<Begin Segment 5>

TI: So now everything's gone, probably the last thing leaving was your brother's prized airplane. What happens next? Where do you go to get picked up?

KG: Well, we went to the... let's see, my parents and my sister, who was little, went by cab. They had the suitcase and everything, and my brothers and I walked (to) the auditorium, but we meandered around, because we weren't in a hurry to get there.

TI: Now, did any of your friends or brother's friends come to say goodbye to you?

KG: No.

TI: Did that surprise you, or was that pretty much expected, that...

KG: Well, we didn't think about. We're just too busy, involved in our own thoughts.

TI: Did you recall any conversations on that last walk before essentially...

KG: Well, we just walked around and enjoyed different things that, you know, we had taken advantage of before. We just wondered if we would ever be back, is the thing that ran through our mind.

TI: Now were your older brothers, how would you describe, were they ever angry or bitter about this happening?

KG: No, none of us were angry or bitter. I mean, it's, like I said, shikata ga nai. We've got to do this, and so we go. Actually, with my own children, I never talked about it, the camp, because I didn't want them, I didn't want to explain it until I felt they were old enough to comprehend what took place. So they were, Patti was in... it was the '60s, and she's at an age where you protest, you know. And when I finally told her what had happened, and she got upset that I was willing to go along, why didn't I protest? And I said, "Well, when there's a gun pointed at your head, you don't protest," and she stopped and thought, well, that never occurred to her. But anyway, I didn't want the children to feel, be critical about the government. Because there were a lot of things involved, and I didn't want to have to explain everything. But at the same time, the general public was so paranoid and felt guilty and all that, and that's one feeling I never wanted them to feel, because there were so many factors that were involved in what brought the whole thing along.

TI: That's similar, I had a similar conversation with my father when I first started learning about this. And this was late '60s, early '70s, and again, asking questions, saying, "Why didn't people push back or protest?" And I remember his comment, in a similar way, was, "You really had to be there." There were so many things happening in terms of the fear on the streets, the sense of confusion. Back then, people pretty much followed orders. When the government told you to do something, there really weren't protests.

KG: Yeah, you just didn't protest. We were given this notice, we were told this is gonna happen, so you... we didn't have the gumption to protest.

TI: Well, it wasn't very common back then in those days. This was before the Civil Rights Movement.

KG: And there were just a few people who had the strength to rebel, but that wasn't the case for most of the people.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.