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BY: All right. So where did your family live during the war?

DY: They had a walk-up apartment in Berwyn, Maryland. I think that they just moved from a walk-up apartment on P Street, Washington, D.C. So I think Gail was born in P Street.

BY: And where were they living when you were born?

DY: In Berwyn, Maryland.

BY: In Berwyn, Maryland, all right. And so your father was working as a draftsman?

DY: Right.

BY: And this was wartime, correct?

DY: Right.

BY: And so what did your mother do? You said she was a housewife, but you told me an interesting story about your mother during the war.

DY: Well, somehow or other, word got around that the replacement soldiers for the 442 were... and they had to stay somewhere in the travel to Fort Holabird, so they couldn't stay in the hotels because they were Japanese. And I don't know, some reason they didn't, they weren't welcome. So the word got around that they can crash in my parents' apartment, so one day, she counted forty bodies on the living room floor, soldiers. So what she did is the apartment was close to Route 1, and the Greyhound bus came by, but the Greyhound bus didn't stop for the Japanese soldiers, even if they're in uniform. And what Mom did, put 'em down in the trench to hide, and she walked out on Route 1 to block the Greyhound bus. She was pregnant with me, and the bus had to stop. And she stood there until the soldiers got on the bus and settled down, and she stepped aside and let the bus go. And I don't know what the word is, but the soldiers said no. I think that if you call a male that it was very complimentary, macho. But if a woman says it, the implication is switched around and she's, by the look in her eye, she could stop a Greyhound bus in its tracks, it's a very negative connotation. I don't know what that word was.

BY: Was it a Japanese word?

DY: Right.

BY: Oh, interesting. Well, it seems to me that she was brave to do that.

DY: Right.

BY: So did this just happen one time or did it happen more than one time?

DY: I assume that it would happen more than one time.

BY: And do you know what your father thought of that? You don't know?

DY: No.

BY: And you had not been born, so you did not witness this.

DY: Right.

BY: And so then the soldiers would eventually be shipped overseas.

DY: Right.

BY: I see. But they needed a place to stay between the time that they finished their basic training and when they were shipped overseas? Do you know, were there other Japanese families living in the area?

DY: Do what?

BY: Were there other Japanese American families living in the area?

DY: Not that I know of.

BY: Okay. So really the only option was for them to find someplace to stay?

DY: Right.

BY: Wow, that's a great story.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.