Densho Digital Repository
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Elliot Yoshinobu Horikoshi Interview
Narrator: Elliot Yoshinobu Horikoshi
Interviewer: Patricia Wakida
Location: Emeryville, California
Date: April 6, 2022
Densho ID: ddr-densho-1000-503-3

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PW: Can you describe the home that you were living in? Do you remember anything about that?

EH: Well, as I mentioned, some of the things that were missing in the house. I don't remember, we only lived there about three years, and that was, I think from the time I was born to about three years old. So I don't remember the house very much. We did go back to that area when I was in my forties or fifties, but we didn't go inside the house, so I never... but I have lived in so many houses that I don't remember a lot of the situations of the particular house. We just lived there, and that was all I remember.

PW: Can you tell me the name of the town once again?

EH: Salem.

PW: It was in Salem.

EH: Salem is the capital of Oregon, but it's a very small town.

PW: Right. So the unusual part, one unusual part of your narrative, too, was that your family, like you said, were only there for three years before war breaks out, right?

EH: Well, no. Before that, he got assigned to another church, and that was in Washington, and the town was called Wapato, which is in the Yakima valley. It's the middle of Washington, the state of Washington. But there was also a large Japanese farming community there, so we were transferred there, and that's when the war broke out, December 7th. So that was where we found out about that.

PW: What year did you, did the family transfer? Was that, do you think, 1940? Must have been 1940.

EH: Yeah. 1938 to 1941, we were in Salem. 1941 to 1942, we were in Wapato in Washington, so that was the year.

PW: So I also understand that, interestingly, Wapato was not necessarily part of the exclusion area that was marked by...

EH: No, I think it was. [Narr. note: It was originally not part of the exclusion order.]

PW: It was? Okay.

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