<Begin Segment 2>

BN: What did your father do for a living?

BS: He was working on the railroad. He eventually worked himself up to become a section foreman. I think I mentioned earlier that he was given a home in the wilderness area of central Oregon.

BN: Do you remember anything from that period, or were you too young?

BS: I can't remember much, other than not being able to speak English at the time, and going to a nursery school where the teachers didn't know what to do with me. So they had me play with some toys during the day, I've got foggy memories of that.

BN: Do you know why they moved to Vancouver?

BS: Because I think he got a promotion, and they gave him a house in Vancouver, and that's where we lived just before the war broke out.

BN: So (he was) still working for the railroad?

BS: Yeah, but after he came out of the camps, he couldn't get his job back. So that's when he decided to become a farmer.

BN: Do you remember anything at all about December 7th?

BS: Oh, yeah, I have a pretty clear memory of the day after December 7th, because we were visiting the manager of a hotel in Portland. She was, what do you call those women who deliver babies?

BN: Midwife.

BS: Midwife, yeah, she was a midwife. She, in fact, delivered me when I was born. But I was sitting on the stairwell leading up to the rooms, and my folks were talking with the midwife, and I was sitting there waving an American flag. And all of a sudden this convertible with three guys, Caucasians, came to a screeching halt in front of the stairway. And they were looking at me and saying, "Little boy, come here." And I immediately sensed danger, and so I quickly got up and ran back up the stairs to my folks' room. And I think that if I had not done that, I would have been in real trouble. That's the one clear memory I have of that time.

BN: Do you remember much about what the family did in that in between period, between the attack on Pearl Harbor and getting removed?

BS: Well, I know they were keeping a very low profile. And I remember my dad being visited by the FBI, and apparently they were investigating the crime where a friend of theirs, who was still in the countryside, was killed when he was getting a haircut from a Filipino barber. He was shot in the head and killed as a reaction to what was taking place in the Philippines with the Japanese army. So they came to visit my father and ask him about this friend who was killed. That's one thing I remember.

BN: What happened to the house or where you were living?

BS: That was the company's house, so it wasn't really ours. So when we were evacuated and sent to the assembly center, we lost all that.

BN: Did he get, did he lose his job immediately?

BS: Yeah, he lost his job, as far as I know.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.