Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Kay Matsuoka Interview
Narrator: Kay Matsuoka
Interviewer: Alice Ito
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: December 29 & 30, 1999
Densho ID: denshovh-mkay-01-0038

<Begin Segment 38>

AI: Well now, of course with the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that was the end of the war.

KM: Yeah. Uh-huh.

AI: And what did you hear about what was going happen to you and the camp?

KM: Well, then 'course around that time, some of the people had already relocated. And then eventually, they said, they finally said, eventually by the end of '45 all the camps are gonna be closed. And so we knew that we're gonna have to go back home. And I think my folks were about the last to get out of the camp. And when they came over to say good-bye to me, Dad came first by himself. And then, that's the second time I saw him cry. The first time was when he had to sell his two horses. I saw him cry. He put his arms around the horse and says, "Thank you for taking, doing all the work for me and I have to give you up." And that's the first time I saw him. That was before we evacuated voluntarily to Fowler. Second time was when he was leaving camp to come back outside, to the outside world. He came up and he said, "You know, you went through a lot of hardship and now you're separated. And now everything's gonna be good. Now don't come back to Jack's home and start living together again." But we had no place to go. So we had, that's the only place we could go. From then, we could get separated. So and then, he just cried, he says, "Don't go through that anymore." And I could see, and then he couldn't talk anymore. And then he just patted me on, and then came home. And then my mother came to see me. And then around that time I was, I guess I was about mid, maybe it was six months or something like that, pregnant. She said, "I want to tell you one thing before I go." Says, "All the ladies go through labor, and then you have to gaman, you have to endure this pain. Don't yell and scream, 'cause the Japanese don't do that." And so I said, "Okay, okay." [Laughs] And so I had that in my mind when I gave birth. [Laughs]

AI: Well, so then where did your parents go when they...?

KM: They went back to Fowler too, back to, because see, they had left L.A. to Fowler, and the only, last place was Fowler. And so from there they had to find their... so they came back to Jack's folks' place, 'cause that was the only place they can, that was permanent.

AI: And Jack's folks left camp about the same time?

KM: No he, they left a little earlier.

AI: Earlier.

<End Segment 38> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.