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BN: Now, do you remember much about December 7, 1941?

WS: No, not too much.

BN: Or what the reaction of your classmates and so forth, when you went back to school the next Monday?

WS: Let's see. We were in a mixed school, so a very different school from the Fish Harbor people. So we didn't have too much of a reaction, but we had to leave the island.

BN: Now, many of the men on Terminal Island were picked up by FBI or so forth. Was your father affected at all?

WS: He was picked up, but then they let him go right away.

BN: Right away being a matter of days?

WS: A matter of days, yeah.

BN: Did he ever talk about what happened?

WS: No. See, he was a young Issei, he spoke English.

BN: Was he... well, maybe we'll get to that after we get to Manzanar. Now, was there... what was the general sense of the community in those, because you had a couple months between Pearl Harbor and when the community was evicted, basically. Was there a sense that something was about to happen, or did you just go on, more or less, with normal life?

WS: I think we had to move out around March, I think, I'm not sure, but somewhere in there. So it was kind of a strange time.

BN: Now, what happened when the Terminal Island community was told to leave? Where did you go?

WS: Luckily we had a truck, and we had some friends who had a house in Boyle Heights. So we were able to... then we had some family that lived in Venice that helped us, too. So we moved from Terminal Island to Boyle Heights.

BN: And these were just friends of yours, or friends of your family?

WS: Right, they were JACL people.

BN: Do you remember the name of the family?

WS: Honda, John Honda.

BN: Was your dad connected to JACL at all? He was Issei, right?

WS: [Shakes head].

BN: So now you've been kicked out of Terminal Island, you're in Boyle Heights, did you continue going to school now in Boyle Heights?

WS: Yeah, went to Stevenson junior high.

BN: And did you know anybody there?

WS: No. It wasn't very long, we were kicked out in February, ended up in April in Manzanar.

BN: Was there any kind of reaction from the people in Boyle Heights to, your family is coming from Terminal Island now, moving in. Were you welcomed or did anyone give you trouble?

WS: No, the teacher was really nice, had a nice teacher. And we had an aunt that lived there, so we just kind of walked around, didn't know the town, so we walked around, got to know the area. We weren't there too long, and then off to Manzanar.

BN: Okay. So from Boyle Heights you get the exclusion notice, and then what happens then? Do you remember much about that day when you had to report?

WS: We were all dressed up, Sunday clothes, we reported to the train station. And soldiers were there with their bayonets on and everything. And they gave us things for identification tags, put us on the train with the windows rolled down, and off to Manzanar. But it was dark inside, and people were crying and everything, didn't know where they were going or anything.

BN: Do you know what your parents did with their possessions? You mentioned they had a truck and their other household goods?

WS: Somehow they got their stuff into storage. I think they knew JACL people, so they got their stuff in storage.

BN: And they were able recover it after?

WS: Yeah, they had a truck, they had a car and everything.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.