<Begin Segment 2>

DG: And how, can you describe the reaction or your relationship with your Caucasian friends?

KN: Oh, they were shocked, too. I was out of school already. But they were shocked and they were... they were normal, they were friendly. I'm sure they were very sympathetic. Probably they understood our feelings at that point. But at that point we didn't go back and forth anymore, because after the war broke out, there was curfew. We had to stay within our boundaries, and not to be out after six o'clock and all that kind of a thing. And we were afraid, too, to get away from our property, we didn't know what was going to happen. We didn't know what the reaction will be with the public, the community.

DG: So what was the mood like on Bainbridge Island ? Were you able to still gather a general feeling, or were you still just...

KN: You mean at that point?

DG: At that time, yes.

KN: Oh, at that point we were so wrapped up in our own business of getting things settled, sold, stored, because we were ordered to leave. So we weren't thinking about much else, at least I wasn't. Because we had to get everything all sort of squared away. And for one thing, we were so busy destroying everything that was Japanese. We, my dad says, "Get rid of everything," so we just burned things, buried things, broke things up, did everything to get rid of all the things that Grandma sent from Hiroshima, you know, for Boys' Day and Girls' Day they have all these nice things. And so we had a lot of things for five of us girls. But everything was completely destroyed. The only thing that was saved was my Japanese doll and a Japanese kimono that was stored in a trunk; fortunately they were in a trunk. But the other things were all around the house, so it was easy to get at and so they were all destroyed, which I feel very badly right now -- I mean, now that they were all destroyed and we can no longer enjoy.

DG: How did you feel then?

KN: I was scared. I, I hated to get rid of all the stuff that Grandma sent me, but then again, it was too Japanese, and so we just had to destroy them.

DG: Wow. And so let's go now to, you talked a little bit already about when the order was posted. After the order went up, the exclusion order that you, and you knew you had to leave -- actually, at that point, what was your reaction to the order? Were you surprised, or had you anticipated this?

KN: Well, in a way, yes and no. Because we felt we were American citizens, that we shouldn't have to go, and in my mind, I was thinking, well, parents will go and we will have to run the farm. Then when the order came that we all had to go, then just forgot about everything and just got ready.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.