<Begin Segment 11>

MK: By then Aki and I went... my uncle he was paying us I think twenty-five dollars a week, all of us, that was lots of money then so we went to look for a new apartment. So we got one on 80th Street I think it was a two bedroom, 80th and Amsterdam, and that was a good beautiful place compared to downtown. But then Sachi came and then shortly after that I wanted to go to camp just to see what it was like so I went to Heart Mountain.

SY: You took a train to Heart Mountain.

MK: That was in 1945, yeah.

SY: Toward the end of the war.

MK: Right, and I think it was 1945 (...) I was able (...) to stay there a week and I asked... I went to administration office and asked them if I could take my brother and sister back with me to New York. I didn't think that was possible but I was just trying to find out what was going to happen. And they said, yeah you can take them so I took Dorothy who was I guess fourteen and Paul who was four years younger... he must have been about ten.

SY: You just picked them up.

MK: Picked them up and took them to New York.

SY: And you were only by that time...

MK: I was (eighteen) and Sachi and Aki they said, "Why did you bring them?" We had no room for them or anything but we managed. I guess I had to be the parent then I enrolled them in school I remember Paul went to PS100 and Dorothy went to Julia Richmond Junior High School.

SY: Do you remember what was going through your mind though because if you had to obviously talk to your parents about it right?

MK: Yeah.

SY: Picking up your two...

MK: I didn't know what was going through my mind, I often wonder myself. But I just couldn't see them just staying there... I was just going to inquire and they told me to go ahead and do it so I had no choice but to bring them.

SY: And they were fine with it, your mother and father?

MK: They wanted to get out too but they couldn't.

SY: They couldn't but somehow you were able to pick up.

MK: The younger ones were able to 'cause I told them they were going to go to school and I don't know how I could be so credible and told that I would make sure they went to school and this and that. But they released them.

SY: Wow, and it didn't take long.

MK: I was scared when I went back (wondering) how we're going to take care of them.

SY: Right, because you not only had to enroll them in school but you had to feed them.

MK: Feed them and house them and everything but they were good kids.

SY: And do you remember what your apartment life was like when they came, when they arrived?

MK: It was pretty crowded but then shortly after that when my uncle said that my folks were going to come out, he rented like a boarding house on Lexington Avenue, there must have been ten rooms or so there and so the purpose was to have the folks run it. And as some evacuees came, they rented and that was a good place for them. And by then George came and Dorothy and Paul, they all went back to Lexington Avenue so the three of us kept --

SY: The apartment. And your mother and father were there by then?

MK: Yeah, they came and my dad ran the... took janitorial work there and my mother did some of the cooking for some of the people.

SY: And so it was really your uncle who made all these arrangements?

MK: Yeah, for the folks to come and they started to work for him there too so it worked out fine.

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