<Begin Segment 13>

TI: Now, during this time when the RCMP picked up your father, were they picking up other men at the same time?

MK: Oh yes, all of these, as soon as, right after my was father put in that place, these young men, especially the foreign born, they hauled those people in first. And in the middle of the night they took them, and the wives, some of them were, just came from Japan and they didn't know where, where they were gone. So all these young men, they were taken together, so I would say maybe fifteen, twenty of the, of the Isseis, young Isseis, were taken, and after, we found out that they were in the Rocky Mountains working on the, on the railroad tracks and stuff. So we, I don't know how we found out, but we heard via the grapevine that's where they were.

TI: Now, was the RMCP --

MK: RCMP.

TI: RCMP, were they also picking up Canadian citizens?

MK: Well, then that came around March, late March. So all of the young boys, young fellows, including Tets Aoki, and they all come running to the farm. And Tets said they would bring all their friends, and people we knew too, and our farm, in the barns and, they were all over that place.

TI: So this was like a hideaway for them.

MK: That's right. They were, so we, my mother, she cooked pancakes for breakfast and we had, well, chicken, we had all the eggs, but it was a steady chicken diet. That's all, so my mother just cooked, cooked day and night.

TI: So explain to me, what were these boys running away from, the young men? What were they running away from?

MK: They were, didn't want to get picked up. See, they were picking up the men, and I guess they were gonna send 'em to road camps too, I don't know.

TI: But these were Japanese --

MK: Niseis.

TI: Japanese Canadians, Niseis --

MK: Yeah, Niseis.

TI: -- and then university students, so they would be, were they suspect? I mean, why would they get picked up?

MK: Well, that's when we decided, my father decided that they're gonna, they're going to evacuate in sections, I guess.

TI: So if they were gonna take those people they're gonna take --

MK: That's why my mother decided that if we're gonna go we're gonna go as a family, see? Because a lot of the people were, and then they were given first choice, if they went a hundred miles inward they could go themselves, see?

TI: But before we go there, I want to learn a little more about these, these boys who would come to the farm. About how many of them would be coming?

MK: Gee, at one time there was like ten or twelve. Then next time they bring their friends.

TI: And what would they do when they're at your farm?

MK: We'd play cards and dance. We, I mean, I was sixteen years old. I never had such a great time in my life, you know? And my sister and I...

TI: So you would sort of host them. You'd be the hostess and help feed them and do all these things.

MK: Yeah, that's right.

TI: So they had a pretty good time too, then.

MK: Yeah. I mean, it was really... so one time the girls came from town and they came in a U drive, and they're coming down the, we could see down the road to our place, so they all made a mad dash for the barns and chicken houses.

TI: They thought that they were gonna be picked up or something.

MK: They didn't, yeah, they didn't know who that was. Well, here comes all these girls jumping out of the car and yelling at me and my sister that, "What are you doing with our guys?" Stuff like that. We said, "What guys?" Naturally, we were with them. Well, and they were saying, "We know they're here." So pretty soon they came out and they said, "Go home, go home. The curfew's, time for curfew." So they had to turn around and go home because of curfew.

TI: The girls.

MK: The girls have to go home.

TI: And the boys stayed there.

MK: The boys stayed, yeah.

TI: Now, were the girls really angry, or were they just sort of --

MK: Well, I think they were thinking their boyfriends, they're boyfriends and girlfriends with the fellows that were there. We didn't have nothing... but it was really funny. It was, it was... we thought, boy.

TI: 'Cause I would think some of them would be appreciative that you were hiding them for, keeping 'em safe.

MK: You know, well, they're eighteen or nineteen too, like us, and they're thinking, "Oh, they're trying to steal their, their..."

TI: Their boyfriends.

MK: Yeah.

TI: That's an interesting story. Yeah. So you have all these boys, then what happened? Did they...

MK: Then they, I guess the RCMP now started, right around that time the RCMP started to interrogate all the families. So at our Japanese school the RCMP set up, set up the, like a table and office, and all the people were to come and they have to register and stuff. So we were all the interpreters and helped make their files for them, so that's, so our entire family, top of that, we're way out in the country and there's no restaurants or nothing, so the RCMP told my brother, he says, "Where can we eat?" And they said, "Well, if you want to eat roast chicken, my mother will fix your lunch." So sure enough, all the, must've been maybe a staff of fifteen or so, they would all come for lunch and my mother would roast up all these chickens and baked bread and made potatoes and carrots, like that.

TI: So for, like, lunch they would come to your farm and get fed.

MK: Yes, they would all come and they would all sit down and eat their lunch. They paid my mother. I mean, of course they paid. But every day, while they were doing that they came. In fact, when they went to Surrey they came to our place, because my mother... that went on for, like, about ten days.

TI: And so they got to know your family.

MK: Yeah, they got to know us personally. So when the time for us to go and get evacuated, the army trucks came to pick us up and then my, and they said you're only allowed a hundred and seventy-five pounds, what you can carry. My mother, she just said, "We're not gonna leave this rice and all that stuff." So she bagged all the stuff and tied it all up, and they even loaded it on the truck and onto the train, so we had like half a trainload of Enta, Enta stuff.

TI: And mostly food and things like, extra food?

MK: Food, and that's all it was. Because we didn't want to, 'cause we had just finished, in October we just bought a ton of rice, and that, we just buy rice once.

TI: So that was enough rice for the whole year.

MK: That's right, because it'll be the same old rice even if you bought it in April 'cause the harvest is... so it was, so we got to take, we got to take, like, rice and shoyu and stuff like that. Yeah, but that's, I guess, because of a favor too.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.