<Begin Segment 19>

KL: Were there any things from your household, going back to your preparations to leave, that you wanted to make sure came with you or that you were certain to take?

AO: No, there weren't. I didn't make an effort to take anything. And I wasn't... the only thing was probably our dog, but then we found somebody to take the dog.

KL: Who took the dog?

AO: Pardon?

KL: Who took the dog?

AO: I can't remember who it was, but somebody did. And my sister Kazue is the one that is the animal lover, and, of course, they had trouble taking him because he wanted to stay with my sister.

KL: Do you remember them coming to take him?

AO: No, they came when we were in school, so there wouldn't be difficulty. But we just knew that Tipsy was going to a good home.

KL: How involved were your parents in your packing? Did they pack?

AO: Yeah, and like the dishes, we had dishes and things, and cooking utensils, they said the building were the Japanese school, the Japanese school building was owned by the Japanese community. And so people would bring their stuff there to be stored, and we did, all our dishes and things like that, and anything else, I can't remember what all.

KL: Was it there after the war?

AO: No. The place had gotten broken into and all the good things were taken.

KL: Was there anyone watching over it locally?

AO: I don't think anybody was specifically watching over it, but the sheriff's office was aware that all that stuff was stored there, they were keeping a really tight watch on it.

KL: I know you said you don't remember a whole lot about the assembly center, but what are your memories of going there?

AO: Well, I remember walking in and getting the... I guess it was the typhoid shot.

[Interruption]

AL: So I was just asking about the dog.

AO: Tipsy, and the reason we called him Tipsy was because he had a little white tip on the end of his tail, but he was my sister's dog really, because when we were playing catch or any games, if I'm chasing her, he's nipping at my heels so I can't catch her. And when she's chasing me, he's getting in my way so I can't run away. [Laughs]

AL: He was a good defensive dog.

AO: Oh, he was, he was. And when, I remember we were living on Balsa road in the south of Gilroy when we moved to the house that the community owned next door to the Japanese school, because my mother was teaching Japanese at that time. And the dog would not come to the new house until my sister was in the car that was going to transport him. But if she was in the car, then he came very quickly to the car.

AL: How big was he? What did he look like?

AO: Oh, he was about the size of a... little bit bigger than a terrier, not quite as big as a lab.

AL: What color was he?

AO: He was kind of... it's been so many years. Let's see, he's got a dark brown and brown spot, but that white tip on his tail. We've had so many dogs since that I kind of forget which one was Tipsy.

AL: Was your... I had heard that some Japanese language school teachers who were women had also been arrested and questioned. Do you know if your mother was under any suspicion as a Japanese language teacher?

AO: I don't think so. Well, I don't know, maybe she was. But she wasn't that terribly well-known, I guess.

AL: It would be a small school.

AO: It was a small school. And she hadn't been teaching that long, because when relations between Japan and United States were becoming a little dicey way back a full year earlier, the person who was such a high school teacher decided to go back to Japan. He was from Japan, and so he decided to go back, so then the community just asked my mother would she teach.

AL: What was the name of that language school?

AO: It was just Gilroy Japanese Language School, Nihongo gakkou, Japanese language school.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.