<Begin Segment 4>

KL: I know we're rocketing through here, but is there anything else from before the United States entered the war after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor that you think is important to share about your time in Watts?

MW: Yeah, I just had a lot of fun. You know, you're seventeen, you will. Sixteen, seventeen, you're going to have a lot of fun, and you'll make a lot of friends at school, and it's just a fun time for me. But being young, I don't think I took anything serious. But when the war started, the one thing that frightened me a lot was when they had FBI people come in, you figure Japanese people are shorter, now these FBI guys are six foot some-odd coming into the house. And I asked Mom, "What are they looking for?" She says, "I'm not really sure." And they wanted to look in all of his cupboards and whatever in the house, and I couldn't understand it at that time. She didn't know. And so the older men in the family were all taken into internment camps in Tujunga. My dad was taken to Tujunga over here, and so that's the reason why we ended up in Manzanar, our friends went to Gila, because that's where Watts people went. But we didn't go with the Watts people because my dad was in Tujunga, my brother said we had to go (to) the closest camp, the only one that in California was Manzanar. And so he went to different places to find out where they were going to be sent. They found out that people in (West) L.A., they call it Sawtelle at that time, and that's where he went to sign up because he found out they were all going to go to Manzanar. That was the only reason we had gone to Manzanar, is because my dad was in Tujunga and it was right in California, I guess in the hopes of getting him out. And I used to tell my mother, "Gee, Dad would never hurt a fly." Well, that's the kind of man he was, he would not. He was just a very gentle man. He was a big fellow, not tall (...), but he was not a thin fellow. And he didn't drink, and so at New Year's he would give us sake in the little container and he said, "Drink that," because that's good luck, and I couldn't stand that. I put my tongue in there and just, oh, shiver, because it was just terrible tasting. But, to this day, I don't care for any kind of alcohol at all.

KL: Were you present when the FBI took your dad?

MW: Yes, I was there at the house, and I thought, "Why are they taking him?" And then I started to cry because you're young, that's the first thing you're going to do is cry. But my mother says, "I don't know." I said, "Dad didn't do anything."

KL: What was your dad's demeanor?

MW: You know the older people like him, there's a Japanese saying, shikata ga nai, means, "You can't help it. It's not something you could do anything about." But then again, they had no idea why (they were) being taken. Because there was no explanation. Well, when the FBI came, unless they spoke Japanese, my father isn't going to understand in English thoroughly, and I started to cry. My mother said, "Don't cry," says, "you've got to be strong." But strong for what? I didn't know what she was talking about. You don't. You really don't at seventeen. (...)

KL: Yeah, how did your mother cope with that? It sounds like your dad was older and more knowledgeable than the rest of the family.

MW: But at least it was my brother and he was older, he wasn't... not worldly, because nobody was at that time. But then when they gave us notice to have to leave, and you can't be out later than whatever time, I've forgotten now, the time, the curfew time. And then it seemed like it was so soon after that that we had to... oh, and then there was a shed in the back and my mother put... 'cause you can't take, you can only take what you can carry, I don't even remember what I took. But anyway, my mother put even her jewelry and everything in there, 'cause I used to ask her, "I would like that ring when I get older," and she said, "Oh, when you get older I'll give it to you, at eighteen I'll give it to you." Well, I remember her putting everything, you know, away into that shed, but you know, I don't know what happened to the shed and the house, the property. We had nothing to come back to when we left the camp, and I thought, "What are we supposed to do?"

KL: What was the property's address?

MW: The what?

KL: The property's address, that home you were living in in '41?

MW: Oh, gosh, I don't remember that. I bet my brother would remember, but he's long gone. See, they were so much older than I that they remembered a lot more. He was driving already, he was not coming home when he should have, my father locked the garage door, things like that. Just like they do now, but that's what he did. And I used to tell my brother, "Shame on you. You should have been home," and he said, "Don't preach to me." [Laughs]

KL: "Wait 'til you're eighteen."

MW: Yeah, that's what he's thinking, you know.

KL: Did you ever visit your dad in Tujunga?

MW: Do I what?

KL: Did you ever visit your father in Tujunga?

MW: Well, we did before we left, they let us go through before we left.

KL: What was it like?

MW: We were at the fence, just like in Manzanar, like there's a fence all the way around, we were standing by the fence 'cause you couldn't go in. We stood by the fence and my dad came and we talked. I don't really remember all the things that we talked about back then, but I'm sure my mother have tried to reassure him. So my brother, I don't know what they did, but I know my brother and there were some young people that were trying to get their dad out, too. And I'm sure they went to the administration trying to either write letters or call or whatever, they couldn't call, there was no phone that they could use. Because they had an administration at the front of the camp, but I never went there because I had no business there. My mother worked at the mess hall in Block 1, which is right next to there. So she saw a lot of (happenings).

KL: In Manzanar.

MW: Yeah. But she's not going to talk to all of them. She wouldn't know what to ask them.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2014 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.