<Begin Segment 10>

MA: So let's... so you mentioned that your father in February had to turn in his cameras and everything.

BU: I think all but the studio camera, I think. I don't think he had to take, turn in the studio camera because that was a fixture, you couldn't take any pictures, you couldn't take that whole big thing. I think, so I think the only thing he could take were portraits and passport photos. But, I mean, it wiped him out.

MA: Did the FBI target him? Did they come to his shop or anything?

BU: No, none of my family, my family on either side, was brought in, well, or incarcerated, I should say. None of them were. If Dr. Yawata had been here, he would have been one of the first, because he was the leader of the community, and they took in all the leaders.

MA: So then in February, your father basically went out of business.

BU: Yeah, we were, we were out of business.

MA: 'Cause he had no cameras.

BU: Living pretty much on our savings and whatever until, I think, April is when we went to Tanforan.

MA: And so what did you do with your possessions and where did you store your valuables?

BU: We were lucky, our family was a member of the Oakland Japanese Methodist Church. And they opened up, they had this... what do they call this? Well, it was a building, oh, what do they call it? But they had their classrooms on the first floor, and a gym on the second floor, and they used that whole facility for members to store their, store whatever. But I think everybody had to take it there, I think. I don't think the government picked it up and took it. Anyway, we stored it there, but we were lucky in that there was one member of the (church), Caucasian member of that church, Lee Mullis and his father. And they watched over the property while we were gone, and no one lost anything.

MA: So Lee Mullis and his father watched over the church and the belongings in the church?

BU: Uh-huh, so our church, our place was not vandalized. Not like several places the government storage provided, (where) the security was terrible. I think my wife's family, they lost everything. The only thing they got was when they left a few things with friends. But yeah, we were lucky.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Topaz Museum. All Rights Reserved.