<Begin Segment 11>

RP: So when did you find out about the fact that your, that your family and your community would be removed?

KY: Oh, gee, it's hard to remember. But, I know that soon afterwards, while I was going to Santa Monica High School, I had to drop out of going to school. And that was the reason why I dropped out because of the imminent thought of being sent to a camp. So I dropped out. And I suffered because of that because I wasn't going to school anymore and when Manzanar had the school started once we got there, I suffered in the subject. It happened to be in math because naturally I wasn't able to learn the things that when I, when I was going to school I was, one of my classes was in the math, math class. And when I tried to continue that same kind of course in Manzanar, I was lost because I lacked that education that I should have been getting if I had continued school. So I had to quit that class and take somethin' else. And so it didn't do me any good to drop out of class.

RP: So what did you do after you dropped out of high school?

KY: I didn't drop out of high school, just the class.

RP: Just the class, okay.

KY: Uh-huh. So I took some other subject. But...

RP: So, when you knew that you were going to Manzanar, what did you do to prepare for that?

KY: I didn't do any preparation for going to Manzanar. We didn't really know what was going on really. We were in the dark as far as I know. All I know is the bus picked us up and we landed in Manzanar. What a strange place. I remember coming over the pass and coming to Manzanar. We could see Manzanar in the distance and you could see all the dust flying around. You know, that's Manzanar. And I'm telling you, it was strange. And I didn't know what to expect really.

RP: What did you, did you own your own house here in Santa Monica?

KY: No, we were renting. It was an old house anyway. Cheap. That's the reason my folks rented that house. Because it was cheap. It's not there anymore. But I've gone by that place many times since I've come here. And I guess within three or four, maybe six blocks, neighborhood, there was a lot of Japanese living in my neighborhood. Folks that I got to know real well.

RP: Do you remember packing suitcases or duffle bags for your trip?

KY: We could only take what we could carry. We couldn't take several suitcases or whatever. Whatever we can carry is all we were told we could take. So naturally most of the furniture and things that were in the house we had to just leave, abandon it. My father's truck that he used to garden with, we just abandoned it in the garage. Fortunately for me he had bought this sedan, a two door sedan, because whenever there was any, anything going on at the school, you know where we had movies and stuff like that? My father, all he had was this truck and you could only put three people at the most in the truck. So he bought this passenger car and I was the designated driver. I got a license when I was sixteen. And so I drove that car all over the place. I was the only one that drove it. I drove it school, to Santa Monica High. And one of my classmates, I remember his name, John O'Brien. He was one of my classmates. He came with his father to my house a few days before we were to leave. He bought my truck, my car. I think he paid two hundred dollars for the car. That was a lot of money at that time. So at least we were able to gain that instead of having to abandon it. And so my folks made that two hundred dollars or whatever it was that we sold it for. But I'm sure there was a lot of cases like that among the Japanese where they had to abandon their cars and of course they had to abandon anything in that furnishing. Like all this furnishing you see here, we would have had to just leave it. Can you imagine? People could come in and just pick 'em up and go home with it. I mean, what a loss. If you were to count all the people that were evacuated. How much did they lose because we had to abandon everything. Couldn't take it with us. Yeah. They gave us money after we came back in nineteen, I think it was 1980, sometime in the '80s. They gave us money for what we lost during the war. But it was such an insignificant amount of money that it would never be able to pay for what we lost. But that's what happened to us.

RP: Was that tough to see that sedan go?

KY: Well, at least I got money for it, my folks did.

RP: So the family had some money that they could bring up with them to Manzanar.

KY: Yeah, that's about all.

RP: There was no... do you know if your parents had money in a bank at all too that they...

KY: You know, right after Pearl Harbor I think it was, they stopped the Japanese bank in southern California. So, like this guy that I used to work for in this produce market, he was, his money was stopped in the bank. And of course having a produce market, he needed money to run it. And so his customers that he got to know real well, that used to shop at the market, I don't know how many of 'em but there was a few people, friends of his, customers, they came to him and says, "Do you want any money? We could give you some money, lend you some money while this is goin' on. But he told 'em, "No, that's okay. I can manage." So things like that happened. The banks were closed to, the banks that the Japanese people banked at. Of course they could bank at any bank they wanted to but those that did bank in like Sumitomo Bank, their funds were restricted. So I don't know what they all did. They must have gotten some of it back.

RP: Did your father have money in the Sumitomo Bank?

KY: I think so.

RP: And the gentleman who ran the produce market, what was his name?

KY: Tanaka.

RP: Tanaka?

KY: Yeah.

RP: Did he end up at Manzanar too?

KY: Uh-huh. Yeah. Henry Tanaka. After he came back, he was able to gain that market again. And so he could continue his practice, his job afterwards. But he told me that people have asked him, during that time, if he wanted any money and he told 'em, "No, that's okay, I have enough money to get by." So there were some nice people that understood the situation.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.