<Begin Segment 6>

DT: And so to transition to the end of the, or nearing the end of camp, and end of the war, so given that your family had family in Japan, and knowing that the devastation of Japan had taken place, so do you know how your parents felt about that? Did they ever talk about...

YK: You know, my parents lived on the island of Shikoku. So it was not hit like Honshu was, or like Hiroshima and Nagasaki where people really lost families. So we didn't lose anyone to the war. I know my mother's younger sister said that they took all the swords that were in the family and they dumped them into the ocean, I told you they lived right by the ocean. So they got rid of some of the things that they felt they shouldn't have. But after the war we didn't have that much, but we shared what we had with them. I remember sending packages to them of our old clothing and I know they really appreciated that. Yeah.

DT: And what do you remember about leaving the camp?

YK: Okay, when the war was over, the government said, "We will close these camps by such and such date." And so then every day people seemed to be leaving and we would go wave goodbye to them as the bus took them from the camp to Phoenix and onward. The coyotes would then come down from the mountains. So at night you could hear them thundering and howling and so that was a very frightening time because the camp was emptying and that was happening. My father left the camp to go to Pasadena to find a place for us to live, because we had a rented house. He found out that the owner of the house we were renting, the man who wanted to take care of my father's truck for him, he said, "Oh, I am really sorry but I thought you weren't coming back." So anyway, he had taken the tires and whatever parts he needed, so the truck was not operative. But a banker that my father gardened for had been taking care of his finances for him and my father's insurance policy had matured. So he had about, he told me, four thousand dollars, and he bought a little house for us. And so we were able to move in to that house. It wasn't a big mansion or anything, but it was home for us. And then, as small as the house was, it only had one bathroom and, you know, by then there were six children in the house, but these other people had no place to go. And this one couple begged my father, "Couldn't we stay with you? We'll do this or we will do that..." and my father let them stay. And then they said, "Oh, our two nephews don't have any place to go. Could they stay with you, could they stay with us, too?" So we shared that house. My oldest sister and my oldest brother had started UCLA, so they lived in Westwood, and they lived in co-ops there on the campus. I always think that's amazing, that they were able to start college right away after coming out of the camp. And my brother said, "I really admire our dad," because he didn't expect them to help take care of the family. He just wanted them to go to college and finish what they wanted to do. And a lot of the oldest sons helped the family out financially, so they gave up their college.

DT: That's true, right, they had to.

YK: Uh-huh, they had to, and I guess we were just lucky that we didn't have to do that. And partly it was because, since my father was a gardener, and when he came back, when he went back, they all hired him again right away. So he had a job, too.

DT: Wow, you were lucky.

YK: We were very lucky.

DT: Aside from the truck. [Laughs]

YK: Yes. And then we got all our things back, and I showed you the picture of me dancing in the first Nisei Week.

DT: Oh yeah, do you actually want to actually maybe hold it and you can show it?

YK: Because we didn't have to sell off our things and throw them away, I had the kimono to wear. And so my sister taught me the dances and we participated in the first Nisei Week festival after the war. So life started to come back to normal.

DT: How old were you by this point?

YK: I was in the fifth grade.

DT: Okay.

YK: So I think ten, going on eleven.

DT: And so what was the reception like for, you know, at school, or getting back into... was it hard or was it difficult?

YK: You know, I don't recall being nervous going to school. And when I got to school there were white students and black students and they all hovered around me, they wanted to eat lunch with me, they wanted me to play games with them. Some girls wanted me to join their Girl Scout troop. And I had a couple of friends who lived close to the school and they would invite for lunch at their homes. And so I was very lucky. What happened was, we had a vice-principal, and she went around to all the classrooms -- I was the first Japanese American to come back -- and she explained what had happened to me and that I was not the enemy and that they should treat me well and welcome me. And that's exactly what they did. Now, about a month later, the actual principal came back from his tour of duty in the Pacific. We gave him, we had a big assembly to welcome him back. He got up and he talked about his stories in the Pacific, and just used the word "Japs" very freely. And I just cringed; I was so afraid. But I don't know if the kids didn't understand or weren't listening to him or what, but it didn't seem to affect how they felt about me or how they treated me. So, I was very lucky.

DT: Gosh, yeah, the kids might have been just young enough to not let it affect them.

YK: That's right, that's right.

DT: And they just saw you as a friend.

YK: That's right, by then they saw me as a friend, not an "enemy alien." That's right.

DT: So that's good, so you were lucky. And your parents, so they basically got back on their feet and felt, you know, they just got back to working and just took care of the home?

YK: That's right, that's right. So I think we were fortunate.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2019 Densho. All Rights Reserved.