<Begin Segment 12>

SY: But let's back up a little and go back to you're just leaving camp.

FK: Yes, we left Rohwer and another five days and we ended up in El Segundo, it was a trailer camp. They probably had about seven or eight trailers and our family was in one of the trailers they had a bed on both ends of the trailer and we stayed there maybe about five or six months.

SY: Explain where El Segundo is?

FK: What?

SY: Explain where El Segundo is?

FK: Yes, El Segundo is a city between is it Redondo Beach and in that area. Well, our camp was on Sepulveda Boulevard and today it's all buildings and so forth there but we had a camp there and we had a camp in Hawthorne. It was a much larger camp I don't know why we didn't go there but it was walking distance. And I still remember it was a very, very... it's a very negative thought for me to remember this but my dad and I went to visit people that was in Hawthorne camp so we walked from Sepulveda Boulevard and walked to the camp and on the way back there's an aircraft industry, I don't know whether it's North American or one of the big... and as we were coming back it was about five o'clock and the whistle blew and then so everybody was leaving and we were caught in a traffic stop, you had to wait there quite a bit because a lot of the cars were coming out, it was one way. It was probably about ten minutes but it seemed like ten hours every other car would roll down the window and "Goddamn Japs! Get the hell out of here!" and all that and my dad he's about five feet one or two and we were just both of us just standing there and he grabbed my hand and he just looked straight and a little bit of him and a little bit of me died that day. It was very sad and had somebody got out of the car and beat us up that would have been something else. But being told and yelled at, it's uncalled for for a young boy to go through that kind of experience or anybody to go through that experience. I still remember this day and how... I'm trying to think of how and envision how my dad felt and how I would have felt if I had my son and there I was caught in the traffic and pick up a rock and throw it 'em or what would I do? It's got to be really... yeah, and if I'm thinking of my son, what does he think of me? He went through that thing and I went through that and obviously I still remember it so it's something that would bother me for a long time or for the rest of my life.

SY: And he was never actually able to say anything to you about it?

FK: No, we never talked about that. But anyway, in El Segundo where we were, two or three of us would sit on the sidewalk, nothing to do because we just got to camp and then one day this bus stopped in front of us and beckoned us to get on board to go to school and we backed off and said no. And then obviously reported to the school system and the very next day we got a notice to report to school so we went to El Segundo Junior High School which is an all-white school and they were very nice. Nobody ever made us feel badly or anything, it was a very, very nice school.

SY: Good experience.

FK: Yes, it was a very good experience.

SY: Even though it was very brief.

FK: Yes.

SY: You didn't really get to make friends there.

FK: No, well I had some friends but, yeah, it was a beautiful school, it was the first time I saw a school with a swimming pool in junior high school and I said, wow this is really nice. And they made me feel at home and of course all my clothes is tattered and everything else but no one ever mentioned or laughed at me because I had a hole in my sweater or something like that. It was a very nice experience.

SY: That's great.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.