Densho Digital Archive - Fred Oda Interview (denshovh-ofred

<Begin Segment 16>

TI: So when you eventually heard that you had to go also, how did you feel about that? Because you were a citizen, you had a high school education, so you studied civics and all those things, so you knew about the Constitution. So when they took, when they said that you had to go as a U.S. citizen, how did you feel about that?

FO: Oh, yeah, it burned me up, yeah. We were powerless at that time, so...

TI: So you went along. But before we move to Salinas, what did your father do with the shop? When they found out that you all had to leave, what did the businesses all do?

FO: Yeah, he closed the shop, yeah. Well, he owned the building, so he was able to just close it and the lawyer took care of it. And I guess the lawyer rented it out afterward, yeah.

TI: And when you say "the lawyer," who was your lawyer?

FO: Mr. Murphy. (He was a real estate person.)

TI: And so your dad was able to shut the shop down, did he rent it to someone else, or was it just shut down during the war?

FO: Yeah, he just shut down. I guess Mr. Murphy took care of the rest, yeah. He rented it out, I guess.

TI: Oh, so Mr. Murphy was able to rent the shop.

FO: Yeah.

TI: And with that, your dad got some money from rent during the war?

FO: Yeah, paid for upkeep of the property and stuff like that. Yeah, I didn't realize that until I was reading some of my, when I was cleaning up my sister's stuff, all the correspondence that she had with the lawyer, yeah. The lawyer says something -- no, no, he wasn't a lawyer, but the real estate man. He says, "Gee, right now things are tough," and this and that, and she writes back. And coming back to Watsonville, he said, "Well, at this time, I wouldn't advise you to come back," and stuff like that. All that was going on between my sister and I didn't know nothing about it until I started cleaning up her stuff after she died, you know.

TI: Did you keep those letters? Do you still have those letters?

FO: I didn't. Like a damn fool, I burned everything up.

TI: That's too bad. I would have loved to have seen this. Do you think in general, the lawyers and the real estate people treated your family fairly when you were in camp? And they were taking care of your property, do you think they --

FO: Yeah, they were pretty responsible, yeah.

TI: Okay, that's good.