<Begin Segment 21>

CO: You just told us a story -- let me just see how much time we have, oh, it'll just be if it makes it or not -- when we were, during a break when you said how the FBI came and they were looking for cameras and things, so they didn't find your camera when they came to search your house?

ES: Well, I already had turned them in. But what they were looking for, I do not know, because we're loyal, my dad and mother were loyal residents, paid their taxes, bill, never encouraged any crime or anything. They came in search and wanted their identification, they wouldn't tell me, they shoved me behind the door, went through the house, and I wanted, as an American citizen over twenty-one years of age, I wanted to know what their mission was, and I had every right to ask them, according to my education. That's why I pursued it further with the county sheriff and FBI. But I was, my folks told me that we should move to inland someplace, but I am an American citizen and I'm going to stay here. So that's why we, Dad and I had a little quarrel. But after we got to the camp, he apologized what he said and done to me, and he wanted to come home, kept wanting to come home. So I'd been working hard to come home, and I did come home fifteen days before the coast was opened.

WH: Were you the first one back?

ES: I was the first one back in San Jose. There's another good friend of mine, just down in Cupertino. So I toured San Jose Japantown; some were boarded up and some were, had stolen goods, second-hand store.

WH: Who took care of your farmland?

ES: My farmland? My neighbor, who was a veteran of World War I, my dad and mother, when I was a little kid, took care of his mother while he went to work. And so when he was called to service to go to Ireland, and he was just worried sick, "What are we going to do with my mother?" And he has a half brother, half brother works in the railroad in Santa Clara, and he goes by there, so in the morning, he would put her up in the night, would put her in bed. So for a short seven months, I think it was, the war was over. So when he came back, he was so happy to see his mother again, and he remembered that, and when 9066 evacuation orders came, probably then he knew that we had to go. And he says, "I'll do anything I can for you, but I only can take part of the ranch for you." And we said, "We'll let, like to have you help us." So he did; he kept inventory of everything, we didn't know, we didn't lose a single hoe. And we had a horse there, and a dog. My dad liked horses, so when the evacuees had a horse, that's a beautiful Belgian horse, and my dad just couldn't see that dog, I mean, horse destroyed, so he brought it over to our place, and this German Caucasian friend, neighbor, said, "I'll take care," because those days, anything you farmed was, used horses, see? So my worker, four workers were, took over the truck crop farm, and used the horse there. And we kept the horse, and when we came back, my dad went to the horse first thing. Before that, when I came back at first, the dog wouldn't bark. So I knocked, when I knocked on the door, so Mr. Seely came to the door and, "Just a minute, the dog didn't bark." He looked at me and, "Oh, no wonder." [Laughs]

WH: So your parents took care of his mother?

ES: Yes.

WH: Okay. Good, good.

ES: So one deed leads to the other.

WH: Right.

ES: So that's the Boy Scout motto.

WH: Uh-huh.

ES: Do unto others as you would like to do to you.

[Interruption]

ES: When I packed my suitcase, there was restrictions as to what I can take. But in being a Boy Scout, I just had the pocket knife. And the blade shouldn't be over three inches long as I was told at the Wartime Civil Control Administration where I registered. So they were taking all the knives away from people, but I stuck it in and when I arrived at Santa Anita, they opened the suitcase and found the knife, they were just going to take it out. I said, "I'm a Boy Scout and I need the knife to carve and open letters and things." They just put it in, closed the lid, "Go."

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2005 Densho and The Japanese American Film Preservation Project. All Rights Reserved.