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RP: Tell us about any preparations or efforts that you made to prepare to leave home and go to Santa Anita.

MK: We, we left a lot of things just sitting there. But the good things like our Girls Day dolls, the kimonos -- I wished we had saved a lot of the Japanese dishes. We didn't -- but we had these two trunks that we filled and left at our church. They allowed us to store it there and we were lucky. It was all intact when we came back. And but you know, all the basic things, it was like starting all over again. And my mother and father had to do that because I was still out in the Midwest going to school and my oldest sister was with me. My other... Chiz in the meantime had gotten married and her husband was in the army at that time. And it was just my younger sister who was left in camp. She graduated in 1945. And Taiko had her come up to Chicago for a year. And then gradually we all wound up back in San Francisco.

RP: San Francisco. Now, there was your mom's sewing machine that was given to...

MK: Yeah. We had her old Singer that you... no electricity. You know you used a pedal. And she kept sewing for us all along, mending clothes and what have you. It was, I think one of my nieces has the sewing machine now. But we had it all along after we went back to San Francisco and I remember sewing on it.

RP: And that was left with a gentleman in the neighborhood?

MK: I beg your pardon?

RP: Did you say that, that that sewing machine was left with somebody in your neighborhood?

MK: Oh yeah, we had an electric one. And I assume he sold it. There was a pressing machine that had to get sold. Probably our personal things, outside of the Japanese dishes, I don't think we had too much that was really precious. Not like some of these families that were living in Japantown. A lot of them had a lot of, they would be antiques. But we didn't have that much. So, 'course what I own now, would be considered antiques by the younger generation. Because we all have our Japanese dishes and chopsticks, you know, decorated chopsticks and what have you, tea sets. You know, we accumulated that all on our own after.

RP: What about your father's business? How was that...

MK: We just had to leave it. He couldn't sell it to anybody else. So, but... I don't know whether my mother and father were angry that we had to leave so much behind. But I think it's our culture that what you can't do something about you have to forget and just make do with what you have. And I kind of do the same thing even today. If I can't afford to buy something I think, well, do I really need it? And then you think about it, you lived without all this technical stuff growing up and what have you. I really don't need it.

RP: Yeah. How did, how did you ever survive without a cell phone growing up, you know.

MK: The family did buy me an iPad for Christmas.

RP: Oh, oh good, all right. So you're coming around.

MK: Eventually.

RP: Eventually. And so how long did you have to prepare to leave, do you remember?

MK: We had four days. Yeah. Because we were in what they called a sensitive area, near Fort Mason, near the wharfs, you know, the piers where they were shipping out things and I guess they thought maybe we could walk around there and maybe spy on what was going on. But there wasn't any of that in our neighborhood, among our Japanese friends. And I think that's why when they started picking up these men who were active in all the Japanese groups, they, I think they were rather bitter about it but we didn't have contact with those people until we were back in Topaz. They gradually let the men come back. So...

RP: Were there any individuals or organizations that helped you during that period of time?

MK: No, everybody just packed up on their own and that was it. Well, they had these limits of how far from your own house you can go. And then you had to be at home eight o'clock at night.

RP: Yeah. How did, how did that work with your, with your lifestyle?

MK: Well, we didn't care. We would rather just be safe in our own place. And then we did have blackouts and the sirens would go off and then you'd have to douse all your lights and everything like that. That happened. But we never saw anything. Nothing happened in San Francisco anyway. Other places, I think like Santa Barbara little subs went up to the coast and everything else like that but I don't, I don't remember anything like that in San Francisco. But the hysteria was there.

Off Camera: Can I ask a question? So you got restrictions on people of Japanese ancestry about not going out...

MK: You didn't, well no, we were supposed to be home at eight o'clock in the evening.

Off Camera: Right. And they're rounding up Japanese nationals.

MK: Yeah.

Off Camera: And you're in a community that's full of Italians, presumably Italians nationals. Did you ever think of the irony of that? That they weren't...

MK: You know, I think I was too young to really get mad about a lot of things. And when I talked to my sister later on, and even my husband, and I can see the anger there. But you figured they were in college already. Like my sister was ready to graduate that June. And everything was just yanked out from under her feet. And then the injustice that our parents had to go through. Because when they came you figured they were not English speaking. So to... they knew a little bit of English. And they had to learn a skill to make a living and it was not what they would really wanted to do. But I think people who were in the business category in Japan, I think that was bred into their upbringing. Because, like before the war, there were quite a few families that had their own business like, bookstore, grocery store, things like that. And they were doing all right, better than my parents did. But because we're more of a... there wasn't that much that they could expand to. They were just stuck in that one business all their lives.

RP: And you said the competition was increasing.

MK: Oh, yeah. Because after when the Depression came along and, I mean you could get a suit cleaned for seventy-five cents in those days. Yeah, but everything's relative. Food didn't cost that much. Besides, we ate Japanese style and it's mostly veggies.

RP: Well, just to follow up what, on Kirk's question, did you, did you sense any fears from your Italian friends or what, what was gonna happen...

MK: No, they just treated me the same way.

RP: Well, did they feel like something might happen to them as well as what was happening to you?

MK: I don't think so. Outside of the fact that men were getting drafted. But see, we were too young for that. We left because my father had to sign up for the draft. They registered everybody up to the age of sixty-five, sixty-four or sixty-five at that time. And it didn't matter that you weren't a citizen or not. You had to sign up for the draft.

RP: Right, right.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.