<Begin Segment 29>

MN: Now, when did you leave Gila?

BT: July 10, 1945.

MN: So from Gila, where did you go?

BT: Cleveland. Yeah, that, three of my friends and I, we got tired of sittin' around. Why we decided on Cleveland, I don't know, but that's one of the big places where people were going to.

MN: What was your train trip like out to Cleveland?

BT: It was better than the old junkers that we rode between camps. I think it was, I think we were on the train just overnight. First we had to go to Chicago and change train to Cleveland.

MN: Where did you stay in Cleveland?

BT: I still remember the address, 6001 Curtis Street. That's on the east side. What happened is that they, when we applied for relocation they found a place for us, and it was a big house, two-story house that was converted into, not exactly an apartment, but... there was a couple other people there too. What do you call a place where they furnish the food too?

MN: You mean a boarding house?

BT: Boarding house, yeah. It was owned by Caucasians, but a Japanese American ran it.

MN: So how did you find a job at Cleveland?

BT: In Cleveland they had a, like an employment office, so we went there and got the job there. So all four of us got a job at the one place.

MN: Was this a WRA employment office?

BT: Yes.

MN: And where did you end up working?

BT: It was a place where they made rayon threads. This was really a dirty job, and you work with acid also, so you had to go out and buy some wool pants, otherwise it'll just eat, eat your clothes up. Yeah. And the chemical that makes the rayon thread, it can't be stagnant. It has to keep flowing, so it was run, the plant was run 24/7, which wasn't too bad if you were assigned to one shift, but every two weeks we had to changed shift. So it got to a point where I couldn't sleep 'cause you're, your body is just... so finally, finally I says, "I can't take this anymore." And by then my family had moved back to the West Coast, so I says, "I'm goin' home."

[Interruption]

MN: When V-J Day was announced, what was that like and where were you?

BT: Okay, I was at work. I was on the swing shift at that time, and my work was at West, around West 70th Street, but I lived on East 60th Street, so I'd take a streetcar to the public square and, to change streetcar to go to the east side. Well, in the public square there they had a huge map of the Pacific, and they had, that night they had an effigy of Tojo and it was burning, and everybody was celebrating, this and that. So thinking nothing of it, I got on the streetcar, and on the streetcar everybody was celebrating, they're in such a good mood, this and that. And then you hear this tiny voice from a girl, I don't know how old she was, and speaking about that effigy hanging there, she says, "Yeah, they should hang 'em all," she says. And the streetcar just got quiet. Everybody, and then this girl, I guess she realized that I was sittin' there. She said, "I meant the people over there." So then again, people start celebrating, but that was my experience of V-J Day.

MN: You know, when the streetcar got really quiet and everybody's sort of like noticing you, did you feel threatened at that time?

BT: No, not threatened at all, because the people were nice, like waiting for the streetcar, they'd talk to you, this and that. I remember one time, on the streetcar, ran into some friend from Fresno, the mother, being Issei, and she was happy to see another Japanese, so she starts talkin' real loud 'cause we weren't sitting next to each other. It wasn't... anyway, the daughter got a little embarrassed, told her, told the mother kind of tone it down, speaking Japanese. [Laughs] Kind of scary situation.

MN: And then you said that your family moved to Sanger while you were in Cleveland, so when you left Cleveland, did you go straight to Sanger?

BT: No, I stopped in Gila. I wanted to see who was left there. And it was deserted; my friends were all gone. But I stayed there, I think, two nights. Yeah, I'd say majority of people had relocated by then.

MN: Were you able to stay at your old barrack at Gila when you returned?

BT: No, I stayed at this, where my friend used to live.

MN: How did it feel like to live in so, in a camp that was almost vacant?

BT: You know, it's, it was a strange feeling. I guess not, I don't know, not exactly living in a ghost town, but because you've known this camp as being really active and a lot of noise and this and that. And the block that I stayed in, I think there was only a handful of people there.

MN: I know at some of the other camps the kids would start going into empty barracks to see what people left behind. Out of curiosity, did you do that?

BT: [Laughs] No, no.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.