<Begin Segment 10>

TI: Now do you remember on the day that you had to assemble to go to Puyallup, where your assembly point was?

TT: Yah, it was Collins.

TI: Oh, Collins Playfield?

TT: Uh-huh. We just had to go there and wait outside and catch the bus.

TI: And describe for me what you brought. What were you carrying when you went to Collins Playfield?

TT: Just clothes, just a little bit of clothes. We didn't have books, maybe we took books or paper or something that would keep us busy. But other people had gone before that and they weren't taking the bus. We used to go there and see people leaving first, because they were going to Area A or Area B. We ended up in Area C in Puyallup.

TI: And so what did you learn when you first saw the earlier groups leaving, and what they were carrying? Did that change your thinking in terms of...

TT: No, we just knew that this was war, and we were asked to leave, and we had to do what we were told. And we always did what we were told in those days. So if they said, "Drop this," we dropped it. [Laughs]

TI: So going back to what you carried your clothes, did you have a little suitcase?

TT: We must have had some suitcases, real cheap ones, or maybe a box or something. We were poor.

TI: And when you went to Collins, do you recall kind of what the mood of the people were?

TT: Well, everybody's glad to see everybody else, that it's not just happening to us, it's happening to everybody else, and we're so glad to see people. We were naive.

TI: No, I think that's... yeah, pretty common.

TT: I don't know where your folks went. They went to Puyallup, but I don't know where they lived. They lived on the other side of Yesler?

TI: Yeah, so they lived down there, so I'm not sure... I'm actually not sure where the assembly point was for them.

TT: So they probably went to Puyallup, they probably gathered there on a certain day, too.

TI: And so at Collins Playfield, the buses came and you rode the buses. At this point did you know where you were going?

TT: No.

TI: Okay, so you just saw these buses earlier taking people away, you weren't quite sure. When you are on the bus and they take you then to Puyallup, did you know Puyallup? Had you ever been to the fairgrounds?

TT: Yah, I think we went there for the fairgrounds, because that was the place... but we didn't know where we were going, and we didn't know what the place was, what they had done to it until we started seeing the fences and the barracks.

TI: So what were your impressions when you got there?

TT: Well, really at that age, you just know you're there because they told you to be there, and I don't think we thought any different. "Oh, this is our new home, this is where we have to stay."

TI: Right, and you said Area C?

TT: C.

TI: So that's the parking lot.

TT: Yes.

TI: And so you're kind of shown or told where your quarters are, and there are six of you, so four girls and your parents?

TT: Yah.

TI: So describe what your housing was at Puyallup.

TT: We had one room, maybe a little bigger than this, and we had six cots and a potbelly stove, and that was it. But we knew we were gonna eat in the mess hall where everything else, and we'd have to go outside to go to a bathroom. My sister would always wake me up at night, she says, "I got to go to the bathroom, will you go with me?" So we'd get up and go walk to the outhouse or whatever it was there.

TI: And this is your younger sister?

TT: My older sister.

TI: Older sister, okay.

TT: I don't know if my younger sister, I know my mother had a, you know, potty, and so she used to, my mother used to go in there, and maybe she had my sister go there, too.

TI: By then your younger sister was about twelve, so she was a little bit older.

TT: Yah.

TI: You mentioned earlier, this is about the time your younger sister changed her name. She went from...

TT: In camp she became Donna from Akiko.

TI: To Donna. Now, so did you start changing, did you start calling her Donna then at that point?

TT: Yah. Well, she insisted on it. She said, "Don't call me Akiko or Akko or anything like that, I'm Donna."

TI: And what did you think when she said that?

TT: Well, everybody else was doing that.

TI: Okay, so it didn't seem too strange to you that she would do that.

TT: Yah. And people tried to find a name for me, and I couldn't, what can you do with Takeko? [Laughs]

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2015 Densho. All Rights Reserved.