Densho Digital Archive - George Yoshinaga Interview (denshovh-ygeorge

<Begin Segment 8>

AL: You said you went to Santa Anita so you did not go to Tanforan even though you were in the Bay Area?

GY: No, I don't know why they picked just a small group to go to Santa Anita. And when I got there it was really an experience, not just being in camp but being thrown together with people from Los Angeles, and people from Los Angeles were a lot different from those of us from places like Mountain View and San Jose.

AL: How were they different?

GY: Well, the whole lifestyle. For example I didn't know how to dance. So when they had a dance in camp, I said I better learn how to dance. [Laughs]

AL: When you left Mountain View on a... was it a train or a bus?

GY: Train.

AL: Train. What was the last thing you saw?

GY: What was what?

AL: The last thing you saw as you left Mountain View, do you recall?

GY: Well, the train station, that was the only thing that remained in my mind. And I don't know why, but to go to Santa Anita the train went through Reno. I couldn't understand that. Today I look at the map and I say, why did we go to Reno to come down to Santa Anita which is in Arcadia, you know.

AL: Right. Were you able to see your farm from the train?

GY: No.

AL: Were there soldiers or anybody else around?

GY: Well, just on the train, but the Mountain View train station was I would say about eight miles from our farm.

AL: If you could just sort of verbally paint a picture of that train station that morning like who was there, what you saw, any sounds, smells.

GY: I think if it was today I'd feel more sentimental about leaving, but when you're at that age you just... most of us figured well, just another adventure.

AL: Did the MPs have guns?

GY: Yeah, but I think they... that angle is overplayed because I talked to a couple of those and they weren't there to really guard us or anything. It's just something the army assigned them to do, get on the train and make sure nothing goes wrong.

AL: How were they armed?

GY: Most of them had .45 sidearms. They didn't have rifles or machine guns and all this stuff.

AL: They didn't have bayonets?

GY: No, it was just like they were there, police officers just sitting there to make sure that not only that we tried to escape that other people might come and try to do something to us.

AL: Right, I know from the photographs and from some of the movie footage, I mean, some groups did have the bayonets. It depends I guess on what town it was and what date.

GY: That's another thing we talk about in camp, most people talk about the barbed wire fences and guard towers, but I used to talk with the guards, that were in there. And I got to know a couple of them and the thing that made me laugh is the reason they were assigned to guard us in camp is that physically they weren't able to go into combat, they were sort of chosen to do something that didn't require too much.

AL: There's a very famous picture that's often used for Santa Anita and I don't know if you'd probably recognize it but it's a guard tower and then there's what four or six soldiers on the tower.

GY: Well, Santa Anita was little different.

AL: What was it like?

GY: I think that as I look back now, they were there more to... 'cause I don't know if you heard but a lot of time there was Santa Anita, they didn't have fences, they had fences but they didn't put up any special. So they were more concerned about people on the outside giving us trouble.