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DG: And you, you described a little bit of the day, March 30th, when you had to leave the island and the army trucks came. Can you describe more in detail what you remember and what you even... it was you and your sisters. And what it was like packing up to leave and what you were thinking?

TK: Oh, I can't remember what I was thinking. All I know is that, you know, we left the farm there, and I was wondering, well, I guess we just leave it and let it go and hope Tony Bucset will farm it and harvest it and we'll get something out of it. But other than that there wasn't much to think about. You know, we just had to pile on the truck and off we went with one suitcase. I don't know if it was one suitcase for individual or one suitcase for the whole family. I think it was for each individual. So, the only thing I could put in there was my clothes, that's all I had.

DG: And what was it like to walk onto the ferry and...

TK: Just walk. Yeah, they just tell you to walk. You know, there's always soldiers there so you just do what they tell you to do, you gotta get on the ferry and that's all we did. And I remember in camp, some of the soldiers, you know, acted like we were enemies, and others were friendly and some of 'em were even curious: "If you're an American, how come we're takin' you?" And all that came about, but you're only seventeen or eighteen and you really didn't understand it all. But then after all of that, you know, remember the Constitution and all of that and who is an American, and then it starts sinking in. "Wait a minute," you know, "I'm an American. Indians are true Americans, and why were we picked out?" and all that, those questions start coming about and then you realize, then you read about the blacks and, oh, all of the rest. Whether it's Yugoslavians or I think even the Irish were discriminated against. And then, then it was Italians, and then the Slavs or Yugoslavians or the Slavic or the Czechoslovakians, Yugoslavians, and so forth. But then, then you start realizing how America became Americans. [Laughs]

DG: And what do you remember from the train ride? Do you remember...

TK: I don't remember too much about the train ride. I remember we had the best; we had sleeping quarters. So I remember we were in a, you know, on the top booth, and at night we were able to get up on top and then sleep in there. And I heard the rest were on cattle trains, you know, right out in open. They had to go on an open... well, just seats only, there was no sleeping quarter. But we had sleeping quarters. Other than that, I don't remember too much about it. I can't remember whether they... we had to eat, so they must have dished out food. But it just passed over my, my memory.

DG: What about your first impressions of Manzanar when you arrived?

TK: Boy, all I know it was sand, you know. It was, "Geez, where is this?" You look around and just desert. And just look at the barrack and that's all there was. Lotta sand and then later on, naturally it started blowing, and all that dust. It was really dusty. The sand would blow up and it'd get into everything.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.