Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Chizuko Omori Interview II
Narrator: Chizuko Omori
Interviewer: Martha Nakagawa
Location: Emeryville, California
Date: May 25, 2011
Densho ID: denshovh-ochizuko-02-0002

<Begin Segment 2>

MN: Now, even before Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the Oceanside Nikkei community had to make arrangements to move out. Can you share with us why they had to move out?

CO: Well, the land that they were farming was going to become a marine base, what they call Camp Pendleton now. So that was in the works, so we would have had to move out in any case. But that was pretty close to the start of the war.

MN: And what areas was this community looking at moving to?

CO: Well, it's pretty far back, but I remember... and I don't know whether this was... it had to be after the war started because they couldn't just move to another part of California. I mean, they would have, probably, had the war not started. But the name of Minnesota, I remember it. And this group wanted to go as a group. I guess they were rejected, they were not, they were told not to come or something. But any rate, that did not come to pass, so we were still there when the evacuation orders came.

MN: So this area that you, your family and this community was farming on is now Camp Pendleton, right?

CO: Uh-huh.

MN: If I were to go there now, is there any remnant of this Oceanside Nikkei community anywhere?

CO: No, there wouldn't be. There just wouldn't be. I mean, you know, the houses are pretty ramshackle, they were farmhouses and such. The only building worth anything I guess at that point would have been the schoolhouse that they built. But I'm sure they just bulldozed everything to make the base.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.