<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So can we talk about each one of those? I'm curious about first Fresno and what that was like.

KM: Assembly center? No, I don't remember too much about that, but we, it was alright, but it was dirt floor because it was temporary. And then they moved us to Arkansas. We had floors then.

TI: And when you say Arkansas, was it Jerome or Rohwer?

KM: Jerome.

JS: Did anyone visit you when you were at the Fresno assembly center?

KM: No.

JS: Not that you remember?

KM: No.

JS: Who was the Chinese family that took over the grocery?

KM: Well, his name was Wong, but I don't remember.

JS: Okay. So you're not sure what the relation was before. Did you know the family before they took over?

KM: No, he... no. Maybe he might have been a butcher or something. So he said he'll take care of the grocery store and the house, we had a house in the back. But they had a lease, you know, maybe half a year or a year or so, my father just thought he'd just sell the place. Went to Sacramento, came to Sacramento where my uncle Roy was here.

JS: So when did he sell the place? After the camp, then?

KM: After, uh-huh.

JS: So you never returned to Madera.

KM: No, we never did.

JS: You went directly to Sacramento. And when did your father get sick? Or you said he was...

KM: Right after.

JS: Coming back?

KM: To Sacramento. He had ulcers because he worried all that time.

JS: When he joined you in Amache, so he was at the, in Santa Fe -- or not Santa Fe, but New Mexico...

KM: Santa Fe, New Mexico, that's right.

JS: That's right. So for a couple of years then. Two years?

KM: Yes.

JS: About two years before joining you.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.