<Begin Segment 25>
RP: This is tape three of a continuing interview with Kimiko Nakashima. And...
KN: My middle name is Lois. L-O-I-S.
RP: Lois, that's right. We were just talking about the sort of division in the family between those who stayed in Utah and those who came back. Like you came back to Florin. Did you always want to come back home?
KN: Not particularly. But where else would I go if I don't come home? 'Cause all my relatives stayed in Utah. They bought a house and they had a family. All the kids are going to school there so they might as well stay there. But we had nothing so we might as well come home.
Off Camera: What year was that? Would it have been about '48?
KN: Something like that.
RP: So you'd work for the Pringle company for about three years?
KN: Yeah.
RP: Uh-huh.
KN: I was office manager for thirty-five cents an hour when I started.
RP: And so what was it like coming back to Florin?
KN: Well, I got a job. As long as you have a place to stay and have a job, that's the only place you can go.
RP: And you stayed with, with George Carlisle? Or where did you guys go, you and your husband?
KN: Oh, we, that place where we stayed. The people that owned went to Japan on an exchange ship so his house was vacant so we lived in there, Yaichi's house.
Off Camera: Where I was born.
RP: Oh. What was their name again?
KN: Yaichi Nakashima.
Off Camera: Yaichi Nakashima.
KN: Nakashima, Yaichi. He owned the house we stayed in 'cause he went to Japan on exchange ship and his house was vacant. So we moved right in there.
RP: Really, huh.
Off Camera: And that was next to Bill Sharp's.
KN: Yeah.
RP: Oh.
KN: And George, George Carlisle took care of their house.
Off Camera: Yeah, because Bill Sharp's wife is a Carlisle. Arlene Carlisle, George was her father. And so, Yaichi's house happened to be right next to them. Yaichi is a, was he a cousin of...
KN: Grandpa.
Off Camera: ... Grandpa. Okay. Kind of cousins. So he's kind of a distant relative. He decides to go to Japan instead of stay when the war broke out. So fortunately that left one vacant house.
RP: So you and Tom moved into the house? Was there anybody else with you or that was it?
Off Camera: Hanako lived in the back.
KN: Yeah, my sister lived in the --
RP: Your sister...
KN: -- back shack. There was shack in the back. My mother and my sister lived there.
Off Camera: So Hanako, her mother and father and us lived in, lived on that property.
RP: Really. How long?
Off Camera: Until about 1956 when, when we built the house she's presently in.
RP: And that was the house that George Carlisle built?
Off Camera: No. George Carlisle built my father's, father's house. My grandpa, Grandpa Nakashima's house, he built that house. George Carlisle built that house.
KN: Yeah.
RP: He built that when, when they returned?
Off Camera: Yeah.
RP: When your Grandfather returned?
Off Camera: Yes.
RP: And worked on the... he took his job back as a foreman?
Off Camera: Yeah.
RP: And is, is that what he did the rest of his life?
Off Camera: No, he farmed his own property eventually. So he didn't work for George Carlisle forever. Grandpa farmed his own acreage.
Off Camera: How old was he?
Off Camera: My grandpa?
Off Camera: Yeah, at that time.
Off Camera: Oh, let's see, he probably would have been... probably would have been in his sixties.
KN: Sixty or near seventy.
RP: Okay.
[Interruption]
RP: You talked about how when you left Florin, that the Caucasian community was less than supportive. They were, they came and picked your strawberries and watched you leave.
KN: Oh yeah, oh, the hakujin came and helped themselves to strawberries.
RP: Right.
KN: They came in droves. They came with all kind of bucket, package, whatever. They know we're to the camp the next day. They knew that.
RP: Right.
KN: So they would trample all over my strawberry field. We had eight acres of strawberry.
RP: So what was it like when you came back to Florin? What type of reception did you get from the Caucasian community?
KN: We didn't, we didn't see anybody. Just Arlene Carlisle, just the Carlisles, my childhood friend that lived next door.
RP: So there was nobody that came and welcomed you back.
KN: No. 'Cause nobody was back yet. 'Cause we were the early ones, 'cause a lot of people are still somewhere else. Some people found places to live out of state. So they never, a lot of them didn't come back to Florin.
RP: Uh-huh. Right. And so Nobuko didn't return. And she ended up going to...
Off Camera: Lived in Roy, Utah.
RP: Roy, Utah, and she went to Weaver State and collected two PhDs. And why do you think she never came back with you?
Off Camera: Because her husband is a Utah guy. He would never come to Florin. He's a... his family was, he was on the farm his father had. He's one of the biggest farmers in Roy. He would never have gone to Florin. That's why. So she was, she was gonna spend the rest of her life in Roy and I think for the most part she enjoyed it.
RP: And she, her husband was Japanese American?
Off Camera: Uh-huh. And of course being in Utah they were never interned.
RP: Right.
Off Camera: No one in Utah... his family had a big ranch.
RP: And they were pretty well established for quite a while.
Off Camera: Yeah, yeah. For a Japanese American farmer he was very well established they said, the family, which she married into so he would never have given up that life. He was a farmer 'til the day he died.
RP: And also Norma stayed in Utah too.
Off Camera: Yeah. They settled in Ogden. Had a grocery store in Ogden and lived the rest of her life in Utah with her family. And so all her kids raised families in Utah. All of my cousins, they're all in, most of them are still there.
<End Segment 25> - Copyright © 2011 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.