<Begin Segment 10>

SY: So when, when you got to Tule Lake, then the threat of going back to Japan... but only, your mother and father were the only ones who renounced?

NG: Uh-huh.

SY: They all, the rest of your family stayed and just...

NG: Right. And then, but I mean, I remember being scared and I remember my mom crying as, seemed like it was in the middle of the night, as people left for Japan. They didn't want, I mean, I guess they did sign the papers and so, but when the time came they certainly didn't want to go. But so that was kind of scary, I think, for my mom. It just never happened. Their names never got called.

SY: Do you have any recollection of that whole situation at Tule Lake, where you, the kids had to stand and wake up early in the morning?

NG: We always ate in our barrack. We never ate in our, we never, they went to go get the food and we ate in our barrack.

SY: Your whole family.

NG: Yeah, so I don't remember going to the mess hall, except for they would have parties. Those shibais, is that they call, those little variety shows? But I don't remember eating there.

SY: Ever eating there.

NG: No.

SY: Was it because you were very young? Or that's, for sure your family never ate --

NG: I think they wanted to not, they wanted to be, they did not want to be eating in the mess hall. I think they wanted to be eating as a family.

SY: So different, that was true in Manzanar as well, you think?

NG: I don't know.

SY: But you remember that in Tule Lake.

NG: No, I don't know Manzanar.

SY: So you do know that there, you sort of remember the difference between Manzanar and Tule Lake?

NG: I don't remember Manzanar at all, so all I, what I do know is all the things that come back to me are, I know it's all Tule Lake. My dad, he drove a truck, and I do, and he had this roving eye, one of his eyes, so there was a doctor there in Tule and said, "You know, I could fix that." And I remember him, oh my gosh, laying, for days it seemed like -- I mean, I didn't know that that's what it was at that time, but he was sick, to me sick, 'cause he never, he was just laying in bed for days. But he did a great job under those very primitive conditions.

SY: Really? So it was fixed.

NG: Yeah.

SY: And the doctor, was he a Japanese doctor?

NG: Yeah.

SY: Japanese American doctor? [NG nods] Wow. That's a nice --

NG: And they had, my mom remembers, 'cause there were a lot of nationals, Kibeis, very, and they were activists and very pro-Japan, so she remembers them as they were marching with their hachimaki and, "Wassho, wassho." She was really scared all the time, she said.

SY: So she, but clearly they didn't participate in any of that.

NG: No. And then my dad played baseball, so I remember going to the games, and things would happen there too because there were pro-Japan factions and whatever.

SY: And they clearly never got involved in all of this.

NG: No, they didn't.

SY: They just, but they somehow decided they were going to go back, renounce their citizenship, even though --

NG: Well, they had done that, but I mean, I guess they were, they did it for emotional reasons, I think, and...

SY: Right.

NG: And luckily they didn't have to go.

SY: Because your father, I mean, they really weren't connected to Japan.

NG: No, not at all.

SY: I mean, except for their, through their parents.

NG: Yeah, I think at that time my dad was, 'cause he is like that. He just, he got angry, I'm sure. So I'm sure that was, he was motivated by that.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.