<Begin Segment 26>

LH: So you had been in Minidoka about three years all together?

MS: Uh-huh, approximate.

LH: And then once again, it's time to move.

MS: That's right.

LH: And how do you discover this?

MS: Well, because half the camp had already moved out, the families and friends that I had known had found places to move out to. It was a matter of knowing where to go and getting that all arranged before we could leave the camp. And so we knew, at a certain point in time, that our friends were back in Seattle and that we would find a place to stay there and make our lives restarted all over again. For me, it was just a matter of another trip and this time moving to another place. I think for my parents, though, a lot of them approached this not knowing what to expect on the outside. They felt at the beginning when we were told that we could leave the camps, the first ones to go were the very young who went out east. Or, the families who felt they had some ties there that they could rely on, some neighbors who had taken care of their property or their business or their homes. They were to learn later that that wasn't always the case. However, they did go back. That set up a kind of community already and it was easier for us to then leave the camps and go back. We were told that the first initial place, there were places that people could stay at and our place was the Seattle dojo, and I remember going there, and we actually stayed on the mats, slept there with our baggage and everything.

LH: And what type of place was this?

MS: It's the community center where judo is taught to the community and that was there before the war. And I'm not sure what it was used as during the war, but after the war they opened it up again, and judo was not happening yet. It was simply a place that the Japanese people who came back, evacuees, could return to. They had several places like that, the Japanese language schools and other buildings that we could use as temporary living quarters.

LH: So what did, what was the dojo building like?

MS: Oh, it was a, well, it's hard to describe. It was just an open building that had a, balconies on the side, and they had a large mat in the center where the people did the judo matches and everything like that. That's all I remember. They had bathrooms and things on the sides but it wasn't big.

LH: Were people... several families were put into this big open space?

MS: Oh yes, yes. It was like camping. [Laughs] And we had, I think they must have had either blankets or bedrolls but we just laid side by side with other people because everyone knew that you had to make do, and we knew it was just a matter of time before our friends and others might find other lodgings for us.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.