Densho Digital Archive - Nobu Shimokochi Interview (denshovh-snobu

<Begin Segment 3>

RD: Okay, so then in September you found out, how did you find out where you were going, or did you know?

NS: You know, I don't think I knew where we were going. Although it might have been published in the Pacemaker. But anyway, we got our belongings, which wasn't very much, and boarded the train. But see, backtrack a little bit, at the stating area, they told us what to bring, your bedding, your mess gear, your few personal belongings, but only what you can carry. Our parents very carefully selected what they were gonna bring. We had no idea what our future environment was gonna be, and we just selected things very carefully. And then stuffed it in a bag and took it to the staging area, and there was a bunch of GIs there with rifles and fixed bayonets, and they told us where to drop our bags, and they motioned us on to a Greyhound bus. And we got onto the bus and it was all dark with the shades all pulled down. And we walked past women who were trying to stifle their crying. And as I walked back I kind of choked on a lump in my throat, and we sat further in the back. And you know, it wasn't that far from the center of town to Santa Anita, but it seemed like an awful long time we sat on that bus. And perhaps we sat on it for quite a while before we left, but it seemed like it took hours and hours to get there. And probably it only took maybe an hour and a half or two to get there. Of course, we didn't have these highways then, and there was a lot less traffic. But that's my memory of the evacuation.

RD: So then you got from the bus, then all of a sudden you're on the train.

NS: Yeah, four months later we got on the train. And we were, I guess, about three days on the train, and they were all coach seats, and so they were kind of hard, uncomfortable seats. And our parents tried to make us as comfortable as possible at their expense. And I recall that the... what do you call 'em, stewards, or the waiters on the dining car? They were very unhappy because they weren't getting the tips. And, of course, they didn't understand the circumstances, and we didn't have the money, and we ate a minimum. I don't know if there was any free food provided or not. But anyway, I recalled the waiters being real unhappy about not getting tips, because I guess they were paid dependent on tips.

RD: And they would have been mostly black waiters, wouldn't they have been?

NS: Yes, they were all black waiters.

RD: Little did they know, huh?

NS: Right.

RD: So tell me what the train ride was. Like you said you had a lump in your throat. Were you afraid to go?

NS: Well, you know, it was kind of a sad event. We lost everything we had, and we were going to lose our freedom. I mean, we became instant POWs, we got captured by the GIs. And when I got into Santa Anita, I'm lying there on this cot with a straw mattress, and I'm thinking, "You know, I thought the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were supposed to guarantee our civil rights." And I was really puzzled. What am I doing in a concentration camp? And even today, when I see the word Constitution or Bill of Rights, it reminds me of a concentration camp. It seems like a strange combination there, but that's the way it was.

RD: Well, let me ask you this. Were you aware then of the German constitution?

NS: No. No, absolutely not.

RD: What was your reference to a concentration camp? Or is it just now that you...

[Interruption]

NS: Concentration camp. Well, everybody used that term, "concentration camp." That was the word for these camps at that time. I mean, the meaning of the word has kind of changed since then, but at that time, not only the Presidents Roosevelt and Truman used those terms, the politicians, the media used the term "concentration camp," and that was the word for our camps. And today, they never use that word.

RD: When do you think it changed? When did they start being called internment camps?

NS: I think in the '50s when the, lot of the wartime media people were kind of fading out and the new media people, the younger ones were moving in. I think that's when a lot of it happened.