Densho Digital Archive - Chiyoko Yano Interview (denshovh-ychiyoko

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: And then can you describe arriving in, in Delta and then in Topaz?

CY: Yes. If I remember correctly, we arrived during the daytime. And we were all put into a truck, and we sat on the truck and we, must have been a sixteen-mile drive, and it was bumpy and hot and dusty.

MA: And were you escorted by armed military...

CY: Oh, yes. It was a military truck. You, you've seen it where they have rows of seats and you all... that's how we traveled. And I remember that long ride, we had some shade-like things drawn, so we couldn't see the outside while we were traveling. And then every once in a while the train stopped in the middle of no-man's-land, and the military guards got off first and they stood there, and we were only supposed to get off the train and stand within so many feet, and you couldn't wander off. Then you stretch your legs and then we had to go back in again.

MA: And so you arrived to Topaz, and what were you thinking when you got there? What was going through your mind when you finally arrived to Topaz and you saw where you were gonna be?

CY: Yeah, we knew that we were going to be there for indefinite period of time, we had no idea. Just like when we left for Tanforan and we had no idea. Although we knew in the, from the very beginning that it was supposed to be temporary quarters. But within the three months that we were there, in the infield, the infield of the racetrack...

MA: In Tanforan?

CY: In Tanforan, they built temporary houses for -- not houses, but temporary buildings to move us from the horse stalls into there.

MA: So in Topaz, can you describe your living conditions, the barracks?

CY: Yes, we had, there were six in our family and we were all in one big room, 20 x 20 or something like that, that was the biggest room they had. It was, one barrack was A, B, C, D, E, F. We were in E because A and F were the rooms that held small families like a mother and father and one child. And then B and E were the big rooms that held six or more. And then C and D, right in the center, they were rooms that held about four, mother, father and two children. And so that's how we were assigned room E, it was, we were in Block 5, building 3, room E.