<Begin Segment 12>

MN: Now how did you hear that you had to go to camp?

KI: I guess my parents must have told us.

MN: Do you know where they were getting their news? Were they getting it from the Nikkei papers or their neighbors?

KI: Yeah, I think my father was probably taking the Nichi Bei Times, but it had to be before that. I guess maybe church or maybe telephones and they called each other... called a meeting or something. It could've been a number of ways that that they got together. But my father must have... I don't know where he came in and actually told Mom and us that we were going to have to leave.

MN: And I know you were very young, you were still going onto twelve, but how did you react to having to go... move?

KI: I think the main thing was that I'm leaving my friends. I think that was the only feeling that I had is I'm going to lose my friends and go to a strange place. But other than that I didn't think anything more than that I don't think. I don't remember.

MN: Now there was a very short time where the government allowed people to move out of the restricted military zone where San Francisco, Berkeley area became. Do you remember families moving out of the Berkeley area to go somewhere else?

KI: No, personally I don't remember, and I don't remember my parents saying anything about anybody moving that they knew.

MN: Now how did your family prepare to go into camp?

KI: I guess they did all the work, I sure don't remember doing anything.

MN: Do you remember like wanting to pack a favorite toy or clothes, dress?

KI: No, and I don't remember Mom asking or anything either.

MN: What did you do with the piano?

KI: I don't know what happened to the piano. I don't know what happened to the piano, the victrola that we had, and the dining room tables and all that stuff. I don't know if they got sold or... I don't have any recollection of any of that.

MN: Did your family burn or throw away things connected to Japan?

KI: I know they didn't burn anything or that I don't remember them burning anything and I don't think they... if they threw anything away it was probably without my knowledge. But then she kept all those records.

MN: Did she take those to camp?

KI: No, I think what we did... well, our church, the Berkeley United Methodist Church, served as a holding place so a lot of the families put their things there and our family did. So that's where some of the things from prewar remained, and fortunately our church was not vandalized. I think everything was intact when we moved back in, when we came back to Berkeley. And so I don't remember... I remember my father advertising... it was so sad because he showed it to me later, much later when I was growing up and everything and family, that he had put an ad in the paper, the Berkeley Gazette thanking the community for their kindness and allowing him to be their friend and gardener. And I thought, oh, it's so sad that here he is and just no fault of his having to go out, but I saw that. So and then on this picture it has a picture of... I forgot what it says on it but he had to sell everything, right? So he had a sign put up above the store about moving sale or something like that. So but I don't think a lot of the stuff got sold, I think he just lost it. I think he just lost it 'cause they had to start from scratch when he came back.

MN: Now for your school, you were at Washington grammar school but in January you started a junior high school and then you were telling me there were three junior high schools in your area, the Garfield, Willard and Burbank? Now which junior high school did you end up at?

KI: Burbank.

MN: And this Burbank junior high school, what was the ethnic make-up of it?

KI: They were mainly minorities because it's in west Berkeley. our store was on University and Grove Street and the next big main street was San Pablo. And Burbank was just below, just before you came to San Pablo.

MN: So you were starting out with different students then?

KI: Yeah, a few classmates went to the same school, but most of them went to Willard I think. Most of them went to Willard.

MN: Now how did these new students... how did they treat you?

KI: No different, just like any other school. I didn't feel any different.

MN: Were you able to finish the semester at Burbank?

KI: I wonder if we did because we left in May and usually the school season ends in June. So I guess we didn't finish but I don't know. I have no recollection of asking for school records or anything like that unless my parents did, and if they did I don't know what they did with it. But I don't know.

MN: Now, the day you are leaving, where did you leave from?

KI: My house. Well, okay, a friend came to pick us up at the house and we took whatever we were carrying as far as we could carry to the Congregational Church in Berkeley and that's where the buses all came and picked us up.

MN: Now how did you get to the Congregational Church?

KI: This man came, a friend of my father's, I think he was Chinese 'cause we didn't have a car, none of us had cars anymore so he took us.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.