Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Doris Nitta Interview
Narrators: Doris Nitta
Interviewer: Richard Potashin
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: August 10, 2010
Densho ID: denshovh-ndoris-01-0018

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RP: When do you remember leaving Rohwer to go back home?

DT: Oh, before we left Rohwer my sister went to live with my older sister in Detroit. So Mama and I took her to Detroit on the train after she graduated so it must have been around July because we came back in August and we went to visit my sister and my brother-in-law and they were living in a dark, dark apartment and my sister went to work from there. I would've never walked in... stayed in their apartment. There was a stairway, they were on the second floor, no light and it was so scary and it was in a real, real bad area but they didn't seem to mind. So we left them, her and my sister in Detroit and Mama and I came back, we cried and then we came back to St. Louis and we had some time in between. And Mama says, "Let's go kind of look around." I says, "Oh, no we're not going to miss going home," so we just sat at the train station. And then August we came home and the Okamotos came home, you know, we came home on the same train and Bob Fletcher came after us. And it was nice to be home but he cooked for us and everything so I was kind of spoiled I think. [Laughs] And I think Mom and Papa went to work for Bob because he had to finish off 1945 and then we got our land back, I mean, the farm back in 1946. Then grapes went downhill but I can't remember exactly what year but they pulled out all the grapes, grape vines and then they just had about two acres, two or three acres of strawberries and they made a living off of them.

RP: And how long did they continue farming?

DT: Let's see now... they must have been about 1960 or '61 because Bill and I got married in '53 and Mama babysat Karen in '58 and we had a house moved over on Mama's land we bought an acre off of them. It must have been about 1961 or '2 when they stopped growing strawberries.

RP: There were other folks that you were familiar with who had sort of difficult experiences in coming back to the Florin, Elk Grove community. One in particular was I guess a girlfriend of yours and her husband, can you share with us what happened to them?

DT: Well my girlfriend, Florence Wakita, came back about March or so of 1945 so she had to go to Elk Grove High School and she took a bus, she had to take a bus and this other fellow, Max Mizoguchi, took the same bus. And they were the only two that came home early and went to Elk Grove High. And the kids called them Mr. and Mrs. Tojo... no, anyway, and made fun of them, and then they wouldn't let her sit anywhere they would all sit on the edge of the seats and won't let her sit and they would just leave two spaces so Florence would have to sit there. And then they would force Max to sit there and they'd poke fun at her and so she got to a point where she says she wasn't going to school. And I guess it was okay with her father because they were so mean, the students were so mean and I'm sure the parents were the ones that... the kids don't know any better unless the parents talk so she says, well, she wasn't going to go to school. So the vice principal of Elk Grove Union High School came and talked to her and she says, well, she wasn't going back anymore. And he says, "Well, you won't graduate," and she says she didn't care. She said at that point she didn't care whether she... and she was a junior and she had to finish junior and so she went back again and I guess it was pretty bad. But we came back in August so I started in September and by then there were quite a few students, I mean, Japanese back so I never felt anything. Maybe they talked about us but all the Japanese stuck together, so, and then that was junior year. And senior year a lot of the girls were in 4H, they were good basketball players and so they were being accepted, we were all being accepted. And there were boy... one boy that was such a good baseball player and he was a pitcher so they forgot about all the discrimination so she graduated and it was okay but she says, oh it was terrible. And then there was a community hall around that area that they burned down, they burned down... I think it was during the time we were gone and then some people they people shot into their home. So people were really scared.

RP: And this took place around Elk Grove or Florin?

DT: Florin, well they call it Mayhill so it's outskirts of Florin. A lot of people experienced a lot of bad things, but by the time we came home there were more of us so it was okay but it was pretty bad. And Elk Grove was one of the bad places 'cause my husband, when he went to work, they put him as a teller at Bank of America and he says, there was one lady, his line was short so the lady got in his line and when she saw that it was a Japanese she just got out of his line and went to a longer line. And I felt so sorry for him but there wasn't much you could do. And then after that the lady got to know him and there were shorter lines, but his line was longer, but she got in his line and she would bring him gifts. You know, they were kind of ignorant and they didn't know any better and then when they got to know us I guess it was okay.

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