<Begin Segment 31>

TI: And then how about, so you came and there were men there already.

NH: Sure.

TI: Were there others that came after you into Santa Fe?

NH: I don't really know. There might have been, but I doubt it. I think I was at the very end of it. Because within that six or eight months that I was there in Santa Fe, people began leaving, and I'm not sure where they went, but they were, they were starting to, I guess, disband the camp. And then of course my turn came, and I left. I said, "Where am I going?" and I'm going back to Berkeley.

TI: And when you say "your turn came," was there, like, a hearing or someone that you would talk with?

NH: They says, "Now you can, now you can go home. Where do you want to go?" "Well, my family's in Berkeley," says, "Okay, that's fine." Berkeley, and that was it.

TI: So someone, someone somewhere was making a decision on your life and you didn't really know who it was and you didn't really talk with them. Now, were you aware of any hearings going on at Santa Fe where some people would go in front of someone and have to talk, kind of like a trial, almost?

NH: No, I don't recall, I don't recall any of that kind of stuff going on. It just, "Well, I get to go home now," is sort of the feeling then, and that was it.

TI: So you mentioned Japanese, mostly Isseis there. Did you see any other "enemy aliens" like Germans or Italians?

NH: Not in Santa Fe.

TI: So just Japanese.

NH: It was all Japanese. Crystal City had all of them, had Italians and Germans, Japanese, yeah.

TI: And generally how were the, did the guards treat the Japanese? Were they pretty much...

NH: Oh, they were over there and we were over here. That was it.

TI: So you never heard of any altercations between the guards and the inmates.

NH: No, I never heard of, not while I was there, anyhow. And I never heard of any prior to my being there.

TI: Now, when, so you had a job. Did most of the other men have jobs, too?

NH: No, there weren't that many jobs. And there was no farms or something like that.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.