<Begin Segment 4>

MA: So Executive Order 9066 was issued in February. Do you recall that time, sort of packing up the house and talking about leaving, and what was the atmosphere like in your house?

TN: Well, I know the FBI came and took our cameras and our binoculars and radios and things like that way before the notice went up on the telephone poles. But yeah, there was concern in our house, and I know my mother and father were having some serious discussions that I didn't understand. Yeah, it's hard to remember everything that took place at that age, but I do remember Greyhound buses, we, since we could only take what we could carry, in effect, that means we lost, many people lost their homes, their cars, their business, their furniture, their bank accounts. I mean, some of them sold it for, like, five dollars, I mean, for a hundred dollars' worth of merchandise, you might sell it for five dollars. And so there was a huge amount of personal property loss. And as I was saying, the government told us we could only carry, take what we could carry so we took it on, lined it up on the sidewalk, and there were these Greyhound buses lined up. And some of the Japanese people were not leaving that day, but they were all there saying goodbye, and hugs and kisses. And there were many Caucasian people there, too, and they were giving their condolences. And some of these Caucasians would even store some of the possessions for the Japanese people.

MA: What happened to your possessions and where did you take them?

TN: Right. The government said at the time that they would provide warehouses to store all this stuff, and, but there was one catch and that is you had to assume all the risk of storage, meaning that if they were stolen or damaged, the government cannot be held responsible. And so we put all of our things in the warehouses that the government provided, but after the war, we were notified that we could not come back to pick 'em up, because they were all gone, and where they went, I have no idea. But I think that happened to most of the people that put them in there.

MA: Right, so essentially all of your belongings were gone.

TN: Right, and that's a story about the internment that really isn't too widely known. It was bad enough to lose three and a half years of your life, but to lose all of your family possessions, your property, your car, your businesses and starting over from scratch, that part was just as hard.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.