<Begin Segment 6>

SY: And do you remember what the process was of your leaving your home? I mean where you were living, did they have to sell all their equipment?

FK: No, there's nothing to sell because there's no buyers to buy kamaboko equipment. Had we been in the barber or the grocery store or something like that you have something to sell. But he had the foresight to find someplace and someone willing to warehouse the few pieces of equipment that he had. And I recall once within the four years that we were in camp that he and this Kusumoto family, the husband Kusumoto, they both left Rohwer, Arkansas, and came back to Los Angeles for some kind of... some reason and I recall and I just imagine that he came back because of the equipment or to renegotiate or whatever. So he did leave for a couple weeks and came back.

SY: Wow, that's amazing that you remember that, but they were able to pack what they had and what you had?

FK: Well, we were just allowed -- you mean to leave for camp?

SY: Right, to leave.

FK: I thought it was just one suitcase per person but I understand it's whatever you can carry. But I remember carrying a cardboard, brand new cardboard suitcase and my two sisters had one just like mine. And packed our clothes that was about all we could put in there. And I don't remember what my mom and dad put in there but they had some photographs and I do remember she had a half of jar of umeboshi and that half a jar lasted four years. That was only eaten on special occasions like someone caught a cold or whatever and of course the ume was white with a salt and it was almost dry by the time the war ended but that I do remember.

SY: But do you remember what you chose to take with you?

FK: I don't remember anything I took.

SY: So did you end up getting... reporting to Little Tokyo for the --

FK: No, I don't even know... I'm sure probably we went to Nishi Hongwanji and we were all picked up on a bus. And we took a short ride to Santa Anita and being the later evacuees going there, we were in the brand new barracks. The Kusumoto family were placed in there much earlier and they were in the stables. And it was a little bit of irony where they were more well... they were well off as compared to us and they were in the stables and here we are in the brand new barracks. We visited them and gosh and it was terrible, dirt floor, no privacy, smells and it was terrible.

SY: Do you know why your family was able to leave later?

FK: Well, now it's just the call of luck. Some people were told okay you leave tomorrow and then you leave next week and I don't know how we got delayed. It wasn't much more than two or three weeks but the first come they went into the stables and then rest filled the barracks.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.