Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Hope Omachi Kawashima Interview
Narrator: Hope Omachi Kawashima
Interviewer: Kristen Luetkemeier
Location: Fresno, California
Date: September 10, 2014
Densho ID: denshovh-khope-01-0011

<Begin Segment 11>

KL: Do you remember going back to your, the move to your grandmother's property?

HK: Yes, I remember we always enjoyed going to my grandmother's because, as I said, she had the goat and dog and cat and all this (property), all these trees. My brother and I used to love to climb trees, so we'd climb up the trees, and these huge granite rocks, we'd climb on the rocks, so it was a fun place for us.

KL: Did you move into her house with her?

HK: Yes. We stayed with her until we had to go for the relocation.

KL: You wrote a little bit about what those months were like for your father, his attitude. Would you tell us about that?

HK: Well, since my, both my parents were born in California, my father would say, "The government has no right to do this. We're American citizens. We're all American citizens." So he was kind of protesting, I guess you'd say, in his own way by being very stubborn about voluntarily relocating. And so he waited until the soldiers came on the truck with bayonets to evacuate us out of the house and load us on the truck. And of course, we didn't understand that. I didn't understand it until later, that, why other families, I think, went voluntarily, but he refused to go voluntarily because he was very stubborn too. [Laughs] But he believed that they had no right to do that, but then when they came with the guns and bayonets, he didn't want to argue with them, of course. He didn't want anybody to get hurt. But then, also, though, the interesting thing is that apparently my mother had written to the government and asked permission to have her piano moved with us to camp. And so I remember the soldiers had to lift this huge upright piano, which was very heavy. They loaded it on the truck.

KL: With you guys.

HK: Yes.

KL: When you were taken.

HK: When we went to the assembly center, in Marysville. And then, but the sad thing was is that I remember when we looked back, our house was on fire. Someone had burned our house to be sure we didn't get back, go back again.

KL: And you have memories of that?

HK: (Yes). I remember we were shocked to see, "Oh, why is our house burning?" So then I remember my father said, "I guess they don't want us to come back."

KL: Did he, did he have a sense, or your parents have ideas about who did that or their motives or... I guess you said --

HK: Well, he thinks that maybe one of the soldiers did it, because they didn't want us to come back. Since we were not willing to go voluntarily, they thought we would try to come back. If you have, but if you don't have a house to come back to, you don't try to come back.

KL: Were there others on the truck with you?

HK: All (of us), my grandmother and my parents and my siblings.

KL: All your family.

HK: Uh-huh.

KL: Was your father unusual -- and I guess your mother too, for that matter, or grandmother -- in being so strong in not going voluntarily or not moving east or anything?

HK: Well, when I think back on it, they were, I guess most people would say they were a little brave but foolish, 'cause we could've been shot, we could've been killed. If he maintained his stance of not going, they might've shot him, so he realized that. He didn't want to be killed or... because they all had guns. I remember the guns. So of course we just, even we were crying and we said, "We don't want to go, How about our pets?" We didn't want to leave our pets behind. They said we couldn't take our pets. So it was a very traumatic time, but they at least had, (knew that) we had to go, and they didn't want anybody to get hurt or killed. So we just (...) voluntarily got on the truck.

KL: What do you recall about the attitude of the soldiers?

HK: They didn't say anything. They just (pointed) the guns, "Get on the truck." So we just had to get on the truck. We didn't want to get shot.

KL: Had your parents made arrangements with anyone to look after the animals, or did they try to find someone to look after the property, and what was that like?

HK: No, I don't think they did, because, as I said, they didn't go voluntarily, so they didn't know that the soldiers would come on the truck. They just waited too long.

KL: So they thought there was a chance 'til, pretty much 'til the end, that they wouldn't be taken.

HK: (Yes), I guess they thought maybe they won't know about us, we'll just hide in the house, maybe they won't know about us. But then, of course, they did.

KL: What about your father's half-sister? I can't recall her name. Did they go earlier?

HK: Yeah. Takegishis, I think they went earlier. They went voluntarily, I think. And I'm not sure, I'm sure they probably made, they were type of family that planned everything, so I'm sure they had someone to take care of their place, their pets and everything. So they made all the plans, but, whereas my parents, I think, just thought they didn't have to go. They didn't want to go, so they were trying not to go.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.