<Begin Segment 11>

KL: How did you learn, when you were back in Compton, how did you learn that you would have to leave again to go to Manzanar?

MS: I don't think we learned that, we just, "Well, it's time to go."

SO: Took us to the train station. I think they took us to the train -- didn't we go to Manzanar on the train with the shades pulled down on the train? I don't know. Anyhow, seems like it took forever because the train was going forward and backward all the time.

MS: We just went with the flow of people.

SO: Yeah.

MS: So it was easy.

KL: So one morning you just woke up --

SO: Yeah, "It's time to go. Manzanar's ready."

MS: It wasn't, you know, you had to get ready for anything.

SO: You just picked up your blanket.

MS: Just pick up the kids and go, that's it.

KL: Do you recall gathering at the train station?

SO: I remember when we got off, when we got to Manzanar it's dark, our mother's carrying our baby sister, and then she's got two kids on either side of her, hanging in. That's how we traveled. That was very frightening.

KL: You don't recall seeing anything of where you were going, the trip on the train?

SO: I don't know. I mean, just from the movies I've seen, it seems to me like the shades were drawn in the train. I don't know if we went through that, but I don't recall seeing anything or looking out a window or anything, do you?

MS: It just seems like we got there late at night. I remember getting there, but I don't know how we got there.

KL: Did you take a bus?

MS: I thought it was a train.

SO: I think it was a train. Because it kept going forward and then backwards and then we'd move up a little and go back again. Somehow, I don't know what the train was doing, but...

MS: We got there late at night, real late, like midnight.

KL: Were there people from the army on the train? Military police?

SO: I don't think so, recall. I don't think so.

KL: Did you travel with people from the Japanese language school building on the train?

SO: Yes. Well, my one friend, I remember her being at Compton and then at Manzanar also. I think how we kept busy on the train, I remember singing a lot of hymns, church. But it was a long ride.

KL: Many people came to the depot at Lone Pine, and from there to the bus to Manzanar, to the camp. So do you recall at all getting from the train to the...

SO: No. Just hang on to your sister.

KL: What happened when you got to the camp? Were there other people around?

MS: I just remember going into this building and stuffing the mattresses with hay.

SO: I think... weren't they in line and then you got assigned your...

MS: And then going to our home, barrack, and I remember there were no steps. So it was kind of hard to go from the ground to, like, up here, to climb into the building. That's what I remember. And then there was a stove, what do you call that?

SO: Potbelly stove?

MS: Yeah, something like that. You get up in the morning and you're full of dust, your whole (body), if you're looking up, your face was full of dust.

KL: You and your mom went and stuffed the mattresses?

MS: I remember going myself.

SO: No, I remember our mother going and our mother saying, "Come on, Miho, let's go." Then left us by ourselves.

KL: Were you in the barrack?

SO: Yes.

KL: And that was the night that you arrived?

SO: Yes. I do remember that.

KL: Who else was in your apartment? Was there anyone else in there or just your family?

MS: Just us, the six of us.

KL: And you said there was a stove and no steps. What else do you remember about that?

MS: And it was empty.

SO: Empty. There was nothing else in there.

MS: Well, after we got there, the mattresses...

SO: They must have had cots or something, because the mattresses went on the cots, right?

MS: That's all I...

SO: Metal cots, I think I remember, with the spring.

MS: Great big scorpions all over.

KL: Do you recall them?

MS: Oh, yeah. That was scary. Big ones. [Laughs]

KL: Had you seen anything like that before?

MS: No, never.

KL: Did you know they would be there?

MS: Oh, no. Well, we didn't research on it. [Laughs]

KL: You didn't run a Google search?

SO: Oh, gee, that's an idea. [Laughs]

KL: Where were the scorpions?

MS: They would be under the barracks, and sometimes they'd come up to the rooms. But the worst part of it, when we got to Manzanar, was not having the restrooms and the laundry rooms were not completed. So I remember running, I mean, was it across the firebreaks?

SO: I don't know, to another block.

MS: Block, just to go.

SO: Yeah.

MS: Well, that was terrible.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.