<Begin Segment 10>

MN: So now we're getting close to the war, so let's get into the war years. What were you doing on Sunday, December 7, 1941?

KK: I was at this lady's house. And there was some whispering going on, and I said, "Oh, that's funny." And then I heard about the war and I said, "Oh, my god, what am I going to do now?" So I went home, and my parents were all wondering what to do and everything, they were looking at the newspaper all the time, and she was talking to all her neighbors. One of the neighbors that we knew, they said, "You could sign up to go to Manzanar." Then you don't have to go to Arkansas or other places. So we signed up to go to Manzanar, that's how come we went to Manzanar.

MN: Before you went into camp, do you remember your parents burning Japanese books?

KK: Reading Japanese books?

MN: No, burning Japanese books, burning them?

KK: I don't know. We didn't have that many Japanese books around.

MN: What did your family do with the electric stove and the refrigerators?

KK: Oh, the electric stove and the refrigerator, I think we left the stove. Refrigerator, we had it stored at my sister's, Mrs. Porter's place. She had extra room, so she let us use the one room to store our bookcase and our books and refrigerator. Not the stove, we left the stove. We left the beds and everything. We tried to sell most of the stuff. My parents sold their... we had a Mexican family man working for us, so he bought the house with whatever there, so he can move his family in, and we left everything for him.

MN: Do you remember what day or month you left for Manzanar?

KK: It was in the spring. It must have been around this time. It must have been around April. It wasn't that cold, but it wasn't that hot either. It must have been around springtime that we went to Manzanar.

MN: Do you remember how you got to Manzanar?

KK: Yeah. I don't know how we got to where we were, but we all... I think we all went to Union Station and got on a train, special train, and went to Manzanar on the train. We didn't go on a bus.

MN: Once you got to the train stop, probably near Lone Pine area, did you get on a bus to get into Manzanar?

KK: Yeah, I think so, uh-huh.

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