<Begin Segment 11>

TI: So I want to now kind of, so what happened to the house and the business? When you started getting the orders that you're gonna leave Seattle, do you know what happened?

MO: Well, since of course the Issei were never allowed to buy property, we had leased the business. It went back to whoever it was, I suppose. I just remember leaving the house, just packing a suitcase, and my mother, we couldn't take much, I guess. We had to leave everything, as far as I can remember.

TI: How about your older brothers? Did they, anything happen to them during this time period? I mean, your oldest brother was at the University of Washington, did anything happen to him that you know of?

MO: No. We all went to Puyallup, I guess, and then, sadly, when we went to --

TI: Yeah, we'll come to that. I want to, let's stay with, let's stay in Puyallup first, okay?

MO: Puyallup.

TI: Yeah, what's your, what were your first impressions when you got to Puyallup?

MO: Well, course barracks like that were new and we were stepping in mud past ankle high and whatever. I never knew there were so many Japanese in, I thought, I says to my mom I thought we changed to Tokyo. [Laughs] I didn't know there were other Japanese people.

TI: And before, I should've asked this question, when you were in Fremont, where did they pick you up, the family? Do you remember where you were told to go to be picked up?

MO: You mean when the war, where they told us to go?

TI: Yeah, in terms of when you were supposed to go to Puyallup, you had to go someplace to get picked up to go to Puyallup, do you remember where that was?

MO: No. No, I can't remember.

TI: Like did you have go into the city, or did you stay in Fremont, or had to go to Green Lake? I'm trying to think where you might've gone.

MO: No, I just remember my mom packing a couple suitcases. I don't know where we were picked up, actually.

TI: Or if someone dropped you off someplace, like a neighbor?

MO: It's funny, I don't remember that.

TI: Okay. I was just curious for these outlying regions where there weren't that many Japanese, how they picked --

MO: No, there weren't, and I don't... I don't know where we had to go from there.

TI: Okay. No, that's okay.

MO: Yeah, memory's getting faded. [Laughs]

TI: I was just curious. So going back to Puyallup, so describe your living quarters in Puyallup. You talked about the mud and things, but where did you live in Puyallup?

MO: Well, we were in 36-7-E, and I remember the number, but I think that's the place we were with another family at first, 'cause I know we went to Idaho, we got put in with another family, a mother and son, for some reason. There were already five of us. I don't know why they put in two more people with, in our room with us, and we were already crowded. I remember those beds that you fold out, cots.

TI: But staying in Puyallup, so what did you do with your time in Puyallup when you're there?

MO: I don't remember doing much of anything. I know I used to keep a diary when I was about that age, and I don't know whatever happened to it, but I kept it two, three years at least, I think. And I probably wrote everything about how we moved and all, but I can remember the mud there. We were in Seventh Avenue. And then I remember the Alaskans, they were in the last row all the way down.

TI: And so when you say Alaskans, were people aware that there were people from Alaska?

MO: Well, they talked about it.

TI: Talked about it. Okay.

MO: Yeah, small place like that, people talk all the time. [Laughs]

TI: Okay, so then eventually, from Puyallup, then you went to Minidoka, Idaho. And what were some of your first impressions of Minidoka? What do you remember when you first got to Minidoka?

MO: I think the dust storms were one of the things that, my goodness, you never could believe the dust storms that we had. Close all the doors, windows, it seeped through everything. We couldn't shampoo the dust out of our hair, our clothes. I remember those dust storms so much. And then later it was mud up to here.

TI: How about food? What memories do you have of the food?

MO: Oh, the mess hall? That was, course the mess hall, everybody remembers we had smelt every day, and everybody hated smelt forever.

TI: And when you ate who did you eat with?

MO: Well, I was sad because my mother made me sit with her and eat. She was sick quite a bit, most of the time, and she was weak and she had asthma, and I brought food home for my mother and took it back and, back. My friends got to sit with their friends and eat meals together, and I envied them, and I was, I was pretty sad that I didn't get to do that.

TI: And your father, where was he?

MO: Yeah, he worked and then I went with him to eat sometimes, and the other times I would bring home food for my mother.

TI: And then your brothers, where, where did they eat?

MO: Well, George was always probably with his friends. That was Hit Kanzaki and those guys, his age friends. They were seniors in high school, I think, so they had a bunch of friends. And then my oldest brother worked in the hospital there for a while.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.