<Begin Segment 9>

SY: So when the war broke out, when Pearl Harbor was, was bombed, you remember where you were?

PM: No, I don't remember. But we were, I think we were living on Fifth, East Fifth Street at that time and it doesn't, I was eleven or twelve, so it didn't really mean anything to me. And then they started talking about going into camps, or conservation, concentration camps, Daddy always said, "Oh no, I'm an American citizen and we don't have to go." But it turned out differently where we all had to go, so he had to get rid of all the things in his office. Of course he didn't own the building or anything like that, so yes, it was a very difficult time for them, I'm sure. And Mom rounded up all the pillowcases and put ties through them so that we could use them as bags to put whatever we could fit into it that we could take.

SY: So you didn't have suitcases. You used pillowcases.

PM: Right, right.

SY: So every child had a pillowcase.

PM: Right.

SY: You remember what you took, what you --

PM: No, I don't remember, but we had to go on a train and we ended up in this very dusty Arizona town, and it was Poston. And we went into the barrack and there was sawdust or dust all over the barrack, and we had to stuff our pillows with sawdust so that we could have a pillow to sleep on, and all eight of us were in one tiny cabin.

SY: Really? One section of the barrack?

PM: Uh-huh. There are four sections and we had one end section, 30-12-A. I remember that.

SY: Wow. So they made you, they didn't separate the family at all? They made all --

PM: No, but in a few months, I'm not quite sure when, they did find another room for us, so Baachan and myself and Betty, maybe a few of us, went over there.

SY: Was it adjacent?

PM: It was in Block 31, so it was in the next barrack over.

SY: But not the next room over. It was just the next building over. And how is it, do you remember, how is it that you never went to assembly center?

PM: I think because Dad just insisted that we're going to stay out as long as we can, somehow. I don't know that part.

SY: Right. Because, did you remember most of your friends or whatever having to go? 'Cause there was a gathering place, right, in Little Tokyo?

PM: I don't remember that.

SY: Don't remember. So were you in school at the time? You were in elementary school?

PM: Yes, I was in junior high school.

SY: You were in junior high school and you --

PM: Robert Lewis Stevenson Junior High School.

SY: -- you probably had mostly Japanese friends that were...

PM: Yes, we had, uh-huh.

SY: So there was never, you don't remember if there was any talk in school, like mentioning what's gonna happen?

PM: No.

SY: Nobody said anything negative? You don't remember any negative comments from kids?

PM: No. 'Cause you were too young.

SY: You were too young, and then our family was so big. You didn't have to go talk to anybody else. [Laughs] So there was some sort of protest that our father made very, to somehow --

PM: Probably so, yes.

SY: -- make it to, so that you went directly to Poston.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.