<Begin Segment 8>

DC: Did you encounter any problems on the way?

ET: Yeah.

CM: Gas station man with a shotgun.

MM: He didn't want to sell us gas. He came up like that.

DC: This was in which state?

ET: In Arizona, wasn't that in Arizona?

MM: I think that was after the California border. However, that was just another episode in our life.

DC: So what exactly happened, you were in Arizona and you were trying to get gas?

ET: He wouldn't sell us gas.

MM: He didn't want to sell gas to us. And so naturally, I think he was scared of us, and you know, there's nothing to be scared of us. And he, he really did, like that.

DC: He came to your car with a shotgun?

MM: We were all in the car and truck, you know. But that's okay, nothing happened. We just drove off.

ET: Then when we got into Gallup it was evening time, so it was trying to find a place to sleep, so my dad found a place and the man was real nice, he says, "You guys, we have room for you guys, but then, do you think you can leave early in the morning?" My dad said, "Yes, we'll leave early in the morning," and so he thanked him and we stayed there. And so that was the only thing, wasn't it, on the trip, just that man in Arizona and Gallup, but nobody else in Albuquerque, except Tingley.

DC: Did Tingley give any other Japanese American families a hard time, or was it just your family?

ET: We must have been the first ones that we came, so I don't think he's... after that maybe he didn't want to mess with it, but after the, Mr. Salazar told him.

MM: I think he was going to run for governor or something. He was the mayor and he didn't want to, you know, have this kind of problem in his... I think that was the reason he...

ET: We don't know.

MM: Oh, I forgot about all that.

DC: So how did he prevent the little kids from going to school?

ET: I don't remember how he did that, but then I, they can't go to school, that's all I can remember now.

DC: How long did they have to sit out of school?

ET: It couldn't have been too long I don't think, because eventually they did go to school.

CM: They were more or less fear of the safety of the kids, that's why.

ET: You think maybe that was the reason?

CM: Yes.

DC: Do you think they had anything to fear?

CM: Just at that time, war with Japan was the enemy and you don't know how the public's going to react. So for the main purpose was for safety purpose to try to avoid that problem.

ET: And with the little kids I don't see how they could have done anything. [Laughs] But then that's the way it goes you know.

DC: They were elementary school kids?

ET: Yes, elementary, yes. But the rest of 'em, some of the other little kids, I guess, they didn't come to... they all went to camp, so they had to be educated in camp.

MM: I think Charlie was... we weren't married yet, but Charlie was the only one that went to camp in our family, huh? And he was in Manzanar.

DC: You mentioned that your experience was sort of similar to that of the people who went to camp in that you still had to leave behind your house and your business and you still lost things. And you were talking about how you rented a moving van.

ET: Yeah, we still don't know where they are.

DC: So tell me about that, tell me that story.

MM: They did deliver our furniture, however, there was a piano missing. I mean, what can you do?

DC: So they picked up your belongings in California but they didn't deliver them all?

MM: See, we were already, had to leave, so we had to employ the van and all, and we just had them just pack everything in there. A lot of things wasn't packed in there.

DC: What else did you lose?

MM: We didn't do a thing, we just took the loss.

DC: Why did you accept it?

MM: Huh?

DC: Why did you accept it?

MM: Well you know...

ET: Well, then there's no, we didn't, there's no, we didn't have an address of that man that took it, so there was no way we could find him.

CM: We had no resource to fight it, to tell you the truth. And we had never had that kind of experience before. Never thought of suing and all that kind of stuff.

DC: Do you think it was harder to fight it because you were Japanese American, or do you think it would have been the same for anybody?

MM: It was because we were at war. Makes sense, doesn't it?

DC: Can you say more about that?

MM: Huh?

DC: What do you mean?

MM: Oh, I don't know.

CM: Oh, at that time you just want to keep it at the lower level, you know. Even you have rights, doesn't mean nothing, we're American citizens, but we were treated like an enemy. Our citizenship had no value whatsoever. And that was a big shock and it still hurts me to this very day. And because of our experience, the war with the other countries, U.S. learned how to treat other foreign citizens in this country when there's conflict in war or something like that. It was, we were their guinea pig of the test, they learned how to treat foreign people.

MM: We sure did feel for people after us. I think it's the Iranians, huh? I said, "Don't do anything with those people," because we went through it, and we didn't want them to go through it, you know, so...

DC: You don't want people to be profiled.

MM: But then I think that's all over now. I don't think they're going to do things like that anymore.

ET: We hope not.

MM: We hope not.

CM: This interview is stirring it up again.

DC: Is it hard to talk about?

CM: We try to avoid it.

MM: Well, you know, I think the people know what we went through, but it's hard for them to bring it up.

ET: But there's a lot of people now that they didn't know about this evacuation and stuff, the younger kids, and they said they don't have anything like that in the history books or anything anymore. So they just don't know.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2012 New Mexico JACL and Densho. All Rights Reserved.