<Begin Segment 12>

TI: Okay, so later on that summer, like around July 1942, you leave Pinedale, and where do you go next?

KT: Well, Tule Lake.

TI: And tell me your first impressions of Tule Lake. What did you think?

KT: I thought it was a pretty good place. [Laughs]

TI: Compared to Pinedale.

KT: Good, yeah, good air and the...

TI: Okay. And when you were at Pinedale, did you ever have a job? Did you ever get a job at Pinedale?

KT: No.

TI: So what are some of your memories? This first time you're at Tule Lake, what are some of your memories?

KT: Tule Lake, well, we just bumbled around, just buddies trying to find out where everybody lived.

TI: All your friends kind of?

KT: Yeah.

TI: Now, how about other families, where did they come from? Where, other parts of the country or the West Coast, where were they from?

KT: They were Tule, Tule Lake. They said a lot of 'em were from Sacramento, Sacramento and Placer County, Auburn, California I guess. And I don't know too much about, other than people that went from here.

TI: Now, did you sense, or were there any differences between, say, the Japanese Americans from Auburn, the community feeling there, versus maybe Sacramento or different ones, did you see differences?

KT: Yeah, I think there's quite a bit of difference. One thing, there was quite a bit of animosity between the two. I don't know why, why this, who started it or why they were... but they used to call the guys from Sacramento yogore. [Laughs]

TI: And so kind of like bad boys, that kind of, a sense.

KT: Yeah.

TI: What did they say about the Auburn people?

KT: I don't know. I really didn't, never... I don't even really remember anybody getting in a fight with 'em or anything. It's just that... yeah, I really don't.

TI: But when you say animosity, then, how would that kind of manifest itself? How did you see animosity between --

KT: Because they were, I guess some of them guys were threatened, so they were, one time they said, this one kid is a fast runner, so they said, "We'll send him over and attract their attention, then he can run back real fast and we could be waiting behind this barrack and jump on 'em when they come." [Laughs] And things like that, that's why I said there was some, there was some heat there in the, but I never saw any of that.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.