<Begin Segment 9>

JN: Do you have anything more that you have to say about just life after the war and with the farming? You were older when you got back. Did you... you still kind of helped with the cooking at home and you didn't really work on the farm that much.

TE: Yeah, I didn't have to go out and hoe and weed or anything like that. Well, during the, when I was really small, they never used to let us go out in the field. It was occasionally I got to go when my, one of my uncles or my dad came to pick up the lunch for the rest of 'em to... I could ride the truck up to the cannery when they were bringing berries to the cannery. But then you had to stay in the truck, cab of the truck, and not get out of there. So I really didn't know how the berries were processed or anything. It was no fun just sticking in the truck.

JN: Today, how do you feel about what happened to you and your family during the war?

TE: To me, I just... for me it was not bad. 'Cause the family was around. I think it was very hard for my parents and my uncles and my aunts. They were... they knew what was happening and what they worked for all their lives was sort of in limbo. So, it was very hard for them.

JN: And they probably protected you and your kids from their feelings, 'cause you...

TE: Well, yeah, I'm sure they did. They didn't want to, I guess, pass on the anxiety so they really, well, my father's side of the family didn't talk much anyway so he didn't, we didn't know what was happening. So we just...

JN: How do you feel about the memorial that we're building?

TE: I think it's a very good thing. It lets people know what happened so that maybe we won't forget. That maybe it could happen to anybody.

JN: What would you like to say to visitors that come to the memorial?

TE: I guess to get a sense of how things were at that time. And that maybe we shouldn't forget everything or gloss it over too much.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.