<Begin Segment 9>
KL: What, would you tell us just a little bit about those months between, from early December of 1941 until you got the news that you would have to come to Manzanar? Do you have any memories from those months?
MN: Oh yeah.
KL: What are your memories?
MN: Right after war started, they did make the, not more than two mile way or something, and we went to camp, Manzanar, on April 29, 1945, I mean '42.
KL: And where were you living until April? You said it was in Los Angeles?
MN: Yes, Los Angeles.
KL: What neighborhood?
MN: Well, kind of mixed neighborhood. Neighbors were good.
KL: Was it downtown? What was the name of the area?
MN: Yes, toward downtown. Wall Street, 43rd and Wall Street.
KL: And you remember you had to stay two miles from your home.
MN: Pardon me?
KL: You said you had to stay two miles from your home.
MN: Yes, how many miles... yeah, we couldn't go.
[Interruption]
KL: So we wondered what the name of the hospital where your daughter was born is.
MN: Just, we just called Nihon Byouin, that's Japanese hospital.
KL: How do you spell that? Nihon --
MN: Nihon Byouin, N-I-H-O... Nihon, H-O-N, hospital.
KL: Byouin is hospital?
MN: Byouin, uh-huh.
KL: Okay. And where was it?
MN: It's in Los Angeles, Boyle Heights area.
KL: How was your care there? Was it --
MN: They were good. All Japanese nurse and Japanese doctor. I didn't know much English, so it was good.
KL: We'll have to do some research and see if any of the medical staff at Manzanar worked in that hospital. That would be kind of, it would be interesting to learn if any of the doctors at Manzanar worked in that hospital.
MN: Yeah, I guess... the doctor's no longer here. One doctor I knew was, passed away a long time ago. He was even older than me, so if he lives he's over a hundred.
KL: Yeah. And you remember him from the hospital in Boyle Heights?
MN: No, doctors in Boyle Heights, they didn't go to Manzanar. So another doctor, I guess two or three doctors, they're from, I don't know, outside of Los Angeles or something. Anyway, I didn't know when my daughter was born. My daughter was born with another doctor.
KL: So how did you learn that you had to go to Manzanar?
MN: Well, they just told us what day and where to go.
KL: Who told you?
MN: Gosh, I don't know. They just... I don't know how they told us.
KL: Did someone come to your home, do you think? Or did you read it in the paper?
MN: I think they, there was a Japanese newspaper, so maybe they said it in the Japanese news. Funny, I don't know, though. Just don't know. But everybody went to a different camp. There was ten camps, so we wanted to be in the same camp so we moved -- we were renting the house, so we moved to my sister-in-law in Glendale. We didn't want to be separated, so my father-in-law, my mother-in-law, my family, and my sister-in-law's family, another sister-in-law's family, they all got together for a little, about ten or twelve days before we went to camp. We moved into sister-in-law's house. They had a two-bedroom. There was, let's see, three of us and mother-in-law, father-in-law... six, yeah, eight people lived in my sister-in-law's house because we wanted to be together. They said if you're separated now, you'll never see each other again. That was the rumor.
KL: Yeah, that would be scary.
MN: Yeah.
KL: Would you tell us the names of the eight people who were in that house? It was you and Kay, and then his sisters?
MN: My mother-in-law, my father-in-law, his Japanese, he has an English name, George, George Nishio, the father-in-law's name. And Kino, Kino is my mother-in-law. And we lived in my sister-in-law's, brother-in-law's. Brother-in-law named Dan Mitsuno, and his wife is Mary. Mary is my husband's younger sister. And they had a little boy named Victor. Three of us, so eight people together.
KL: Was there a second sister, also?
MN: Pardon me?
KL: Was there, were there two sisters of your husband's, or just Mary?
MN: No, my husband had three sisters. One lived in Watsonville and two in Glendale. My husband's older sister and younger sister lived in Glendale. And one lived in Watsonville.
KL: Where did the Watsonville family go?
MN: They went to another camp, though I don't know which one.
[Interruption]
KL: Okay, so you said your sister-in-law... Kayoko?
MN: Kiyoko.
KL: Kiyoko.
MN: And my other sister-in-law, another one, Harumi. One lived in Watsonville and another one is Mary, Mary Mitsuno.
KL: Kiyoko, did she go to Manzanar?
MN: Yes, we all went together. One, Harumi, lived in Watsonville, she didn't come down here. She just, they just went from Watsonville to camp.
KL: Do you know why they decided to stay in Watsonville?
MN: Pardon me?
KL: Do you know why she decided to stay in Watsonville?
MN: She's married to a man from Watsonville.
KL: Was Kiyoko married?
MN: Yes. She was the oldest one, older than my husband. She was married and her, they lived, they had a market in Glendale.
KL: What's her husband's name?
MN: Gene Yasuda.
KL: Okay. So you all were in the house together for a couple of days.
MN: No, more than couple days, couple weeks.
KL: Oh, okay.
<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.