<Begin Segment 11>

KL: So what else can you tell us about the months between news of the attack and having to go into the assembly center? How did life change, or did it?

MU: It was a very unsettled period. We didn't know what was going to happen. Because the first generation, Isseis, weren't allowed citizenship here, yet, and then it was very unsettling time.

KL: You mentioned travel restrictions in your writing. How did travel restrictions affect you, or how, what can you tell us about those?

MU: We weren't able to go into Fresno to buy Japanese food. We just survived. I don't remember all the details.

KL: Did your siblings ever talk about if things changed in the high school for them, in those months?

MU: Yeah, my sister -- this was after we came back -- my sister was not allowed to graduate with the class, so she left. But we didn't know the reason.

KL: In 1941, were there problems for your siblings who were in school, or '42, before you left?

MU: I don't know about that. They may have looked upon as being, with suspicion, but I don't think we had any direct comment or...

KL: How did you learn that were gonna have to leave the farm?

MU: Of course, I think it came out in the Japanese paper and in the, I don't think we were taking the Fresno Bee at that time. I don't recall. I remember there were posters on the telephone pole.

KL: You mentioned the Fresno Bee. What can, what was that paper like?

MU: I think it was kind of prejudiced.

KL: Where did you guys get your news? Did you take a paper?

MU: We heard it on the radio. There were posters put up.

KL: What did you think?

MU: How dare them, you know? [Laughs] Of course, our parents were aliens, and most of the second generations were still young, very young, and so it was a time of confusion.

KL: Did you think it would actually happen?

MU: Well, before we knew it, it was happening.

KL: How did you prepare to go?

MU: How did we prepare? I think anything that had Japanese writings and things, we either burned it or buried it.

KL: Were there things that you, do you remember particular things that were burned or buried?

MU: I know the phonographs with Japanese songs, they were all destroyed. Anything that, well, anything that had, connected with Japan, Japanese, we got rid of them.

KL: What was it like to get rid of the phonographs and those things that...

MU: They were songs that, innocent songs, children's songs. It was ridiculous. It was, to destroy all that cultural things... but what do we do? Because people think, "Well, they've got all these things that's Japanese. They could be suspicious."

KL: What about your property? How did you deal with that?

MU: Actually, when the war broke out we, two years before that we had bought a twenty-acre ranch, and we had one family, the Sorensons, do the tractor work. And so we just asked them to take over.

KL: And they were willing to do that?

MU: Oh yeah. They were very good about it.

KL: That was the last name of one of your good friends, wasn't it? You had a good friend who was a Sorenson daughter.

MU: Noriko Hoshiko.

KL: I thought there was a, let's see... Mildred?

MU: Oh, Mildred Sorenson.

KL: Was that her family?

MU: Yeah, it's her brothers that took care of our ranch.

KL: And they had worked for you guys before?

MU: Yeah, they did the tractor work, all the tractor work on the farm.

KL: It looks like, at least after the war, there were people actively trying to keep Japanese Americans out of that region. Was that risky for the Sorensons to help you and to work for you?

MU: I think these people that shot, fired into the homes or caused little bit of problem were people not who lived there from way before the war. They were people that came from other states. We had a lot of people coming from Texas, Arkansas, that Southern part, and they did not know the Japanese. I think they were the ones that were cause of the problem, if any.

KL: So the Sorensons operated your farm while you were gone. Was there anyone else who had responsibilities for your affairs or your property?

MU: Ted Nielson took care of the paperworks, took care of the farm paperworks. The Sorensons just did the physical work on the farm.

KL: Who was Ted Nielson?

MU: He was a friend. It was a couple, no children, but we had worked for them before. And their neighbors, two of their neighbors were Japanese and they were very friendly, cordial, sympathetic.

KL: Did they help the other neighbors, too?

MU: Yeah.

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