<Begin Segment 5>

EB: All right, let's move on to Pearl Harbor. And at the time of Pearl Harbor, you were attending... wait, I think we just talked about that.

GS: East First Street School or something.

EB: East First Street School, okay, and were you in first grade by that time?

GS: By that time I think I was in first grade. I had finished kindergarten, and I think I was in first grade.

EB: Okay. And do you remember hearing about the attack and what kind of reaction your parents might have had?

GS: I know nothing about that. I don't even, I don't remember. Because I do not recall my parents saying anything about it, they probably talked about it amongst themselves, but there was, nothing was said to me about this is what has happened, or that my father had no job anymore. I wasn't aware of any of that.

EB: Okay, but did he lose his job?

GS: He lost his job immediately. The office was closed immediately, so he had no job. And since my father was here by himself with no family, and not knowing what the situation was going to be like, and from what rumors that were circulating at that time, they assumed we would all be sent to a camp. And my mother's family lived in Florin, California, which is near Sacramento. So my dad, I was not aware of this, but I was told of this years later. My dad thought it would be better if we as a family moved to Florin to be closer to my mother's family. So that if in fact an evacuation did come about, at least where we were sent to, we would go together. And so it must have been about March or April of 1942 that my father moved us to Florin to live together with my grandparents and the family.

EB: Was it difficult to travel at that time?

GS: I really don't know.

EB: Okay, all right. Did the FBI ever visit your house?

GS: Not to my knowledge, no.

EB: Okay. Do you recall any keepsakes or mementos from Japan that your parents may have destroyed or did they hide them or anything like that?

GS: Not that I'm aware of, no.

EB: Okay. All right. And so when you were living in Florin at the time... well, after the Executive Order came out, you said you moved there in maybe April?

GS: March or April or something like that.

EB: 1942.

GS: Yes.

EB: What do you remember about getting ready for relocation and evacuation?

GS: Gee, I don't even know that.

EB: Okay.

GS: I don't know. All I know is that years later, yes, I learned that we could take only what we could carry, which was like one suitcase. And from some of the information that I found amongst my mother's things after her death, I learned what time and place and date they were supposed to meet for this evacuation. But I'm sorry, I don't know. [Laughs]

EB: No, that's absolutely fine. You were young, it's very... when I was a young kid there were things that I didn't pick up on myself.

GS: And it probably wasn't that important that they had to share this with us. Perhaps if it was something, a happy event, maybe they may have said something. But on something like this, I rather doubt it.

EB: Okay, all right. Did you ever, did you go to an assembly center first before you went to Manzanar?

GS: No, we went directly to Manzanar.

EB: Okay.

GS: And that little Florin community was divided into four. So as small as the community was, people were split four ways. And most of the people who had... most of them were farmers in that area. So the ones who had farms and ranches in my grandfather's area, we were more or less all together, and we went to Manzanar together.

EB: Okay.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2006 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.