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MA: What are sort of some of your earliest memories of Berkeley? You must have been pretty young at that point. Do you have any memories of your childhood?

TN: I sure do. I was, like I say, seven, six, seven years old, and I had a good friend, his name was Walter, same age, and he lived across the street. And Reverend Nishikawa, who also went to Topaz, lived in a big white house right across the street from ours. And our address was 1538 Carlton Street. And I remember our house had a garage that you drove the car underneath the house. And I've been back there in other years, and that house is still standing. I went to Longfellow elementary school, and I believe I was in kindergarten and then, I turned seven, but I was still in kindergarten.

MA: Were most of your friends -- I don't know if you remember -- but were they mostly Japanese American back then?

TN: No, no. In fact, Walter, my Caucasian friend, is the only real friend that I can remember. Oh, and there was a black family that lived around the corner, and we were friendly with them, too.

MA: So can you tell me a little bit about your, your sister, Carol?

TN: Carol is one year older than I am, and she went to Longfellow as well. And I haven't really talked to Carol a lot about the internment, but I know her personality is completely different than mine, and to my knowledge, she's never given an interview about Topaz. But she had a hard time in Topaz. She did tell me that she was lonesome and she didn't have many friends. So Topaz was a very hard experience, whereas for me, I was more outgoing, and I picked up friends fairly easily. As a boy, I could run out, and it was adventurous, and we could go on hikes and things. And so I had a lot of fun, yeah.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.