<Begin Segment 20>

RP: When did you... now Jerome was the first camp to close in 1944.

KN: Oh. Was it the first one?

RP: Right.

KN: Yeah. All the others, they all closed too.

RP: Eventually, yeah.

KN: Yeah, Rohwer, Jerome, Arizona, couple Arizona, couple of them, there's one in Colorado, Idaho. And they all, one after another, all closed.

RP: Before Jerome closed, do you remember seeing soldiers, Japanese American soldiers coming into the camp to --

KN: No, I never saw them.

RP: -- to visit their families or.

KN: Yeah, some did. But then I never saw much of that. They must have come 'cause their family's in camp.

RP: Yeah, there was a group of Hawaiian --

KN: Yeah.

RP: -- Japanese Americans who were --

KN: There's Hawaiian.

RP: -- training...

KN: There's a lot of Hawaiian soldiers.

RP: Yeah, near Camp Shelby.

KN: Yeah, that's where they were.

RP: And they came in to Jerome.

KN: Yeah, they came to visit Jerome.

RP: They were pretty shocked to see what they saw.

KN: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they were in Camp Shelby. Yeah, you mentioned it. That's where they were. They come to visit the camp. They wanted to see the Japanese. They came to visit us. And so on the thing we made some Japanese food so that... they missed the Japanese food so they made rice balls and all that. And like a USO so we fed them all the Japanese food they want, they had, they missed in camp. They come from Mississippi, Camp Shelby and they don't get Japanese food so when they came they're looking for Japanese food. We made some rice balls. [Laughs]

RP: And did you have a choice of where you went after Jerome closed? Did they say, "You can go to Amache or you can go to another camp?"

KN: No, I don't remember. 'Cause, I left 'cause my sister was already out. My older sister resettled in Brigham City so when camp closed we all ended up at my sister's place.

RP: Right.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright &copy; 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.