<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So during this time in Jerome, your father is at Santa Fe, New Mexico?

KM: Yes.

TI: What kind of correspondence did the family have with your father? Do you have any letters back and forth?

KM: No, I don't think so. No letters.

TI: So how would you know what was happening with your father? What news did you have of your father, where he was and how he was?

KM: No, we didn't have any news, we just knew he was there. And I don't know where I got the typewriter, but I got a hold of one and typed the letters.

TI: So what gave you the idea to start typing letters to General DeWitt and other people?

KM: Well, for myself, I just figured that if I wrote to him, that he would release my father. And right across the way, there was another man. He was in Fowler, and he was interned, too, so I wrote for her, too. So kept on, kept busy writing letters.

TI: Okay. Then eventually, from Jerome, you talked about going, leaving Jerome, and I think earlier you said Chicago, but I think we, during the break we --

KM: No, I made a mistake. I went to Amache.

TI: Right. And so from Jerome to Amache, why did you leave Jerome?

KM: Well, my... it was difficult because they didn't want us, they wanted us to go to Gila, and we didn't want to go to Gila. And so they said, "Well, if you taught shorthand in our high school, then we'll put..." they didn't have any shorthand teacher. So, "If you taught there, then we'll transfer you to Amache. So that's how we went to Amache, was because I said, "I'll teach shorthand."

TI: But why were they asking you to leave Jerome? What was happening at Jerome that made you need to leave?

KM: Oh, that's because they had to segregate the "no-nos" from the one that, they wanted people to separate.

TI: Yeah, so this is the part I'm not clear about. So the people that the government wanted to segregate, they sent to Tule Lake.

KM: Yes, the "no-nos."

TI: And then the extra people at Tule Lake, then they would send to the other camps to make more room. But why would they need to move you from Jerome to someplace else?

KM: Oh, I think they closed it.

TI: Okay, so this is when they were closing Jerome, that's why they moved you.

KM: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Densho and Preserving California's Japantowns. All Rights Reserved.