Densho Digital Archive - Yukiko Miyake Interview (denshovh-myukiko-01-0031)

<Begin Segment 31>

SY: While you were in camp, for a year Henry was in Montana. How did you two correspond?

YM: Well, we did write letters but the censorship was so bad, when you get a piece of paper with a lot of holes in it. It was no use, but we did try to correspond. But it was Dear Yuki or Henry or Dear Henry and Yuki or something like that so we didn't do much corresponding. [Laughs] And I think I asked him once after he came out of camp why because he used [Inaudible], but he says that was the government order. You weren't supposed to read any message. So if somebody died, maybe they thought that was bad so... a lot of things we didn't know.

SY: So even though you corresponded by letters, you never got any information?

YM: No. No. No information.

SY: Just basically letters with holes in them?

YM: Yeah, just basically letters with holes in them.

SY: So what was it like when Henry came back and rejoined the family?

YM: He didn't stay very long because, let's see. He came back about a year later, and he didn't like it. Oh, naturally, he didn't like it. He couldn't do what he wanted. He worked in a poultry farm for a while.

SY: In Missoula?

YM: In Minidoka. And then he went out because -- I don't know what you would call them now, but at that time there was a young man or -- or I don't know. I never met him. He was from Hawaii and he really liked Henry so he got a job for Henry in New York. But Henry thought he would go out and he went out, but instead of going to New York, he stopped in Spokane and that's where he ended. He never went to New York.

SY: Why was that?

YM: Because Henry had more fun playing golf every day, and he had more fun talking to his friends. Oh, and then he found a job in Spokane. I don't know where. He worked in a photography shop and then he called us. Now thinking about that because to this day I don't remember how we packed our things, but anyway I'm sure Henry wasn't there to pack our things so I must have asked somebody to help us pack it, and we sent it out to Spokane. And Kako went to school there for a little while and... that's about all I can remember.