<Begin Segment 21>

JB: Do you remember how you left Manzanar? Was it on the bus or a car?

SO: It was a bus. We got to Long Beach by bus.

KS: You were, you said you were in Manzanar, I mean, you were there, some of the longest people there. What do you remember about people leaving? How did that feel?

SO: Oh, it was sad. All of our friends left, and the barracks were vacant, and we're just about the only ones, just a few of us are left. I think I remember our parents talking about, what shall we do? Where shall we go? They don't know. So therefore we just stayed until we had to leave, until they were ready to close it down, right? By bus, right? We went to Long Beach by bus.

KL: As you watched other people leave, what were your impressions of their feelings about leaving?

SO: They were glad.

MS: Because we'd be leaving, too.

SO: If we had somewhere to go.

MS: It was joy.

AL: How did you hear about the war ending and how did your parents react to that?

SO: How did we hear about the war ending?

MS: Oh, ending?

KL: Did you get news of Victory in Europe Day or the atomic bombs being dropped, or the Japanese surrender?

MS: I don't recall us talking about things like that.

SO: I don't remember hearing anyone else talking about it. I don't know how we found out.

MS: And they didn't react, our parents.

KL: They didn't react then or later?

MS: I don't think. It was just settled. We probably would get to get out of Manzanar.

KL: So they were, it sounds like they were eager to get out, but they didn't know where to go.

SO: Know where, right, right. And then you couldn't go back to Terminal Island, so I think they used to do a lot of shopping and things in Long Beach, that's why we went back there.

MS: We had no place to go.

KL: And you didn't have much to pack, so did you, again, just...

MS: Got on the bus.

KL: Did you go with others from Manzanar?

SO: Yes.

KL: Who else was with you?

SO: There was a group that we all went to Long Beach. There's a picture of us, they took us to this federal housing that there was trailers.

MS: Awful trailers.

SO: They were small, and since our family is seven, so we had to have two trailers. And we lived among, it was all black, African Americans, and we invaded their little trailer park, and they were not too happy.

MS: It was in the ghetto. First time we saw other people, and first time we saw murders, shots being fired.

<End Segment 21> - Copyright © 2012 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.