<Begin Segment 7>

DC: How long did you have before you needed to leave for New Mexico?

MM: How long did we stay in California before...

DC: Yeah, how long did you have to try to sell the business and to get ready?

MM: We didn't sell.

ET: We didn't have time to sell. You had... I forgot how soon we had to get out so we just left.

CM: They gave you thirty days to...

ET: To get rid of...

CM: February. Let's see, February the 19th. That was Executive Order 9066, and you had thirty days to clear out your, and make a decision, you could voluntarily evacuate or you go to the camp. You had a choice in that thirty-day period.

MM: And my folks didn't want us to go to camp, because there's three girls and a boy and then, seems like they were putting bungalows at the camp, and one little bungalow for all the family, my dad didn't think that was right, so he says, "We'll go back to Albuquerque." And so we, he contacted his friend here, and we had a real nice friend. He was the deputy marshal, federal deputy marshal here, so he contacted him. And he says, "Oh, come on out, there's no problem here." So this is why we came out.

ET: Except the governor. [Laughs]

MM: He was not a governor yet.

ET: Yes, he was.

MM: Tingley? Do you remember Tingley?

CM: Clyde Tingley.

DC: He was the mayor right, at the time.

ET: I mean not governor, mayor.

MM: He was, he was some kind of a guy. We were all working, because we all worked together on the farm you know, the family, and here comes two, three limousine-looking cars driving up the driveway. And stopped by and says, and there was Tingley and his... "Oh," he says, "I think you people better get settled up and start leaving." And so my dad says, "Just hang on," you know, and he went to talk to the deputy marshal, he was a federal deputy marshal, he says, "You just stay put," he tells my dad, "there's no way they can kick you out." And that was it.

DC: And then he never bothered you again?

ET: Well he didn't let the little kids go to school. At that time... but they finally went to school but then he says, but then the high school kids went but then the little grammar school kids, he says no. So why he said it we don't know.

MM: However, I don't have any hard feelings, I really don't. I thought, "Well, they're doing their business," you know.

DC: So the kids who couldn't go to school, those were your younger cousins?

ET: No they would be a niece, a nephew, Dickie, the nephew. Well, it would be our cousin's children, so I don't whether it would be nephew or not.

DC: Your cousin's children?

ET: Yeah.

DC: So who came back with you from California? There were several families that came to New Mexico.

ET: Yes, our family and Charlie's family and then my dad's sister and...

CM: Goto, Nagayama, Matsubara, and Saiyuga, there were four families.

ET: Four families.

MM: There's a caravan of cars.

DC: Can you tell us about the trip from California to New Mexico?

ET: Yeah, Mary was one of the drivers. I didn't have to drive, she had to drive, my dad was driving, and the... I forgot who drove the, maybe Tomi or... who was driving the other?

MM: Tor-chan?

ET: Maybe she was...

CM: And Frank.

ET: And Frank, yeah, Frank was...

CM: So there was about, what, seven cars, caravan?

ET: I can't remember how many of us...

MM: All of us had a car and a truck and a station wagon and all, there was a caravan.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.