<Begin Segment 30>

TI: So let's move from Merced, you said, Colorado. So the Amache camp.

LW: That took us almost two nights on the train. And you know, the funny part of it, on the train, you can't, you got the shade that you can't see nothing outside, what's going on. They don't want you to see. Then when you take a break, they park you way out in the desert or in the mountain, and the guards, the guards come out and line up with the bayonets. Then we get off and stretch our arm or something like that, then go back in.

TI: And how would you sleep on the train? You were there for two nights...

LW: Well, you just got to manage, just sleep on the chair there.

TI: And for food, how would they feed you?

LW: Well, I don't know. I can't remember those, how we ate. But they must probably have cold sandwich or something like that. Because I don't think it was equipped, dining rooms, like that.

TI: Now, so when you got to Colorado, I've heard both Amache and Granada. So when you got there, what did they call the camp? Do you remember what they...

LW: You mean the camp?

TI: Yeah, the camp.

LW: First they called it Granada, that's the town. That's, the town itself was just one gas station, one grocery store, and one drug store, and that was it. The town, rest of it was all farmers. And train didn't stop there. Only reason they stopped the train because we had so many people to unload. But after we came into the camp, so many people go in and out, that's the reason the train made the stop. Because that, originally, the closest city was two, three miles from the camp.

TI: Oh, I see. But Granada was closer.

LW: Closer to the camp, so we could walk up to the town. But we could go there if you get a pass, but we got to walk down there, about two miles down there.

TI: Okay, so Granada was this little town nearby. So where did the name Amache come from?

LW: Amache come from the Indian name. I guess that area, it's... I think called maybe Amache, I don't know. It's an Indian country.

TI: Now, was that name kind of used when you were there?

LW: No.

TI: It was always called Granada?

LW: Yeah.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.