<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Going back to you, so about a month after the war broke out you lost your railroad job.

KT: Yeah.

TI: So what did you think about that? Did you, yeah, did you have any thoughts or remember how you felt?

KT: Well, it, we started back on the farm. We started working the farm a little bit, and then... of course, all the Niseis are grumbling and they said, "Well, why..." then word come out that we were gonna be evacuated. They said, "Now, why should we be raising this if we're gonna just leave the crop?" And then a lot of 'em didn't do anything, and then some people, town people come around and they said, "For the war effort, you should go ahead and do, work, produce." [Laughs]

TI: Now, who were these town people? Were they Japanese or were they --

KT: No, no.

TI: They were --

KT: They were hakujin, yeah.

TI: And did they do it in a threatening way, or did they do it in just --

KT: No.

TI: Now, were these people that you knew?

KT: Yeah.

TI: And how did you feel about that, knowing that maybe you won't be around to harvest the crops?

KT: Well, I understood that. You're gonna have to have food, and we raised everything and put in an early crop like spinach and onion and stuff like that. But it's the old Japanese, shikata ga nai. [Laughs]

TI: Now, during those months after December 7th, before you went to Pinedale, did you have any anti-Japanese incidents or anything that happened to you?

KT: No, I didn't. I didn't. In fact, there's a couple of guys used to come with the car -- we had an eight o'clock curfew -- and they had a blanket and they'd come with the car, and we'd get in the back and put the blanket over us, and they'd go. [Laughs]

TI: So you were defying the curfew order. You were, you were going against curfew.

KT: Yeah.

TI: And where would you go in the car? What would you do?

KT: One of the other guys' home or something. Just to be going out, I guess, not really, didn't matter where we went or what we did.

TI: Now, what would happen if you got caught, if you were out --

KT: I have no idea. [Laughs]

TI: So you never heard of anyone getting caught being out there over the curfew.

KT: No.

TI: Now, I'm curious, you're a longtime, your family lived in Auburn for a long time, did you know, like, the policemen and people like that in Auburn?

KT: No. It's a funny thing, they all kept away from you, most of 'em. The high school kids that we knew, they came around, but there was only one family that came and said goodbye. That was... our family used to live in east Auburn and we had some hakujin friends there, and then we moved to west Auburn, and these guys, I was surprised that some of these guys that lived in east Auburn came, they drove in, they drive in, I looked and said, "I wonder what the hell he wants." Then he came and said he was sorry that we were being chased out of our family home and all that.

TI: And what did that make you think, or how did that make you feel when he did that?

KT: I felt good about that, actually. This guy's a real friend. He's a lot older guy, and him and his wife came. But I didn't have any other trouble or anything like that.

TI: Okay.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.