<Begin Segment 7>

RP: So you moved to the Johnson house and you lived there for how long?

KY: Actually about two, it must have been about two years. I remember being drafted from there. And I went to the service when they were still there. I quit working, my two brothers had started running land, started farming, renting land and farming. And essentially told Dad, you're retired. But he did whatever he could do. 'Course, he never drove a tractor or anything in his life and we used horses those days just about every farmer had horses. They used those but anyway I went to the service.

RP: Did somebody move into your old house that you left?

KY: That I don't know, I don't know if they did or not. It was still there but a year or two later, but that I don't know, the old house.

RP: And what were your brothers farming?

KY: They rented some land just a couple miles from the Johnson place, actually about, it's about four miles from the Johnson place. And they kept farm a couple of years at the Johnson place and they started looking for another place, they wanted more, they needed more land.

RP: You mentioned that your father, when he was first removed from the railroad was watched by an FBI man, how about the time after that? Was your family under surveillance during the time you lived at the Johnson house? Was somebody watching your movements or your dad's movements?

KY: No, nobody was watching as far as we knew. They did come to the house, I can't remember when it was but it was after we moved to the Johnson house and confiscated all of our shotguns, .22s and cameras, shortwave radios, we didn't have one of those but cameras whatever else they asked for. But they took all our guns away from us. I was ticked off because I wanted to go duck hunting. [Laughs]

RP: So was that the FBI or the county sheriff who came to confiscate the guns?

KY: Yeah, the FBI came and oh, they were pretty nasty to my brother 'cause he was objecting about, he started asking them about why was he kicked off his job in Hill Field and they essentially said it's none of our business. We're not here for that. And they threatened to put him in jail too just like my mother.

RP: Along with your mom.

KY: But anyway they came and we gave them our guns. Dad says, "This is what they have to do, this is they have to do, resign to do it."

RP: Were there any other restrictions placed on your family other than don't go down to the railroad tracks?

KY: We were concerned about it. I was in the orchestra and of course the restriction was not to go on a military base. Well, the orchestra was going to play at Bushnell General Hospital, the army hospital.

RP: Where was that?

KY: In Brigham City, nearby the high school and they were going to put on... the orchestra was going to play for the troops. I didn't know whether I should go or not. And the teacher says, "Oh, let's just go and see what happens." Well, we went and nothing happened. Just the teacher and I talked about that, I didn't let anybody else know that I was concerned about it. But personally I couldn't see why not. So those are the kind of things that just kept you on a little bit of an edge, whether or not we could go near the hospital.

RP: Were you under any travel restrictions? You can only travel a certain distance away from the community?

KY: Gosh, I can't remember.

Off camera: Yes, they had restrictions. They could only go about forty miles from home. And they had those booklets, you know, I remember my parents with the booklets and they could only go forty miles from home.

RP: Was that restriction on your parents' travel or the whole family?

Off camera: I think it was the whole family.

RP: This booklet that you spoke of was kind of regulations?

Off camera: I think so.

RP: Specific for the wartime.

KY: I don't know, I was so naive I figured that, hell I'm an American. [Laughs]

RP: What's wrong with that?

KY: Yeah, I didn't pay much attention to it.

RP: You said that, you know, you lived in this town for a while and you felt pretty integrated, and did the community show you any support at all other than kind of wondering why this was happening to you?

KY: We did get some questions from people. "How come you had to move?" And we just told them why and they said, "Well, what's wrong with that? Why did they have to move you?" And dad was okay. Anyway, I really didn't hear myself but my brothers said that they heard it from people in town. It's strange and they heard people being called the J-word and all I can recall is hearing one boy about ten year old referring to me one time about that, using that word. And that's the only person I ever heard say that word where I heard it. It was this... I was like everybody else, I felt like that. You know, it's funny you get so used to living in that kind of environment where you don't distinguish between the other workers on the railroad, the Mexican families, the Italian guy. These are my friends, I didn't notice any difference, I didn't feel any different.

RP: What happened to your brother who got removed from his job at the air force base? What did he do?

KY: Well, he was working with my brother and when I came home from the service, this was in the fall, September, and by the next spring, he and I bought a farm together. Anyway, it was about... up the road a little way from my oldest brother's farm. And we bought that farm and we started farming that.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.