<Begin Segment 12>

SY: And then after camp you all, did you all stay together?

NG: No, so we, when we came out we were like the last ones. Everyone already had gone, come out of camp, and they were already in the trailer courts and so they're pretty settled, and we're like the last ones to come out. And we were not there very long when... my dad did not want to raise us there in that ghetto setting, with the, all the kids --

SY: And this was in...

NG: Olinda. No, Winona. Burbank, I think is the trailer court where they settled, resettled families.

SY: So who was it that was there, besides you and --

NG: So my, so my, all my, all I remember is my auntie with the eight kids. They were already, 'cause they, they must've been there much earlier 'cause they came straight from Manzanar, so I'm sure they were there a while before we got there.

SY: I see. Amazing. And they lived in one trailer?

NG: They had two trailers.

SY: They had two trailers.

NG: And then my mom, my grandparents were there in a trailer, I guess. I don't remember their trailer at all. And then my aunt was, and her husband, they must've been there too. Or maybe not, I don't know. But then we were not there very long when we, he took us back to Bouldin Island where he was, where he used to work, and then eventually we went, got to Mandeville Island.

SY: So yeah, I'm, so I love your description of this, living in, well, Bouldin Island, first Bouldin Island.

NG: Right.

SY: Do you have memories of that?

NG: I don't.

SY: No memories of it.

NG: I don't, all I know is I got the measles or, the measles or the mumps. Maybe it was the mumps. And my aunt -- and that was Bouldin Island. I know that was not Mandeville Island. And my aunt came to help my mom. I don't know why my mom, she, I don't know why she had to come. Anyway, but she got the mumps too. [Laughs] But that's all I remember about Bouldin Island.

SY: Bouldin Island. But it was a place, obviously, your father liked.

NG: He knew, a place he knew. A place where he could get work.

SY: So he knew the people that were there doing the hiring.

NG: Right. I think he, yeah, he must've, they must've been, there must've been a lot of other Japanese. And then I don't really know and she didn't delve into how we got to Mandeville Island, because there were, like I said, there were a lot of families there.

SY: Japanese American.

NG: Japanese American families.

SY: Do you know how far they are from each other?

NG: Yeah, they're, each camp was at least three, four miles away from each other.

SY: But the --

NG: I can't...

SY: But Bouldin Island and --

NG: Oh, Bouldin Island, I would say half an hour, an hour away from each other. There're a lot of those, there was Bacon Island, there was Henning Track, all these little farming communities around the San Joaquin River and the deltas.

SY: So that was the --

NG: Tributaries.

SY: Yeah, that was, the area was really the San Joaquin Valley?

NG: Uh-huh.

SY: And in the San Joaquin Valley were these little islands.

NG: Right. I mean, Stockton was the city, was the town.

SY: That was the closest to that city?

NG: Closest town. Lodi, you know, Stockton, Lodi. And then out in the farm area, out in the delta area there were all these islands, farm islands.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.