<Begin Segment 3>

Q: When you heard about the evacuation order... so where did you go, and I guess what kind of plans did you make?

FK: Oh. I discussed this with my girlfriend. I sold my car, by the way, 'cause you couldn't travel more than forty miles or something like that, you were not allowed to leave the city, anyway. So I sold my car, practically, I gave it away, practically. And my driver's license wasn't any good, so I tore it up. And my draft card, they reclassified all the Japanese Americans to "enemy alien," you know, it was a 4-C or something like that. And so my draft card wasn't any good either, so I just changed it, but another name down there, a Spanish name. And I went into Oakland there and stayed at a rooming house, got a room there. And you know, not being with the family... if you were with the family like my family or any Japanese family, you feel the pressure and the worries and so forth going on, and nobody is happy, you know. And they're all worried about what's gonna happen next and so forth. But on the outside, it's different. It's just like a normal life, you know, just like we've been living all the time.

[Interruption]

Q: Fred, could you tell us about separating yourself from your family, why you did that?

FK: Because the tension and worries and what's gonna happen next... my folks were worried about that. And what to do with their business, and what to take, you know, and the belongings, and all that accumulated and so forth. They would, you practically couldn't talk to them, you know. And me being the third son, that's the last thing they want to think about. [Laughs] And so I had my own worried, and had my own girlfriend, my own problems, and so I talked to them that I would like to leave, and tried to leave before they evacuate, evacuation deadline, and to see if I can leave the state before this happened. And they said, "Fine, if you can do it, go ahead." So I did. But instead of leaving, I stayed in Oakland in a rooming house and there with my girlfriend we decided what we should do. In between time, I got used to, you know, the pressure and the worries, like that was happening at home, well, it wasn't there on the outside. It was just like a normal day. People going to work, or they're going someplace for entertainment or going out to eat. And the chatter they talk about is like everyday living things. And, well, I felt right at home. I said, well, heck, I'm an American citizen, too. I'm used to all this, so I fell right in with them. And since I've been a welder, I said, "Well, heck, I'm going to go to work." So welding was, welder was in great demand at that time because there was a very shortage of it because of the defense work that that they need, all the welders they can. And so instead of going back in the shipyards, which I knew that it would be impossible for me to do that, because of the strict... what do you call it? Guards and so forth. I went to Berkeley where they were crying for welders over there at a trailer mobile company, which made great big trailers to move ship hulls around in the shipyard, parts of the ship. And so I applied there and they, without hesitation, put me right to work. And once they saw how I welded, the foreman was satisfied. And I got paid cash in those days, you know, they didn't have any check, paychecks or anything like that, they just paid you cash at the end of the week, and that was the way they did it. So that was fine with me, and that's how I worked. And I did that until I got caught, about two or three months.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 1983, 2010 Densho and Steven Okazaki. All Rights Reserved.