Densho Digital Archive
Twin Cities JACL Collection
Title: Helen Tanigawa Tsuchiya Interview
Narrator: Helen Tanigawa Tsuchiya
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Bloomington, Minnesota
Date: June 16, 2009
Densho ID: denshovh-thelen-01-0009

<Begin Segment 9>

MA: And when President Roosevelt issued that Executive Order 9066, and people started going, being removed to camp, you actually weren't, you and your family weren't initially...

HT: Yeah, because, yeah, it was Highway 99 was the separation of east and west of California. So we were on the west side, no.

MA: The east side.

HT: The east side. So we didn't even have to go into assembly center. So lot of people from the west side came, came this way so that they didn't have to go moving. They could move into this area. Then they decided the whole California should go. In fact, I didn't even know part of Arizona was part of it, too. I didn't know that until we went visiting and talked to a lot of them. And, but, it was a very scary thought.

MA: So initially you were...

HT: We were happy.

MA: Right, because you thought that you wouldn't have to go to camp.

HT: Yes, and then not only that, but we had our farm. And my father was so happy,. He took care of that farm so... it was unbelievable how he took care of it. He was very neat. He was a good farmer. Nowadays you have tractors and... [coughs] I need a drink of water. But all our neighbors were nice. A couple of Japanese had farmers out.

MA: And then, how did you then hear about having to go to camp, to Gila?

HT: Yeah, they had that big sign up all over the place.

[Interruption]

MA: Okay, so you were talking about when you saw the signs and...

HT: It was written all over the place. And we had to go and get our shots and all that. And the teacher that I talked to said, they had a little synopsis of, a small story about that, they were all smiling, they had to go and register. They were all smiling. Why is that? I said, "If you were out there and had all these people with guns, all these people with guns all over the place watching you, you'd smile, too." I mean, you'd be so scared. They had them all over. They said, "Oh, we didn't know that." They says, how can you do that when you lose all your things, and, but, I don't know. It was our last picture, so the picture that we took.

MA: The picture of you and your family.

HT: Yeah, we were all smiling. It's our last picture, we smile. So, it was, they couldn't understand it, well, if they were, if you were at that part, even when we got on the train to go to Arizona it was, there would be police and soldiers with guns. Every time we pass a town, they would say, "Pull the shades down or you are going to get shot." So, there was no bathroom or anything on this broken down train. And we stopped at little place and we all ran out to the bathroom. But it was, it was a scary time because they would walk up and down with guns. What would we do? We didn't have anything and we certainly couldn't jump on them or anything. But it was a very scary time. But you have to be there, I tell them. You have to be there in order to feel how scared you are. You don't dare say anything because you would be shot.

MA: Right, I mean, there's soldiers, armed soldiers, and you just had to vacate your house, your farm, leave everything behind.

HT: They would, they had guns right there. They could shoot you. So it was, I don't know, they, somebody asked me, "When you were in camp, did they bother you?" I say, it wasn't like the Holocaust unless you're trying to escape through the barbed wire, I don't think there was any. Maybe there was. But not me, I was at the school all the time.

MA: And so when you were going on the train, did you know where you were headed? Or was it...

HT: They said Arizona.

MA: But you knew you were going into camp somewhere?

HT: Yeah, uh-huh.

MA: It was so funny because when they first mentioned it, they said, we're going to go to Arizona. They said we're going to be going to Arizona. Okay. So they said there's a lot of rattlesnakes and all kinds of stuff. So we were all buying boots and all kinds of stuff. And we got there, there's no rattlesnakes. It's on the other side of this ditch, you know. But they were just scaring you to buy everything, but we wanted to be prepared. And then we bought jeans, and so I had never worn jeans but we had to. And it's going to be hot and all this. But the, I think what we tried to make the best of everything. When I got in there a lot of people had nervous breakdowns and stuff. But I just didn't want to be one of them. I just wanted to be myself and then try to help myself and not be like that. So I think the school really helped me.

MA: So who, who would have nervous breakdowns? Was it people your age or older?

HT: No, the older people. They had nothing to do. They were just sitting there, so they died. They, a lot of them, well, a lot of them were, they felt sorry for themselves also because they're Isseis, you know? And then they had clubs and all kinds of stuff. The women would get together and sew and all kinds of stuff. But there were quite a few that got sick. In fact, my mother had eye troubles so she went in and the pays and the doctors and stuff, they were helpful, but the real doctors were, they just got paid nineteen bucks for all that. So it was a sad thing, but tried our best, anyway.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright ©2009 Densho and the Twin Cities JACL. All Rights Reserved.