<Begin Segment 16>

MN: So how did you prepare to go into camp?

MY: Just took what few possessions we had, few clothes is about it, 'cause I don't remember had anything else.

MN: Do you know what Yukio did with his farm?

MY: Gee, I don't really know. I don't have any idea. I don't know.

MN: So how did you know what day to gather to go into camp?

MY: He just told us, well, we got to leave, we're going whatever, and so we just all got together and we all went to Santa Anita.

MN: Do you remember how you got to Santa Anita?

MY: Yeah, I think him and a friend drove us out to Santa Anita. I don't know what he did with the car but he took care of everything pretty much so went to Santa Anita.

MN: How much older was Yukio than you for example?

MY: What?

MN: How much older was Yukio?

MY: He must be... let's see, I was eighteen... he must have been about ten years older 'cause he had a brother Hiro that was about four or five years older than me. Then he was six, seven years older than I was, I guess.

MN: Now going back to Santa Anita, what month did you enter Santa Anita?

MY: I think it was April or May, something like that.

MN: What was your first impression of Santa Anita?

MY: We had a horse stall and we had to go pick up our mattress, and there was a couple of other brothers that was in Shonien that came with us and they stayed with us so there was five of us in one stall.

MN: That sounds really crowded.

MY: Yeah, we just put the straw mattresses on the floor and I guess we got like an army blanket or whatever and we'd all sleep on the floor there.

MN: How did you feel about being put into Santa Anita?

MY: I don't know. I thought it's pretty sad that they had to take us from the coast. What did we do? We didn't do anything wrong. But it was just a government edict we had to get out. When we went to Santa Anita, this Oda family that took us in, the mother knew that my dad was there, so she, I guess her son or something told us that my father was there. First thing I felt was, "So what?" I mean, because I was pretty bitter and I felt I'm old enough to take care of myself, I don't need him. And when we get out of camp, I can go to work, we can take care of my younger brother, he can go to school, so I didn't really matter whether I saw him or not. But my older brother and the younger brother, they wanted to go see him so we went to see him. And he wanted to get together, and so they asked me what I thought and I said, "Gee, I don't know. I don't feel like I want to, what do you guys think?" But they didn't matter either way. I said, well, he has to go... by then it was determined that he was going to go to Poston. He wanted us to go together. I wasn't of the opinion that I really wanted to go, so I told him, "You go to Poston, send us a card, let us know where you're at." Well, we never got a card, we never got anything. We didn't know where he was. Well, we got sent to Rohwer, Arkansas, so we were there for about six months, then four of us decided, well, we got a chance to get out of camp and go to work so we left and went to Chicago.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.