<Begin Segment 20>

DC: So you were eventually allowed to relocate?

CM: Right.

DC: Did you have to wait for the war to end?

CM: No, because I had a, like Saeda family and family lived in Albuquerque, had a little connection there so they know where we going to be, so it was easy to get the permit to leave.

DC: Oh okay, so how long did that take?

CM: Oh, within a month, and people that went to other cities, they had a contact with a company or they have a job for them.

DC: So when did you leave Manzanar?

CM: Boy, it was '43, in May.

DC: So shortly after you came back from Montana?

CM: Yeah, Montana was in the fall of '42. That was Halloween night, I'll never forget October 31st, and 2 foot of snow.

DC: The snow. Then you waited for the snow to melt and you finished your contract, right?

CM: Right, we have to wait for that to thaw out, not only melt to thaw out the ground, it's frozen solid, you can't pull a beet out of frozen ground.

DC: So you had to wait until spring?

CM: No, we just had to wait another... but we ate up all our profit.

DC: So you managed to finish your contract in Montana in fall of '42 and then you went back to Manzanar?

CM: Right.

DC: And you were in Manzanar until early 1943.

CM: Right.

DC: I see. And then you finally ended up in New Mexico, and it was your first time in New Mexico?

CM: Yes, that's the first time. The first time and that's when I learned how to farm. It's either you farm or you starve, for survival and we put in long hours ten, twelve hours a day.

DC: Who were you working for?

CM: We're working the family group, the family farm.

DC: So did you move into the house where Evelyn and Mary were living?

CM: No... my family had, Matsubaras had their own house.

DC: Was it nearby, though?

CM: Huh?

DC: Was it nearby their house?

CM: Yes.

DC: Did you share that dining hall with them?

CM: No that was individual there.

DC: And when did you meet Mary and decide to get married? Well, you knew each other before, right?

CM: Yeah.

MM: Actually, we didn't really know each other that well, but see, his brother was married to my cousin, and that's how. But that's okay, huh?

ET: Too late now... over fifty years.

MM: Fifty-seven years we've been married. You see, we're almost a hundred.

DC: How long did it take before you got married once you got to New Mexico?

MM: Over a year because I was working in California. And I didn't want to come home, you know, I was having too much fun.

DC: So did you come back and then start dating and...

MM: No I come back to get married.

DC: Oh, so you had already decided to get married?

MM: We were engaged already.

DC: Wow.

MM: But he was so busy working, you know.

DC: So would you say that going to camp at Manzanar had any long-term effects on you?

CM: Yes, because of the hardship there, that was in... because of the hardship experiences, that helped my life be stronger. Because I didn't, we couldn't go down, it made me a stronger person because of the hardships.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.