms of having the land, your capital, work for you. Were there any conflicts with that, thinking about, "Here I'm a landowner and making money off that"? It seems a little ironic. But this family, so when they heard that you were going to leave, what did this family do?

PT: They were the only ones that came to say goodbye. Then she asked that, "Wherever you go," let her know and she will answer my letter. She did that at Manzanar, and then the next time I was in Camp Shelby in the army, and what do you know, she sends me a Bolshevik book. [Laughs] Slapped it into my box.

TI: Because even at this point, was it dangerous to be associated with the Communist party?

PT: I was sensitive to that. I really did not think that the United States at any time would ever collaborate in any way with Russia. I mean, their systems are so wide apart.

TI: How about this family? So did they come under a lot of pressure or opposition for their political beliefs? Did you see them ostracized or anything like that, or threatened?

PT: Oh, yes.

TI: It's rare to hear.

PT: There were many times they were on the edge of firing, going to war.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.