<Begin Segment 29>

EO: Now, meanwhile, your family... where is your family?

HU: You mean all that time? They were in Manzanar. They were in Manzanar. And you see, they, while I was taken into the jail, head of the mess hall union, you know, is a Issei. And he came over and said, "Mrs. Ueno, you got children. Your husband, now he can't earn nothing, so we gonna pitch in. We got 1,500 more people there; we gonna put in a few pennies each and give you what I was earning," he said. Then instead she said, "No, I don't want no charity. Give me a job." So finally she got the job in the mess hall, washing dishes. So she worked, she worked all the way through while I was away.

EO: And you were, were you able to write letters?

HU: Yeah, I could write letter. But you see, what Merritt and Myer was doing, they censored the letter. They tried to find out is there any evidence they could charge with it, see, so they could make the reason to be, put him away. That's what they looking for. I noticed that. That's, I find that after the war, you know Freedom of Information, FBI record, you know. That's what they looking for, but they can't find nothing, see.

EO: Where is Joe Kurihara?

HU: Joe Kurihara, he was with me all the time but finally in Tule Lake, he decide he's going to Japan. He never been in Japan in his life.

EO: But, so he was, he also went to, came to Leupp with you. He was in the box with you.

HU: Yeah, he wasn't in the jail like me but he was all the way through 'til Tule Lake.

<End Segment 29> - Copyright © 1994, 2003 Densho and Emiko Omori. All Rights Reserved.