<Begin Segment 19>

LH: So when the time came when your family told you it's time to go back to Seattle or it's time to leave camp, what did you make of that?

MN: There was a lot of arguments going on between my mom and dad. That was the first time I remember Mom and Dad arguing is what we should do out of camp and when should we leave. I guess we were one of the last ones to leave camp. My autograph book says 1946, early 1946 somebody signed my autograph book. So my mom wanted to repatriate to Japan. She thought it was a duty of a Japanese citizen to go back to Japan. My dad felt that, he felt like he was being disloyal. He felt like he was forsaking his own country, but he really thought that the opportunities to survive were much better if we came back to Seattle, and he felt a little guilty, but he thought that was the more practical solution. So that's the first time I remember Mom and Dad arguing. My mom was fearful that, how life would be back in Seattle after all this anti-Japanese. We were aware of a lot of anti-Japanese sentiment.

LH: Even you, as a child, you were aware of this?

MN: Yeah. Yeah. I remember when they were having arguments, one of the things that they would say, "What if even a black person looks down on you?" Even a black person looks down on you. "How are you going to be able to handle it?" We heard of housing shortage, apparently. I had no idea the specifics, but I know there was a lot of anxiety on my mom's part as far as returning to Seattle. There was a lot of anxiety on my father's part. In fact, downright fear about going to Japan.

LH: Was there any fear or apprehension on your part, being a child?

MN: I kind of suspected my parents going to have handle it, but it was sad to see some of my friends leave, and I thought that I might never see them again. And we pressed flowers and put into each other's books and we signed autographs and stuff. It was, I remember being very sad that the departure from people that you got to know and got to like, yeah. And we had to keep saying good-bye to a lot of folks because they were the one leaving and we kind of stayed, hung in there to pretty much the very end.

LH: Do you know why that was?

MN: I thought it was because Mom and Dad couldn't decide. Partly could be that there was a housing problem and we needed some way to make sure that this, some way to at least temporarily be housed when we got back. There was a lot of apprehension, and I don't know the specifics, but you could feel the tension. Up until then, life seemed to be pretty idyllic, a lot of smiles and then things got sober just before we were let out of camp. I felt the tone. I don't really know what it was that was setting this tone.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.