<Begin Segment 11>

MN: Now, once the government announced that you had to go into camp, how did you learn that you would have to go into camp?

RW: Well, at first it was hearsay. We knew that we were going to have to leave. We didn't know how, when or what. And the rumor was we were going to go to a place in Owens Valley, so we just thought that's where we were going to go. Then this one day I was coming home from school, and I was walking down the street and I saw on this telephone pole a big, big white sign and the first words were something like, "to persons of Japanese ancestry," or something like that, whatever that poster said. So I looked at it and even in sixth grade I knew what that was all about, so I just read a little bit that we were supposed to go to Riverside, to the train station a certain day, and then I ran home, told my mom. So then she had my brother or sister go back and find out what all it said, and that's how we found out, just by this sign. And I always said, there were only three or four families at that time in Redlands, and I always wondered why that had to put a sign on every telephone pole in the city. All they had to do was come to four houses and just give 'em a poster, but they posted it all over the city and on all the telephone poles. But that's the only thing that I was disappointed in what they did. Then they just said you had to be at the Riverside train station a certain time, you could only take certain things, and meantime we were disposing of everything. And my older brother and my father did most of the stuff, so we stored a lot of our furniture and carpeting and things in the basement at the Baptist church. 'Course, when we came home it's all gone, most of it, and the carpeting was all moth-eaten and stuff. But we sold the big piano, if I remember, for like ten dollars or twenty dollars. There were people coming around. It was like a garage sale, major garage sale at the Wada's, that type of thing. So we just emptied out. Let some Mexican friends live there while we were in camp, so fortunately my dad had bought the house years before so we just kept it. I think he had it in my brother's name, so it was not much they could do about trying to take it away or anything.

MN: I know you were really young, but do you know if the Mexican family lived at your house rent free or did they pay rent?

RW: They lived rent free. They lived there with the idea that they would take care of the house. 'Course, when we got home it, it was really in poor shape, but a little elbow grease and paint makes a lot of difference. It was an old, old house in the old, old part of town. But a little bit of fixing up and it was, it was good, livable home.

MN: How did you feel about having to go into camp?

RW: Well, I guess at my age it was a new experience, new adventure. The only thing is, like I say in my book, we didn't know where were going, we didn't know how long we're gonna be gone, and we didn't know what it was gonna be like. And then when we got on those buses. There was a whole string of buses 'cause all the Riverside, Redlands, San Bernardino, a lot of the surrounding areas were all there -- and when the buses headed out, I guess I'm not an ill-informed person, so the buses were headed into the sun, early morning, so I knew we're going east. We weren't going north, which is where Owens Valley was. And we kept going east, and then I thought, we're not going to Owens Valley. Where are we going? We had no idea. We never heard of Poston. Then finally we get there and the buses unload and we look around, and, wow, look at those barracks. This is where we're gonna live? It's a new experience for a kid. Wow, look at that barrack. Then we, they drop people off wherever you were already assigned. Then you had to fill these bags with hay for our mattresses, so we start breaking open the bales of hay to make mattresses. And of course there's a gopher snake. "Hey, there's a snake." Just kid stuff. It was all kind of a new experience for a new kid in a new block, new neighborhood. That's what it was. The only difference was we didn't have any neighbors 'cause they took the Redlands people, there were three families, so they took the Redlands people and put 'em in one barrack, in three rooms in one barrack, and then this John Fukushima was assigned the block manager. We pretty much started the block. Then about a few days later my mother said, "You got to watch out. These real bad people are coming in our block." I asked, "Who?" "Pachuco people coming," was her reply. It was all the Boyle Heights people. And when they came and I'm looking at 'em and thinking, well they don't look like bad people. Then I got to know some of 'em, and I still know 'em, I'm still friends. And so it was, that again was a new experience. Never seen so many Japanese in my life. Didn't even know they existed. I thought we were the only Japanese in the whole world, here in the United States. So it was a new experience, only this time they came in as neighbors, new neighbors in the block, and to say the block is truly a block.

MN: So these pachuco people that your mom referred to, did actually any of them come in with the zoot suits?

RW: Yeah. There were a lot of guys who had draped slacks but they weren't as exaggerated as the kind that they had in newspapers, but later it became a fashion for the guys. I'm telling my mom make this tight right here [pointing toward the ankles]. Guys were even doin' it to Levi's and so... even after coming out of camp we wore a modified kind of a style, just a slight, slight narrowing from the knees down. That was what we wore as the style. There were some certain things in camp that you wanted, but you couldn't have because you couldn't afford it. They used to call 'em engineer boots, shoes, they were kind of high top shoes like a boot, and it had a buckle. That was what I wanted, but I could never buy it, couldn't afford it from Sears. They had certain style of clothes that was in the camp, just the draped pants, but we didn't see anybody with a wide brimmed hat and coat and the baggy pants with the tight ankles. It turned out they were all nice people. They are all my friends right now. So it was just something that parents just heard about, rumors were rampant in those days.

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