<Begin Segment 20>

KL: So you said you and your brother heard from friends that there were jobs on the air force base.

MO: Yeah, Atsugi Air Force Base, so we left right away. We didn't want to be there, so we left. And I got a job as a typist, because I took typing in high school. And they needed a typist, and they wanted somebody that could speak English and Japanese, because they had a lot of Japanese laborer. So we were kind of useful. So we were there for about a year.

KL: Was your brother a typist, too?

MO: No, he didn't type. They were just translators or interpreters. Not translators, interpreters.

KL: Which brother was it that went with you?

MO: Both of them, George and Jimmy.

KL: So you were there for a year?

MO: Yeah. Then my dad wanted to send me back.

KL: Where did you guys live when you were in Atsugi?

MO: We lived right off the base. They had some barracks there, so all of us, we used to call ourselves Japanese nationals, because, well, they didn't give us military pay, they used to pay us in yen. So we were kind of like Japanese nationals, so they gave us yen, so we lived in this barrack.

KL: But you weren't Japanese nationals, right? You were still U.S.?

MO: We're still U.S. citizens, but we were not Japanese citizens. Well, we were at one time when we were kids, we had dual citizenship, but we got rid of the Japanese citizenship. I think we renounced that, I don't know when. Then they paid us in yen, we stayed in this little barrack, but then after I stayed there a year, my dad said, after I went to visit him, he said, "You're going back to America." He wanted me to finish high school.

KL: What was your treatment like from the personnel that you worked with at the Air Force base?

MO: Oh, good. They really treated us real nice.

KL: Had the countryside changed that you could tell? I mean, were people rebuilding already, or what was it like?

MO: In Japan, Japanese village? Well, the village itself was not destructive, so everything was intact. So they didn't have to build up anything.

KL: Okay, I'm done with the interruption. So you said your dad saved money?

MO: Yeah. And he had some money, so he wanted me to go back to the United States to finish my high school, so I bought my ticket to go back. So I went back, and on this trip, this other guy, a friend of mine, classmate, he was going back, too, so we got together on the ship. And there was another girl, she was a little older, maybe a year or two older, so the three of us went back to the United States together.

KL: What about your sister who had tuberculosis?

MO: She was still in the States.

KL: It's interesting to me that your dad seems to plan to go back to Japan and want to return to Japan, but that he wanted you to return to the United States. Do you have any insight into that?

MO: I don't think he had any intention of returning to America.

KL: But he thought it was the place for you?

MO: I guess so.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.