<Begin Segment 8>

SY: We didn't talk about what camp you ended up going to finally.

FK: Then one day again they told us okay that you're to report... get your suitcase and then we got on the bus again and we went to the Union Station and we were all told to board a train. Again not knowing where we're going we boarded and we were told to keep the blinds down, the curtains down during the day and not one word. I don't know if the adults knew where we were going but I don't think they knew and for five days, five nights we were going eastward and we had no idea until we stopped and they say okay. And then they put us on another bus and we took a little ride through the countryside not knowing where we are and then we found out later they cleared this forest and they made blocks and that's where 10,000 of us were housed for the next four years. It was the middle of Arkansas about fifty miles west of the Mississippi River, and again as a child it was a brand new experience. As a parent or an adult you're being placed in a place where God knows where it was and this is where you're going to live until you're told to leave again.

SY: But that is probably one of the furthest camps so you were on that train... do you remember being on that train?

FK: That's right, train five days, yes and it was not like a train is today. It was wooden seats and so you had some space above but with everybody carrying their baggage so you had baggage on the floor so you had to kind of lift feet up. And sitting on the wooden... I don't know how the elder Japanese people made it, no cushion or anything. And they had to sleep sitting down for five days.

SY: But was it kind of an adventure for you being on the train?

FK: As a child I would run up and down the train and things like that but I don't remember too much on the train except that every so often when the train would stop we'd kind of lift the curtain up and peek and it's usually a stop to get refuel coal and water. And then you peek out and you see Indians out there and try to sell their goods. Of course nobody bought anything because they didn't have any money. So the Indians would come and they'd try to sell their trinkets, I still remember that.

SY: Wow, do you remember there being guards?

FK: You know, I believe there were guards on the train. Yes, I'm sure there were. (...) I don't remember them coming by every hour on the hour or anything like that.

SY: So that didn't frighten you?

FK: No, Japanese are usually very well disciplined people. And if they say don't do that and don't do that they pretty much follow.

SY: Interesting. So when you arrived in camp there was a time where it took a while for you get settled, right, and go to school?

FK: Yes, well, they started school immediately. We were one of the earlier ones there so they were still constructing barracks when we got there. And so they were working and there's another thing that every once in a while when I go camping... I don't go camping that often but when we go to the forest and you smell that burning of the leaves or the branches that brings back memories of Arkansas because they were clearing the fields and they would burn the twigs and the leaves and the branches and so forth. And that smell is something that has really, to me it brings back fond memories for whatever reason but it's of my childhood in Arkansas. We used to romp through the forest and all kinds of animals and rabbits and squirrels.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.