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NW: Well, let's talk a little bit about that day that you were leaving. So you moved back to Chico so that you could stay with your family as you were all being removed. Do you remember that day that you left?

MW: Not specifically. We carried our bags. I remember the train, blinds were down, and it was crowded, there were police or soldiers on it. And I don't remember eating anything on that train.

NW: How long was this trip?

MW: Well, I don't even remember how long that was. It was to northern California, to Tule Lake. Crowded... you hear so many stories, you think, was it like that? Did I really remember that? You think, what was real and what wasn't real? It amazes me that I hear stories of people telling so may specific things. I can't swear that that was my story or somebody else's story. I don't know if the mind does strange things and doesn't want to remember things, who knows? There was a tendency to try to look for the best and to make the best of things. I was kind of protected all my life up to then. I was probably kind of naive, even though two years in college, it doesn't mean that... I used to write letters home every day, I think. It's a little different than some people.

NW: Well, you were about twenty years old then? You were still very young, this was a lot to take in.

MW: Well, when I hear some stories, I think some people were much more mature, I think, in their thinking. I do think I was very protected. Took me a while to realize what's going on.

NW: So you take this train to Tule Lake, you don't know where you're going because the blinds are all closed. When you do arrive at Tule Lake, the blinds go up, you get off the train, you sort of see where you are. What was your first impression arriving in that place?

MW: Well, I remember the dry desert with tumbleweeds in the sand, blowing. And then the barracks which were barren. Four army cots and the potbelly stove, could hear everybody else, thin walls. So we made the best of it. Then the mess halls, the community bathing and toilets.

NW: What about the rest of your family, your parents or your brother? Did you get a sense of their reaction to being in this place?

MW: We didn't really talk about it. I think it's always been that protective kind of thing, making the best of whatever situation, not being... complaining. And my mother tried to make life as comfortable as possible. I don't remember her really complaining. Eventually she even did some cooking on that potbelly stove, trying to make it as pleasant as possible, because the mess hall eating was, food was terrible. And for some people it might be delicacies, but parts of the animal that I'd never eaten. And then as everybody else says, youngsters tend to find their own age group and the family life has changed. So I didn't see a lot of my brother because he had his own friends, and he was still in school. My brother was with a group of young people, they called them the... it was like Aloha Boys or something like that. And I got a job, first as an interviewer, just because I knew a little bit of Japanese. And then later I became a nurse's aide in the hospital.

NW: What kind of interviews were you, or who were you interviewing?

MW: I was interviewing Isseis who didn't speak English that much, and they had the fill in papers. And I don't know why at that point they were always filling in papers. So I could talk to them a little bit, I can't imagine I'd be very efficient. So eventually, as I said, when they got the hospital set up, I helped. I was at the point of deciding whether to become, go into nursing or not. So I had this good experience, real life experience before deciding. Saw my first delivery and I thought, wow, it's a miracle. I want to be a nurse.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2018 Densho. All Rights Reserved.