<Begin Segment 10>

MN: So after your father was taken away, what did your mother have to do with the business?

YH: I think she just gave up the business. I don't know. I don't think she sold it, but she just gave, because she couldn't, she couldn't drive the car, and she couldn't get up early in the morning to go to the produce market and buy all those fruits and vegetables, take 'em back to the store. So I think she just gave it up. I don't think she, it was sold. I don't think she got any money for it because she thought it would be safer if we moved over to my grandmother's house in Long Beach.

MN: So you all, the entire family moved into your grandmother's house?

YH: Yes.

MN: How did you do the move?

YH: I think my uncles must've moved us, because my mother couldn't drive the car. I don't know what happened to the car.

MN: Now your uncles, by the time you folks went into camp, your uncles were, were they all in the army?

YH: Let's see, all of them were in the army except Taro, who was married, and Shimpachi, who was going to Macalester College because he was studying to be a minister. Let's see, I think the rest of them went into the army.

MN: Did you have any, what are your thoughts? You have these uncles in the army and then the government is now telling you you're gonna have to go into camp, did you have any feelings about that at that time you were still --

YH: No.

MN: What about school? What was going on with you at school?

YH: Well, in Santa Anita it wasn't compulsory, but if we wanted to we could go into the grandstand and we would sit in bunches in the grandstand and the teachers would rotate.

MN: Now this is when you went into Santa Anita Assembly Center.

YH: Yes.

MN: But before you went into Santa Anita and while you were still going to Washington Irving after Pearl Harbor, did the students and teachers harass you at all?

YH: No.

MN: Now, when the government announced that you have to go into camp, how did your family prepare?

YH: My mother made us a drawstring bag with my name on it, and we had a toothbrush and a plastic box that had a bar of soap in it and a washcloth and a towel and one change of underwear.

MN: Did you purchase any new clothes to go into camp?

YH: No.

MN: What happened to all the furniture and the piano?

YH: I don't know what happened to that.

MN: Did your grandmother own that house?

YH: She owned the house where we were living. It was on Lime Avenue.

MN: So do you think you left all your belongings at the Lime Avenue house?

YH: Maybe. I don't know because I know when we went to Des Moines, the government sent us some things from the barn which was behind my grandmother's house. That's where my grandfather stored a lot of his merchandise which he sold in the store on Pike. And a lot of their other friends stored their belongings in the barn too, so the barn was filled with a lot of people's belongings, and so that when the government sent us the belongings from the barn, a lot of it didn't belong to us. There were pots and pans that didn't belong to us, and the rug was all moth-eaten, so my mother just threw it away. And there was no furniture. There was, there was no tables or chairs. There was nothing. There were just those pots and pans and the rug, as far as I remember. So my mother went to the Salvation Army and bought some stuff.

MN: And this is in Des Moines, and we'll be getting there soon.

YH: Okay.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.