<Begin Segment 19>

MA: So you told me about in Poston you would go to the river?

CY: Yeah. Sometimes on a Sunday, we would go walking to the Colorado River, and it's about five miles of desert land. And we'd go there and it's a stream, I guess it's not the main river, but the stream. And I know some people used to go fishing there, but we used to just wade in the cold water.

MA: And that was five miles?

CY: Yeah, I think so. Five miles up, five miles back in the hot sun.

MA: How long were you in Poston? How many, how many years?

CY: We went in July of '42 and went out August of '45. Because my sister-in-law wanted to start school, and we wanted to get her back in time for school, high school. But my father-in-law couldn't come back because he wasn't free, he wasn't cleared for California. They had some kind of, that he couldn't come back to California. So he had to wait until they got the clearance, and by the time he left, there were Indians moving into the barracks around him.

MA: Really?

CY: Yes, uh-huh. He said they were one of the last ones to leave, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law.

MA: And there was, 'cause I know there was a Native American tribe around that area.

CY: I guess there were, because they started moving in, he said.

MA: To the, into the barracks?

CY: Yes, uh-huh, empty barracks.

MA: That's interesting.

CY: Yes.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright ©2008 Densho and the Watsonville - Santa Cruz JACL. All Rights Reserved.