<Begin Segment 9>

MN: So going back to Rohwer, when you learned that the war was over, how did you feel?

TN: Okay. Get to go back to L.A. Only I didn't remember anything about L.A.

MN: When did your family leave Rohwer?

TN: I don't know. Around November 1945, I think.

MN: How did you feel about leaving Rohwer and parting with your friends?

TN: Just said bye, that's all. I figured I'd see some of them back in L.A. or California anyway, but I never did see them again.

MN: You never saw Freddie again?

TN: No, that, I'm not sure if I saw him, if he was at Burbank or not. He might have been.

MN: So when you got on the train to return to California, were your family the only Japanese Americans on the train?

TN: No, the whole train was Japanese Americans.

MN: So what do you remember of the train ride back to California?

TN: It was long. And we stopped off in El Paso for a little break, so I remember getting off the train, and my father got off the train, we took a few steps into El Paso, or the station, anyway, and got back on the train. And all the way on the train, my brother, Makoto, he was the youngest brother, he had asthma, so he was just coughing his lungs out. It must have been a bad ride for him.

MN: So as the train neared Los Angeles, how did you feel?

TN: Kind of excited, I think, seeing... 'cause my father said there was a lot of tall buildings in L.A. and that we will be passing Alhambra before L.A. and there will be some big buildings there. But I didn't see any real big buildings in Alhambra.

MN: So when you folks returned, there was a housing crisis in California. Where did your family live at first?

TN: We lived in trailer camps, first at Burbank, across the street from Lockheed, which used to be testing their jet engines so it was pretty loud. Really loud sometimes. And I don't know, they must have not tested it at night because we were able to sleep. We used to have to walk... we used to take the bus to school. I think I was in the third grade. The school must have been about a mile away, and there were so many Japanese in the area, all at the trailer camp, that I think the lower grades went to Washington school, which was much closer, but kind of dangerous because you had to cross San Fernando Road to go over there. And the other class is third, fourth, fifth, sixth. We had to take the bus to Bret Harte school which was about a mile away. And so we'd get bus money, take the bus to school, then we'd walk back usually. Walk through the golf course, kids would pick up golf balls and return it to the place for some money. Then we used to go to the drugstore on Victory Boulevard and look at the comic books and all that, not buy any. Some of the older kids, being smart alecks, they would make crank calls to I don't know who. Then we would walk on home. We even made some white friends at school.

MN: So how did the white students and the teachers respond?

TN: Okay, I guess. I made some friends there, white friends even. I don't remember their last names or anything. One of the guys, his name was Jackie, he came over, he might have come over to the trailer park once. I'm not sure.

MN: So how would you compare the education you started to get at Bret Harte in comparison to Rohwer?

TN: I think a lot of the same stuff we learned at Rohwer we were having again at Bret Harte. Makes you wonder about California education, or maybe the educational system at the concentration camp was not bad. Maybe it was the Nisei teachers. So we were reading some of the same stuff again, you know, reading, writing, arithmetic.

MN: So for you it wasn't that difficult.

TN: Not that I can recall. But my father kept me out of school for one semester. That first semester of the third grade, 'cause we were going to go back to Japan and all that. So then when he changed his mind, by that time it was time for the second semester. And they were going to put me back a grade, but my father went in and argued with the teachers or principal or somebody and I got to stay in the same grade.

MN: So you were able to keep up?

TN: Yeah, I didn't get put back and I was able to keep up.

MN: So when your father kept you out and had this thought that you were going to go to Japan, were you prepared to go to Japan?

TN: I guess so, yeah.

MN: Going back to the Burbank trailer, there are seven kids and two, your parents.

TN: Two trailers, I think.

MN: You didn't fit in one trailer.

TN: No, I think the boys were in one trailer, and the little girls and my parents were in the other trailer.

MN: So where were the bathrooms located?

TN: They were in the bathroom trailer, mobile home like thing across the way somewhere.

MN: So how would you compare the Burbank trailers to the Rohwer barracks?

TN: I don't know, they're just trailers, a place to go pee and poo and stuff. But no furo that I remember. I think it was showers at Burbank.

MN: So the living conditions, were they the same at Burbank and Rohwer?

TN: Just different, 'cause we were in trailers. That's different. And my youngest brother, if he had to go to the bathroom like late at night, he didn't want to walk all the way to the trailer, he'd just pee out the window. [Laughs] I don't know how many times that happened. I remember that.

MN: So the demographics at the Burbank trailers, were they all Japanese Americans?

TN: Just about all Japanese Americans I think, except there was one white woman there, I think. I don't know what was up with that.

MN: Do you know if a lot of people from Rohwer ended up at the Burbank trailers?

TN: They must have, yeah.

MN: Did this area have a recreational barrack?

TN: Well, there was a field over there where they could play softball. And they had a little... I don't know what it was. Not like a kiosk, but something with a roof over it where they held boxing matches. Like I was a little kid, and they put me in with another little kid to box. We weren't gonna fight, we didn't want to be in with big old gloves on our hands. And the other kid hit me, so I figured I'd better put my gloves up like this, could block the punches. Then I hit him in the ear or something and he started crying, so I guess they declared me the winner, but I felt like crying, too. Held it in, went to the water fountain and had some water, that was it. That's the last time I boxed, or over there, anyway.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.