<Begin Segment 6>

YW: I think when they first notified us and when we got on the bus and we left, there were a lot of people out on the sidewalk standing around, and I thought they were just standing to see what was going on. I didn't realize that as soon as we left the house or the shops, people would come in and just take whatever they wanted. Although policemen (and) soldiers were there, they did nothing to stop them. The only thing they did tell us was, well, then sell it. We should have sold it, but they would offer you three dollars or five dollars for a whole dining room set, ten dollars for your car, and you know, it was ridiculous. But there were people waiting outside just for you to leave, so hurry up and leave. They backed up their cars, actually, to get ready to load their car, because they were free to come in and take what they wanted. I know that somebody offered somebody in our family three dollars for the living room set, and they said, "We said no, so they threw three dollars on the floor." And I'm trying to think who it was that picked it up to hand it back to him to say no, "Once you pick up the money, that means you accepted it." We said, "No." But they just picked up what they wanted and they walked off.

"Things that we couldn't carry," (...) people were trying to fill up their suitcases, but you really can't put very much in a suitcase, like your coats and jackets and your shoes and things. We couldn't put everything in a suitcase, so I got a big canvas and rolled up our clothes. Because if you roll it, you could get in more into those packages, and wrapped it like a bundle. We also made bundles out of (...) some of the extras that we had in the house like extra linens and blankets and household or some of your own personal things. And we wrapped it up in sheets, so whatever we could find, and we'd put our name and family number on the packages, family numbers, because we're no longer (...) our name, you were a number. And they said that name, they couldn't go by names but they could go by numbers. It's just like prisoners. And we left it on the curb, and they said that, if possible, somebody will come and pick it up and then you might get it. Chances are that you won't, but they were sure to, although they couldn't promise that we would get those bundles, they said they can only assure you that you could take what you could carry. So the extra bundles we left out on the curb, my canvas was opened, but I got most of my things eventually. It was weeks after I had gone to Topaz, but I got most of my things, which wasn't very much.

PW: Was there anything that you took that was personal to you? And did you bring anything special that meant sentimental or anything...

YW: No, because I thought I was just going on a vacation. I thought I was going to a camp, whatever I thought a camp was. In a couple of weeks, I thought it would take a couple of weeks, a good couple of weeks, because there were so many of us. I didn't know that there was going to be, like, ten thousand people in our camp or nine thousand, eight thousand to nine thousand, ten thousand in a camp. But yeah, I packed like I was going to a camp, like I was going on a vacation.

PW: Where did you go to take the buses? Like where did you meet in Berkeley?

YW: The buses, it was close to where I was staying. It was not a church, we were given a street corner. And our house was almost on the corner, it was the second house from the corner where I was staying. It just happened that the people in our area was to gather, it was almost in front of our house, so I didn't have to go very far.

PW: Did you have friends or people in Berkeley that said goodbye, or was there any kind of that connection that you had to leave behind?

YW: You know, we didn't have time for that. And like I said, I thought, because I was going on a vacation, I would be back soon, and that's how I left. I didn't know that it would take me five years to get back.

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