<Begin Segment 25>

TI: Okay. So the ones that went "no-no," so they, then plans were being made to send them to Tule Lake. So then what happened next with your family?

NH: Well, at, at the time that we were supposed to, this transfer was supposed to take place, my father had a heart attack. And the doctor says, "No, you can't move to Tule Lake, you have to stay here and rest, otherwise you're gonna have another heart attack."

TI: So it was a heart attack, but it wasn't so, I mean...

NH: It wasn't fatal or anything like that, no.

TI: Fatal, but it was serious enough --

NH: Serious enough that he had to take it easy. And so he stayed, the doctor ordered him to stay, and so we all just stayed. And we stayed and stayed and stayed, and that was the end of it. And by that time, we'd given up transferring, and I think they'd given it up because it was all over with. 'Cause Tule Lake was empty, 'cause all the people going to Japan had been sent to Japan, and they didn't know, and they weren't gonna just send one family to Japan. I don't think that was gonna happen.

TI: Well, I think there still were people in Tule Lake --

NH: Yeah, there were people there, but they were the "okay" guys. [Laughs]

TI: Well...

NH: Sort of.

TI: So these transfers happened, and so you saw families leaving for Tule Lake, and then you saw other families coming...

NH: Yeah, other families from Tule came to Topaz.

TI: Okay, and your family stayed.

NH: And our family just stayed, yeah.

TI: And how was your mother with all this, I mean, during this time?

NH: It was, "Oh well, okay." [Laughs]

TI: Because your dad was sick, and so you had to stay.

NH: And he got well and the doctor finally discharged him from the hospital, but he couldn't go work out in the fields anymore, he had to stay home, more or less. And by that time, I had become eighteen, and that's when they took me out. And instead of sending me to Tule, they sent me to Santa Fe.

<End Segment 25> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.