<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Tell us a little bit about the atmosphere surrounding the evacuation for your family in particular. Were you able to sell items, store items? What did you do with your material life before you came to camp?

MT: Yes. Well, we didn't, we just sort of gave 'em away as I recollect. We didn't have that much in terms of values. But one of the sad scenes that I do remember very clearly was that my dad was an artist, so he loved to paint and sketch. And he always carried a sketchbook with him, and a pencil, and whatever he had, he'd sketch, and he had these sketchbooks full of sketches. Well, when the war came and so on, he felt that he had to get rid of those, so he burned them, because he just felt that if he got caught with pictures of whatever he would sketch, he had other reasons for taking, for drawing those pictures, other than for the pleasure of his art interest. So he went and threw them one by one into the fire.

RP: You watched that scene?

MT: Yeah, I watched him do it, I watched him throw them in the fire there. But as far as the other possessions are concerned, assuming we gave them away or something.

RP: Some things were stored in the Methodist church there.

MT: Yeah, our property, too.

RP: Did you have something that you had to give up that was equally valuable to you? Some people might say their freedom, but was there a material item that you had to let go of, too, like your dad's...

MT: Well, I guess one of these, my friends. Not only my Nisei friends, but my Caucasian friends, we had a number of those. Because you never knew, when you said you were going to Manzanar, you didn't know where you're going, we had no idea of Manzanar, even if they said Manzanar, I don't even recall it. But we were going somewhere, but where, I don't know. My mother was prone to have carsickness, so in the procession of buses, municipal buses that took us to Manzanar, municipal bus, there was one Greyhound bus which was called the "hospital bus," for people who had, were prone to carsickness on long rides or whatever. And my mother was... so I asked them to allow my mother to go on the Greyhound bus. So I went with her, so I came up here on the Greyhound bus.

RP: So you were in the Greyhound.

MT: Yeah. And all the others came by municipal.

RP: The Santa Monica buses?

MT: Yes, or whatever it was.

RP: Whatever it was.

MT: I can remember they were red.

RP: Probably a pretty large convoy of them, too.

MT: Yes, right.

RP: Did anybody, did you get any support from other Caucasians, people who were friends who came to wish you goodbye?

MT: Oh, yes.

RP: Anybody who stands out in your mind?

MT: Herbert Nicholson was a very good friend of ours, well, of the whole church, but also friends of our family. Herbert Nicholson, Alan Hunter, Alan Hunter was one of my spiritual mentors, and he was also, both of those men visited us here in Manzanar once we got here. Of course, Nicholson-sensei, he could speak Japanese so fluently, so he was in Japan for all those years. And so he spoke very fluent Japanese, so he could communicate with Isseis.

RP: As well as Niseis.

MT: Communicated very well with Isseis.

RP: And his, many of his visits, he would bring items up for family members and things that were stored?

MT: You mean...

RP: Mr. Nicholson.

MT: Oh, yes. He would bring things that were stored that were needed. After they found what they could, room, they had enough, what they could maybe build, or a table or whatever, Nicholson would bring it.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.