Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Massie Hinatsu Interview
Narrator: Massie Hinatsu
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: July 22, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-hmassie-01-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

RP: Then your mother actually returned to Minidoka with two of your sisters?

MH: Yes.

RP: But you stayed out.

MH: She left with my younger brother and sister and my older sister who had already was thinking about leaving camp and took a permanent leave to New York City. And my sister Kazzie, who's just a couple years older than I was, she found work as a housegirl and lived with the Wilcox just a couple blocks from where we had a house that my uncle lived in and I stayed with my uncle for that time until we went back to Milwakie. But it was, it was a hard time for me because... I don't know how to put it, he and I did not get along too well, probably because I was so stubborn. So I spent a lot of time with friends that I made. I did find housework on the weekends so I could at least have a little bit of spending money. My sister and I walked to school every day because she just lived a block away and so she would sometimes invite me to dinner, etcetera and, and he, my uncle, made his own dinner and I made my own dinner. And I can still remember the man that came to see him. I don't know what they called him. I just called him a probation officer because he was still on probation from the Justice Center. And that went on the whole time that I was there.

RP: Continuous visits?

MH: Uh-huh. And then he, we went back to camp during the holidays and he drove a pickup and took my sister and I back to see my mom. And we visited and then we came back again. But I just remember, I could still see that pickup truck going like this and ending up in the ditch. My poor uncle. But anyway, we survived and came and I stayed with my uncle until May. And actually, you know, Ontario school was really very good for me. Yes, it was a good school. And it, there was a lot of prejudice in Ontario. You know, it was hard to walk down the street without being vilified so to speak. The boys probably had a tougher time than the girls did. And fortunately I had several good friends who, who were very good to me and sometimes I would spend weekends with them, etcetera. In May my mother decided that it was time to leave camp and so I went back to camp. I took a train back if I remember correctly and left for Milwakie with her from Shoshone, or wherever the train left.

RP: And can you share with us your feelings on your return to your home?

MH: You know, the train ride was fascinating to me because I'm looking at it entirely differently than when we came back and I thought, "Oh gee, it's really not that bad. Look at those blue looking hazy hilltops, etcetera." But I think when we got to the Columbia River I... and got to around Hood River it was just like going through a fairytale land because it was green. It was misty. I just couldn't believe how much we actually missed it as young as we were. At least for me, how much I missed that green, misty, rain. So it was fascinating. My mother found work with the Koidas who had a greenhouse business. And they still do... very, very prominent here in Milwakie. And we lived in a little board house there for a couple years. And my uncle came back just during the wintertime, you know, because they didn't have any seasonal work in Ontario. When he finally persuaded my mother that they should buy the old place back that we lived in in Milwakie. And so I think it cost like four thousand to buy it back, piece of property, if I remember correctly. And then they were able to raise enough money to buy that land back again. And the house was still the house that we lived in before the war. And, but she couldn't buy it because of the alien land law. And so my, so they bought it in my brother's name 'cause he was old enough by then. Yeah.

RP: And you, you completed high school in Milwakie?

MH: Yes.

RP: And what was your first job upon graduating?

MH: From Milwakie, or from college?

RP: From Milwakie.

MH: I worked in a grocery store. I don't know if I worked that long but I did, I worked in a grocery store right across from Reed College that was owned by a Japanese grocery person that had a grocery store before the war. And I just took the bus there and worked there after school and on weekends. And I loved it, I really did. So that was... and also, right after, when we first came back, my mother was able to find work for my sister and I, my youngest sister. 'Cause my older sister, Kazzie, didn't come back until later and Aki had already gone to New York. She, Toku and I, she found work for us picking berries for the Katos and Mr. Urata who was the father. And he... and we room and boarded in their house and picked berries from sun up to sun down. And they could not take their berries to a cannery in Gresham because this was out in Gresham and there was still a lot of prejudice in Gresham. And they were not able to take their berries to the cannery so they ran a cannery of their own so after work and eating, then we'd work in the cannery sorting the berries. And so, you know, it's a good thing we were young. I don't know if I could do that anymore, really. So, so they were really a godsend for us. There are too many people in our lives who, who really, really came to our, our aid, rescue.

RP: Did, you had, in talking with several other folks, it sounds like Hood River and Gresham were completely the antithesis of Milwakie and some of the other communities that were very supportive.

MH: Yes, very, very different.

RP: Maybe it was a larger concentration of Japanese in those areas or, but that's...

MH: It was different, uh-huh.

RP: A little different.

MH: Yeah.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.