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BK: And then from there, they started sending us to different camps and we went to Amache, Colorado, I guess they call it Granada.

VY: Did you have other family members that went there also, or friends?

BK: Yeah. I think that the couple friends that we went to Marysville with were there, and I think my granduncle and my grandaunt, I think were in Colorado, I mean, Amache.

VY: Do you remember that journey at all?

BK: No, not at all.

VY: How about once you were there, what's kind of the first memory you have of being there?

BK: Well, I remember, I know that they would give you passes so you could go to town. So we went to the town of Granada, I guess, and then I guess to shop. But I don't really remember any details.

VY: You don't remember being in town and interacting with people in town?

BK: No, not really.

VY: Do you have any memories of how, during that early time, how the adults were behaving around you?

BK: Well, my parents, I think, like a lot of parents, shielded their children. And so my parents, they never said anything against the United States, they never said anything negative like saying, "Oh, why did they put us here?" or, "What are we doing here?" They never said anything like that. And they just did the best they could, and we just try to adjust to getting our meals and having to walk to the bathroom and walk to the shower and things like that. But I'm thinking, I see pictures of people standing in line at the mess hall to go into lunch or dinner or breakfast, whatever it was. But I never could remember standing in line, and I don't know why I don't have any memories of that.

VY: Interesting. Do you have memories of, actually, meals at all? Like sitting down with your family and eating or other people in camp?

BK: Not really. I mean, I was always with my mom, I think. But I know that my brother's age, because he's, like, five years older than I was. And so I think that the kids would all get together and eat by themselves, and so there was no family dinnertime. So I think that was like a negative for the families.

VY: So around that time, you were probably around five or six and your brother was around ten or eleven?

BK: Right.

VY: But so you remember you mostly had meals with your mom and your brother had meals with his friends. How about your dad?

BK: I don't really know because he would go out, like sometimes they would have jobs for people to go out in the field and work. And so I think my dad used to join that group to go out and do fieldwork, farming work. And so I don't really remember him sitting down and having a dinner all together.

VY: Do you know any other kind of work your dad might have done in camp, or how about your mom? Did she do any work in camp?

BK: No, my mother didn't do any work. I mean, but she used to take classes like what she used to do before the war. She used to come into Little Tokyo and doing sewing classes. And then when she got in camp, then if they had any sewing or tailoring classes, she always went to that. And I remember she ended up, she even made a suit for my dad from the tailoring class. And she also started taking flower arrangement, the Japanese flower arrangement.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.