<Begin Segment 16>

TI: Earlier you mentioned that when you were in Klamath Falls there was some kind of anti-Japanese feeling, just like the police officer saying you shouldn't be walking around. How was it in Ontario?

KT: There was some, there were some kids. Tok Otsuka's from Vashon and he's kind of dark, but he's got that more, I don't know, what would you say, like Okinawa type look, and a guy called him a Mexican. Then he said, "Oh, he's not a Mexican. He's a Jap." And then -- no, it wasn't Tok, it was Joe Ono, and he was short, so they picked on the shortest guy amongst us and the guy jumped on him. But that broke up right away 'cause they found out that Joe had a lot of backers. [Laughs]

TI: So who were these people that jumped Joe? I mean, who were they?

KT: Kids, young kids coming out of the movie.

TI: Kids, meaning like high school kids kind of?

KT: Yeah, about high school age.

TI: And so Joe, so he had friends there, so they broke it up.

KT: Yeah, they changed their mind and they left right away.

TI: What were some other memories of that time in Ontario that you have? You talked about sort of the backbreaking work and the movie theater, but what were some other...

KT: I don't know. Just having to eat the same food every day practically because we were, most of it was rice and stew. [Laughs] But that was alright. I didn't care.

TI: Now, you had this kind of choice. You could sort of stay at Tule Lake and all your food would be taken care of, you wouldn't have to work as hard, or be at places like Klamath Falls or Ontario where it sounds like it was pretty hard work. So how did you think about that choice? Why did you choose one over the other?

KT: Because actually you're kind of free, when you go out, you leave 'em. Like Ontario, we went to the movies, we went to restaurants. Well, I don't know, everything else is about the same, I guess. I didn't... the main thing was, when we worked on the railroad in Klamath Falls they took us up in the hills to a place called Chemult, and there was snow up there, like maybe seven feet level ground, and we have to clean the snow off of the switch. This was in Pacific and the Great Northern came together there, and that was our job, clearing snow off of the switches and the side track. That was cold. Train come in, a bunch of sailors on there, "Look at the Indians." Blah blah blah. So no sooner than that, some guy said, "They're not Indians, they're the J word." [Laughs] So we make snowballs.

TI: And so when, when people called you, I guess the J word, or "Jap," what did that make you feel like, back then?

KT: Well, it made you feel like you wanted to him 'em right smack in the nose. But I don't know.

TI: Okay. Earlier you talked about, so September 1943 you went back to Tule Lake to help your parents move to Topaz, so tell me about that. When you went back to Tule Lake, so it's now becoming a segregation camp, did you notice any differences at Tule Lake this time?

KT: Not really. It was just that we were mostly packing and taking our suitcases down the railhead. I remember getting on the truck and some of the people that were staying, they were out there saying, "Lots of luck. Bye." They thought that they would be going back to Japan and they would have a good time there or something, but I don't know.

TI: How about your parents? How were they at this time? Did they talk very much about what they were thinking or feeling?

KT: No, they weren't, they were pretty well set on staying there.

TI: Because I'm guessing that lots of the other Isseis are probably talking to them about maybe going to Japan also?

KT: I think a lot of them were saying that, but I don't think my parents were going back. They, they... in fact, I heard one Japanese guy say that, "Oh, you look at that list," and he says, "A lot of them people have big debts and they figured that's one way of getting rid of their debt, is going back to Japan."

TI: So sort of like a fresh start for people.

KT: Yeah. This is, to them it's not Japan or the U.S. or anything, it's just that it's a personal thing.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.