<Begin Segment 18>

BY: So you were there from, what, maybe around September of '42? When did you leave, do you remember?

MK: A year later.

BY: September of '43?

MK: I would say, yeah.

BY: And where did you go?

MK: To Salt Lake City.

BY: And that was because your two sisters were...

MK: No, they were (in Washington, D.C.). My brother Frank was there.

BY: Was still there?

MK: But then before that, even, my father had gone to Spokane to check it out because he had a shirttail relative there, and he was, pressed clothing. He was a tailor. And my father thought of moving there, but he thought he would try Salt Lake because he had never gone there.

BY: Did he know anyone in Salt Lake? I mean, his son was there, but did he know any other Japanese families or anything in Salt Lake?

MK: No.

BY: Okay. All right, let me just see if I skipped anything that I wanted to do. Okay, so you left sometime in 1943, your mom and dad and you and went to Salt Lake. What happened to your father's older sister? Did she stay in Minidoka or did she go?

MK: She stayed.

BY: She stayed?

MK: She stayed throughout the duration (of the war).

BY: Okay. And so you moved to Salt Lake. Where did you live and what did your father do, father and mother do?

MK: Well, we lived in a hotel run by a Japanese man for a while, but my father bought property with rooms to rent again, but not a large place. We had the one floor, and then there were about two or three units up above.

BY: So how did he buy a house?

MK: I don't know. See, that's where I never was consulted, you know, because I'm so young.

BY: Yeah, yeah.

MK: I don't know how he did that.

BY: Yeah, that's interesting. Well, he was quite the businessman, wasn't he?

MK: Well, yeah. And so what he did was he bought a cleaners and called this relative to come and work.

BY: So this is in Salt Lake?

MK: Yeah, a dry cleaner.

BY: So he bought a house, which he rented out some rooms, and he also bought a dry cleaner?

MK: Yeah. So I don't know where he got the money to do all that. Because I was so young, he never discussed anything with me.

BY: Right. And so you go back, you move to Salt Lake City, and now you get to see your brother who you haven't seen for a while, right? Did he then move back in with the family or did he stay living in this house where he was living?

MK: He graduated (from high school) at that house because they were in a (wealthy neighborhood). And then he moved in with us, I think. (...)

BY: And at this point, you are twelve years old or something like that. So you must have started school. What school did you go to and what do you remember about that?

MK: Well, you know, I was in the sixth grade when I left camp. And the teacher had given us (a promotion) or whatever. And so I was in the second half of the sixth grade, and then she moved me up to the seventh (grade). Somehow I got raised up a grade there. But when I went to Salt Lake, they didn't have a (separate) seventh and eighth grade.

BY: They didn't have one?

MK: Or eighth and ninth grade or something, so they (raised) me up again.

BY: Wow. So you were young, you were a couple years younger than your classmates, then?

MK: Yeah. And then when I came back... because when I came back (to Seattle), I did my junior and senior years, and graduated (when) I was fifteen and I turned sixteen the following day.

BY: Wow.

MK: You know, because of the...

BY: Getting moved up twice.

MK: Yeah.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.