<Begin Segment 9>

TI: Well, then eventually, you got orders that you had to leave.

TO: Evacuate, yeah.

TI: So can you explain what happened to the family when that happened, when you got the notices?

TO: Oh, we just left everything there, there was nothing we can do about it. There's a lot of Americans come over and they want their refrigerators and have all these kitchen equipments and things like that. We just didn't have time to negotiate anything, we just kind of gave 'em away. Didn't know whether we would be able to come back to our home or not.

TI: And so these people that would come, were they people that you knew? Were they like neighbors or friends?

TO: No, they were not.

TI: And so you ended up just giving them stuff?

TO: Well, some of them were nice enough to give us a few dollars for it.

TI: When you saw that happening, how did you feel about that?

TO: Most of, what I felt, I'm a dog lover, and we had two dogs and we had to leave that dog going to Santa Anita. And that dog followed us for about a mile. I don't know what happened to those two dogs, it was a German shepherd. That was kind of sad, to leave the dog behind. In the meantime, my dad was already gone, so our family, my sister, my brother, the four of us... there was, oh, we drove to L.A., and then we had to leave our car there. At that time, I was driving, so I left the car there, I don't know what happened to the car. And then we were taken by bus to Santa Anita racetrack. Then we stayed there about six months, then we were shipped over to Jerome, Arkansas.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.