<Begin Segment 10>

SY: Was there talk after Pearl Harbor, do you think, that everybody had to move?

YY: No, I don't know. All I remember is they came and told us we had to move.

SY: And the Japanese school was the one in Boyle Heights that, this was the principal?

YY: No, the one in Keystone where we were going.

SY: So that was lucky that you had somebody, because everybody at Terminal Island had to find a place.

YY: To go to.

SY: To go to, so most, did most people go to Boyle Heights? Do you know?

YY: No, I don't know. I think a lot of them, the Japanese schools, they had buildings there, so they were able to take people. But I'm not sure.

SY: They, now, didn't they come and arrest a lot of men at Terminal Island first, before that happened?

YY: Right.

SY: Do you remember that, what that was like or how that happened?

YY: I just heard about it, but I don't know.

SY: People were talking about it. And how about your father? He was never --

YY: No.

SY: -- never worried about it? Was your mother worried?

YY: No, I don't think so. I didn't think they, I don't think they felt that my father would be taken.

SY: And the ones who were taken, did anybody talk about where they were being taken? Nobody knew?

YY: Yeah, I don't think they knew. They were just taken away.

SY: And that happened pretty quick after Pearl Harbor.

YY: Right.

SY: So there were still quite a few families, though, that were intact.

YY: Right.

SY: And then how did, what happened to your car? Did you keep your car when you went to Boyle Heights?

YY: Yeah, I had it there. But then we were able to sell it before we went into camp. 'Cause we weren't able to go anyplace anymore after, and they put a...

SY: Curfew.

YY: Yeah.

SY: The curfew was at night, right?

YY: Uh-huh.

SY: So did you stop going to school? And you were, at the time --

YY: Yeah, I did, I did. Yeah, I think I, after, when I finished school at, in January, I think I didn't go back to school.

SY: And that was January, you had been one semester at USC. And was that, like, the official pharmacy school? Or was it just --

YY: It was the pharmacy school.

SY: So how did you get into the pharmacy school from Compton?

YY: I just applied for the school and I got in.

SY: You had to have a certain grade point average?

YY: Not that I know of. [Laughs]

SY: It wasn't that hard to get into SC?

YY: No, I just sent my transcript in there and they said I could come.

SY: And you remember being one of the few Japanese in this pharmacy school? Or were there quite a few?

YY: Maybe there was about five or six of us.

SY: And so how many years was pharmacy school?

YY: It was a four-year course.

SY: And you had just one semester. And so when you stopped going to pharmacy school you just, so between that time when you had to go to Boyle Heights and Manzanar, you were just staying home or not doing much?

YY: Uh-huh.

SY: Do you remember what you did during that time?

YY: No, I don't.

SY: Did you hang out with your friends?

YY: No, I don't think so.

SY: Everybody was pretty upset?

YY: After war, yeah, I'm pretty sure they were.

SY: Between the time that you had to move and take all your things.

YY: Right, yeah.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2012 Densho. All Rights Reserved.