<Begin Segment 37>

BK: As you reflect back, since more than fifty years have gone by since the end of the war, and as you reflect back on your internment experiences, what were the best outcomes associated with internment?

JT: Oh, let's see. I think it was just growing up, just being able to grow up and meet the things... and stop thinking about myself. I thought about it, and I thought, gee, I depended so much on my -- more than my folks's support, I depended upon them to give me this, and give me that, and I think I got over a lot of that part of it. Knowing how hard it was for them... they didn't have anything when they got back and they didn't have any money when they left. They didn't have possessions and things when they got back either, and so it was very difficult for my mother. And my father was always, he got sick again when he got back here and got back to Seattle after the relocation, after Denver and after everything, he was very ill again, and that's when he had cancer. Eventually, he died of cancer. They lived in the Star Apartment, small unit. And for a while they lived with my brother and my sister-in-law. I said, "That's not a good situation," I told my dad. I said, "You've got to have your own place." I said, "I wouldn't want my mother-in-law living with me and you've got to move." And it's hard for my brother to tell them to move. So they did, they got a unit in another apartment in Baldwin or something like that. And they were doing fine there except that my dad got sick again. And so, but by that time it was just literally too late for him. So he died very young -- well, very young -- he had just turned sixty at that time. And he wasn't quite ready and that's one, another hard part for me. All this unresolved stuff I had... and so I just was never able to tell him or talk to him. But...

BK: It is difficult.

JT: It was difficult, it was difficult for my mother. Myself, it's just me, personally.

<End Segment 37> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.