<Begin Segment 15>

RP: And what time did you go to Fresno? Was it May or...

KN: Yeah, about May.

RP: Now, just to go back a little bit, that was during the peak berry picking time.

KN: I know. We had to leave everything.

RP: You had to leave all those plants in the ground?

KN: Yeah, all the neighbors, their friends all came and helped themselves. Trample all over our strawberry field and helped themselves to strawberry 'cause nothing we can do. We're gonna go to camp next day. All the ripe strawberry hanging there. All the hakujin, oh, they came in droves. Four or five carloads came and helped themselves to strawberries. Nothing we could do. We're gonna go to concentration camp the next day and all the ripe strawberry hanging there so all these white people all came in droves and helped themselves.

RP: You just watched them out there?

KN: Yeah. And they didn't offer to pay a cent. They just helped themselves and took off. I couldn't believe that people could be so greedy. Strawberries are not much. They're only twenty-five cents a crate, a basket. And they take themselves a whole mess of 'em. You'd think they'd give us a dollar or something. But they didn't give us a cent. They helped themselves and trample all through our strawberry field and took all of the strawberry. They came in whole boxes, bucket, you name it and they came in all kinds of containers and helped themselves to strawberries.

RP: And not one person paid you?

KN: No, they didn't give us a cent. They figure what for? We're gonna go to a concentration camp the next day. There's nothing we can do even if they got the money anyway. So they helped themselves. Their friends, their relatives, people we've never seen before. They trample all over our strawberry field. They picked the strawberries to their hearts content. All kinds of container. But all the thing happened you know. In wartime everything happen. You see people in their true colors.

RP: And some of those people were friends and neighbors?

KN: Yeah, neighbors.... Our --

RP: How long were you... I'm sorry, go ahead.

KN: Our friends, we left for camp in Wednesday, and the friend across the street, they didn't go until Friday. So they took us to the station on Wednesday. But then I don't know who took them. But then all the hakujin, they never offered to take us to the... we went to Elk Grove SP Station but just helped themselves to strawberry and goodbye. You'd think they'd offer to take us to the station 'cause we're going to concentration camp. But, you know, that's how you think about some of these people that you've been friends for a long time and then all of a sudden there's nothing.

RP: So there was no, there was no Caucasians that actually did anything to help you.

KN: No. Very few. Our old, old... when we were kids we had a farm that belonged to this old man Landsboro. And then he came to the railroad station, shake my father's hand. He was the only white man that came to shake my father's hand. 'Cause we worked his grapes and his strawberries. My father worked for him for a long time. Harvested all his things, so he came. He was an old man. He was old by then but... Landsboro, he was, and he came to shake my father's hands. I couldn't... I really appreciated it 'cause nobody else came. Just my grammar, my high school teacher, gym teacher, I think she came and I shook her hand. But other than that nobody came. They were all standing there watching us go. They're happy to see us go actually. We went from Elk Grove railroad station. It was packed with all Japanese.

RP: What about a gentleman by the name of George Carlisle?

KN: Oh, he was our landlord. My, my in-laws worked for George Carlisle. Yeah, he was very nice.

RP: Oh, it was your in-laws.

KN: Yeah, he had 80 acres that my, my father-in-law was a foreman for to harvest his grapes.

RP: So, but you knew of him before, before the war?

KN: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah my father-in-law worked for him for years.

RP: Okay. We'll talk about him in a little while. How long were you, do you recall how long you were in Fresno? Just a few months?

KN: Oh, a few months.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.