<Begin Segment 12>

JS: So then after your father was picked up, you had the grocery business to take care of. So do you remember what happened? Were you working at the store at the time?

KM: Yeah, uh-huh. We had to leave it and sell it to this, Chinese people, and we put all our things, property, in a shed. Well, he went through that, the Chinese man. And also we were in the escheat case, they call it escheat case where you cannot have property. My father bought that property in my uncle Bill's name. So the lawyer wanted that place, my father bought a nice property. So he told... I don't know who he told, but they told him that he, it was his property and not my uncle. So we were in the case. We had to go back and forth. That was awful, but I think we finally settled that, what they called that escheat case.

TI: So essentially they were trying to take that land away from your father saying that he was trying to avoid the alien land laws by using your uncle's name.

KM: Uncle, yeah, that's right. He did it.

JS: So what do you remember of... so the Chinese family, or the Chinese proprietor, they purchased, they bought the business?

KM: No, they took, they just took care of it.

JS: They took care of it for you.

KM: Uh-huh. So when we went back, but the lease was still there, so that's why my father came back to Sacramento because my uncle was there. My uncle said, "Why don't you come?" But my father suffered a lot because the hospitals won't take him. They would not take people that came from camp, Japanese people. So he had to stay on top of the flower shop where my uncle was, and a doctor came and finally there was one from Walnut Grove, doctor, I think, saw him, and he just had ulcers.

JS: Dr. Akamatsu?

KM: Uh-huh. He took care of... but Dr. Akamatsu tried hard to put him in a regular hospital, but the only hospital that would take him was the county, and they put him in a hallway, yeah. He suffered.

TI: So explain this. I haven't heard this before. So when he came back, when he was sick, the local hospitals would not take him in because he was Japanese and was in the camps?

KM: Yes, they won't take him.

TI: And how did you know that was because he was Japanese and from the camp? Did anyone say that?

KM: Dr. Akamatsu said that.

TI: Okay, so Dr. Akamatsu, so you had to go back to Walnut Grove to find a doctor, and the doctor was saying these hospitals won't take him because...

KM: Yeah. So the doctor in Walnut Grove, I don't know his name, I forgot. It started with an "M." Anyway, he put my father in the county hospital. The others won't take him. So we all suffered.

TI: Now, was this, when you said the ones from back in the camps, were these the ones, the Japanese nationals that were in Department of Justice camps, or was it, like, all Japanese Americans, if they were in any camp, did they stop? Do you know if there was...

KM: In camp?

TI: Yeah,. I'm trying to understand. Because your father was in a Department of Justice camp, and then...

KM: Yeah, then he was released, he came to Amache. We moved to Amache. They had the "no-nos," people that went to Tule Lake, separated, went to, "no-nos" went to Tule Lake, but we went to Amache. That's where he returned from the camp, released him.

JS: So you were first in Arkansas.

KM: Yes.

JS: So you were interned...

KM: From Fresno we were, that was the assembly center, we called it, and then after the assembly center we went to Arkansas. And then from Arkansas we went to Amache. That's where most of the Walnut Grove were there. You people didn't go any camp, huh?

TI: No, we... well, I didn't because I was too young, but my parents went to Minidoka.

KM: Oh, Minidoka.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.