<Begin Segment 15>

SY: Eventually, though, you met your husband?

MK: Right and George was one of those evacuees. Oh, he just hated that term with a passion but he came to, like everyone else, he came to the Methodist church and we all formed a whole group there. In fact we even started a girls' club out of New York now that I think about it, I forgot what the name of it was but there was a mixture of New York girls and West Coast people.

SY: You don't remember the name. And what was the club? What kinds of things did this club do?

MK: It was a social club I think that... I don't know what we did. I remember meeting... I'm just thinking about that now for the first time and I'm thinking, yeah we used to have a good time. I think it was mostly social though.

SY: And the boys, did they have a club too?

MK: They didn't form there but all the West Coast guys that came were probably in sports before then so a lot of them knew each other. So they formed their own little cliques too.

SY: And did you stay active in sports when you were there?

MK: Yeah, we went to the Church of All Nations every week for swimming and basketball. As a matter of fact we formed the New York Bears, the boys did and the girls had a club too. And we travelled to Boston and to Canada. Now that I think about it we did. We played in tournaments I remember going to Toronto and Montreal and that's when I learned about the Canadian people, their camps that were so different from ours here. Went to Chicago, we weren't good (and) I don't know how we got invited to these different things.

SY: And they were all sort of Nisei...

MK: Yeah, it was a Nisei leagues type that they had here and there.

SY: Amazing. And how many people were in these?

MK: There was about ten of us so we travelled that way.

SY: Ten girls who travelled?

MK: And then the guys went... my brother went with the New York Bears too.

SY: Wow, that's amazing.

MK: But most of the guys that played, they played with some Nisei team before the war so they were all good basketball players and my husband was playing with that group too.

SY: I see. So you kind of got to know Nisei in all these different areas?

MK: Yeah. You're bringing those things back to my mind now. It's been a long time since I even thinking about that.

SY: And so your husband was someone who was just passing through?

MK: Yeah, when he got out of Amache I guess he was just going to go as far as his twenty-five dollars fee was going to take him. So he came to New York and he stayed there.

SY: He stayed there for the duration.

MK: And then he got drafted into the 442 so he went overseas.

SY: So he was in New York when he was drafted?

MK: He had to go back to Denver, I guess, Amache, that's where his draft board was but that's where he went out of. But when he got the notice and then he was sent to Fort Blanding Florida and then overseas.

SY: And what was your relationship with him when all of this was going on? Were you just corresponding?

MK: We were just good friends and then I guess through and just corresponding when he went overseas I guess he started to kind of like me. [Laughs] So then we got married in 1950.

SY: So it was way after the war was over he came back to New York? Did he resettle in New York?

MK: No, he came back to California but I came to California for a short time too and then went back to New York. And we got married at the beautiful Riverside Church in New York City in 1950.

SY: So how much did he write to you about his experience while he was overseas and going through training and all of that? Did he provide much detail?

MK: Not that much. They couldn't write that much, I mean even at that time with mail and all a lot of it gets censored. But afterwards found out a lot of what those guys really went through.

SY: You must have been concerned. Did he express any like imminent danger?

MK: Well, at that time I wasn't that involved with him so it was only after he came back and he was safe and sound.

SY: That you talked about it, I see. So a lot of the guys that you met the ones that were from the West Coast, did they eventually end up in serving or did a lot of them just stay in New York?

MK: The ones that evacuated to New York, some of them were, I guess they were drafted because they eventually went in but not that many when I stop to think of it now.

SY: But Aki's husband, he had enlisted.

MK: Well, he was already in the service.

SY: In Hawaii.

MK: He was with the 100th already, right. They were the first group that went.

SY: So was it that you reunited then with George?

MK: Through mail, I guess.

SY: Through correspondence. And so at the time that he arrived there you were still just with Aki or was the rest of your family there?

MK: When he arrived?

SY: When he came from Amache, when he actually came from Amache.

MK: That was before.

SY: It was just the two of you?

MK: Yeah, a lot of his friends were there too, I remember. He was with the Shamrocks you know the boys' basketball club that was very popular before the war so a lot of those guys came by.

SY: Oh, that was the Shamrocks from camp?

MK: No, before the war.

SY: Before the war. And where did he grow up?

MK: In west Los Angeles, Seinan area, very much where we live right now.

SY: So he stayed close to the guys he grew up with and then they all or many of them ended up in New York.

MK: Right, a lot of them did.

SY: And then after the war, how did that exactly happen? He went back to the West Coast and you decided to go back to the West Coast too?

MK: Well, I came back on a vacation I remember.

SY: So it was just vacation.

MK: Yeah, right. And then I guess that's when he proposed so I went back and then he came back to New York and we got married there.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.