<Begin Segment 2>

BF: So you said that your family was interned at Minidoka. How old were you?

CT: Seventeen.

BF: You were seventeen. Could you tell me a little bit about what memories stick in your mind from the internment experience?

CT: Well, I think it's... the most traumatic thing is the fact that I had to leave Portland one month before I was to graduate high school. And that was really very, very sad, especially since we were only ten miles away, at the Portland Assembly Center, from my school. I'd think, "Why couldn't they just let me go to my graduation?" But needless to say, they wouldn't allow it, but that I think was the worst thing that happened to me. I think that the other thing that was difficult was that I was attending a high school where there were about, oh, maybe three or four Japanese. And when I went to camp, everybody else had friends already, and I was sort of lost in all of this. There were family friends that I had known, but it was not the same. You know, these kids go to high school together and everything, and they... it was, you were kind of an outsider, yeah.

BF: Did any of your high school friends -- since the school was so close -- did they come and visit you?

CT: Yes, they did. And that is another thing that, you know, for many, many years, until actually the commission hearings, is something I really never faced up to. I had repressed all of these hurts and you know, humiliation actually, of having those friends visit me there. Because they couldn't come in and so they would stand outside the barbed wire fence and I would be inside and I'd be talking to them. And you know, it was so humiliating. You know, it was like you were a prisoner, and here you hadn't done anything, but here you were a prisoner. And when I look back, I think, "Why was I embarrassed anyway?" I mean... but at the time I was. And I think that was the worst part. You know, I always tell people that the physical discomforts in the assembly center -- living in a, what was really an animal pen, you know one of those pens where they exhibited animals -- was certainly not very comfortable, and the lack of privacy with only partitions separating us, all of that, was not the thing that you really thought about at that age.

BF: Seventeen?

CT: Yeah. I mean, you remember it smelled terribly, as a result we spent all of our time outside and all. But I think that it was hard on the older people, the elderly, all that. But as a youngster, those things really weren't the things that bothered you so much.

BF: What were the things that...?

CT: Well, as I mentioned, the lack of privacy, of course.

BF: Right, at seventeen, young woman...

CT: Yes. And of course, if you're, you were reprimanded by your parents, the whole darn barn heard you, heard all this, that sort of thing. And the... well, I think it's having to eat in the mess hall with all these people, and, 'course, the food was horrible. [Laughs] But I think... but, you know, this whole business of having my high school friends come and visit me probably sticks out in my mind as really the worst part of it.

BF: Did they ask a lot of questions? Were they... or did they seem to just assume that this was the thing to do? Do you remember?

CT: Well, you know, as I said, I didn't even think about this for all those many, many years. The one thing I remember is that one of 'em brought me some cookies. And to tell you the truth, you know, at that age you're kind of awkward anyway, and when you're in that kind of a situation you really don't know what to say. And I could see that they probably didn't have anything to say. I'm sure that they didn't stand there and say, "Gee, I'm sorry this happened to you," or you know. I'm sure they didn't, but I, I can't recollect, I really cannot recollect. Uh-huh. So...

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.