<Begin Segment 8>

KL: What are your memories of the attack on Pearl Harbor?

KM: It wasn't of any significance to me, because I was a child. And we didn't know about world history or anything like that.

YI: I remember the curb of the place that we had to meet the bus, and it was on the corner of Venice Boulevard and Lincoln, and it appeared to me that it was really high. I mean, because I kept falling from the street to the curb. I went back there, and I went to high school at Venice High, I went back there and I looked at it and it was just a regular curb, it wasn't, you know, deep like I thought it was as a kid, because I was so short, small. And that was my only memory of meeting after the war. That was where we caught the bus, and that bus took us directly to Manzanar. We didn't have to go to horse stalls or Santa Anita, we were fortunate enough to go directly.

KL: Do you remember news of the attack on Pearl Harbor, or did it register with you?

YI: Uh-uh, we knew nothing.

KM: We were very apolitical in the child-adult relationship.

KL: Yeah, you were little. You don't remember a sense of fear or people being surprised?

KM: No. And then my father had to turn in his brand new...

YI: Model T.

KM: ...shortwave radio. And then he had just got a new car, Chevy panel wagon.

YI: His business was finally starting to bring money in at that time, and so he had a little bit collected, I mean, saved. And unfortunately, we lost everything, pretty much. However --

KM: But as a child --

YI: Kazy, while we were in camp, I don't know what the circumstances were, they had to use this building where a lot of our things were stored. So this man was able to bring my mother the sewing machine and the refrigerator.

KM: And the stove.

YI: And the stove, and we were really fortunate because in Manzanar to have a refrigerator, a stove... was it refrigerator or an ice box?

KM: Refrigerator. Because he could make a big chunk of ice and have shaved ice.

YI: My dad would make shaved ice, so we had snow cones.

KM: We had a lot of friends.

YI: And we had a lot of friends because my mother could store their food in our refrigerator, and she was able to sew clothes for us because we had a sewing machine. And she was really good, she could knit, and so she would order yarn from Montgomery Ward or Sears, and made us, I remember mittens, and they were hooked together so we wouldn't lose 'em, so she had crocheted a chain, and then we would just hold it around our neck.

KL: What was the building where those things were stored back in Southern California? You said someone bought --

YI: It was, I think...

KM: The Japanese school?

YI: The Japanese school building, and they needed it for something else. They asked my mom if they wanted her things, I guess, and this man did bring it to her.

KL: Who was the man?

YI: I don't know. He had a truck, and I don't know. We were lucky, we were one of the few that did have these things, plus we did have a cellar, a basement, so we were like --

KL: I want to get camp because I think you have really good memories, but I do have one other question before that. Kazuko said that your mom would not let you return to school.

KM: Yeah, I have that feeling, but I can't substantiate it. I tried to ask my brother, but he couldn't substantiate it.

KL: Back to the departure, you remembered the curb, what else do you remember about that day?

YI: I just remember that the bus had shades on them, and we couldn't look out, so we didn't know where we were going, you know. It was a long ride, I mean, in those days you probably went about thirty miles an hour maybe, I don't know. You know where Manzanar is, so...

KM: 395, which is wide open.

YI: And now you go eighty miles an hour in comparison, so it was a long ride. That's all I remember.

KL: Did your parents know where you were going?

YI: I don't think.

KM: I don't know, I'm sure they must have told them.

YI: But they didn't know where it was. I think my mother didn't have a clue.

KM: My clue was that the guy liked fruit, because he stopped at the cocktail sign a lot.

YI: [Laughs]

KM: Healthy guy. [Laughs]

KL: Do you have a memory of that from that day?

KM: Yeah, because it took us a day to get there, and I remember...

YI: It did. And only relation is fruit cocktail, right? That's all we know, but this guy's doing something else. So Kazy thought he liked fruit.

KL: He was low on vitamin, you know, C or whatever. Did other people get off the bus at those stops?

YI: Oh, no.

KM: I don't recall anybody getting off with the bus driver.

YI: We couldn't. We could not get off, I remember that, because I think I had to go to the bathroom.

KM: No, they let us off, but not as often as the...

YI: Well, not when I needed to stop. I remember that, I had to go.

KL: What did you do?

YI: Just had to wait. And my mother, you know, said, "Don't do it in your pants," so I had to wait. You remember, where did we stop? There's hardly anything...

KM: One of the cocktail places. [Laughs]

YI: There weren't too many places along the way.

KM: Yeah, there weren't. Because even after we used to go skiing, there's not that many stops along the way.

KL: Do you have a recollection of where you stopped, whether it was just the side of the road or...

KM: One I remembered is a deserty place, and they had like a well, and it said, one of those tourist trappy things, wild rattlesnakes or something like that, baby rattlers. So we go over there, they weren't baby rattlers, it was just desert sand. That's the only one stop off I remember.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2013 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.