<Begin Segment 15>

RM: So, I guess, let's get back to your mom's trajectory of the story, which is when she left Manzanar, you said she went to live in the government trailer housing in Burbank. And I'm saying she, but actually you and your sister as well. What did you know about that place or how she got there?

PS: She doesn't say how she got there, she just said that she was there with my sister and I, and there was another family there, but they weren't Japanese. I can't remember their name, but maybe he was in the military and had a trailer there. But my mom never said anything.

RM: Do you remember other families that lived in the trailer housing?

PS: No, only my stepfather that must have been living there. He had to have been living there because, like I said, he found my sister and I running free in that trailer camp, in the grounds. And he wanted us to take him to our mother, which we did. And then he told her that it wasn't safe to have children just running around with no supervision. And she told him that it was okay, that everybody knew who they belonged to, and she didn't feel that it was unsafe, she was doing the same thing she did when she was in camp. And a lot of the same kinds of people were living there, so she wasn't afraid. And I think he was more afraid than she was, because she also said he used to come over and make sure we were okay. And for a while there he was actually babysitting us when she was going out dancing with her girlfriends.

RM: [Laughs] So is the first time that your stepdad met your mom when he found you and your sister running around?

PS: Uh-huh.

RM: So you guys were like the baishakunin for your mom and your stepdad. [Laughs] That's really funny. I didn't realize that. I didn't realize they met in that trailer housing. So do you know his side of the story, how he ended up there?

PS: Well, you know, he was the one that went to Tule Lake, so I don't know how he ended up there. I don't know his story to the trailer camp, all I know is that he signed "no-no," and then he changed his mind along with his brothers, and I think his sister, because all of his siblings except for one stayed here.

RM: What camp was he in?

PS: Tule Lake.

RM: Oh, he was in Tule Lake and then he stayed...

PS: And then he was in Bismarck.

RM: Oh, was he a renunciant then?

PS: Yes.

RM: Wow.

PS: So I don't know how he got from there to the Burbank camp.

RM: We can try to figure that out, it's another mystery. Did he talk openly with you as you were growing up about the "loyalty questionnaire" and his renunciation and changing his mind?

PS: They never discussed it at all. Neither one of them ever said anything about the camps. I found out some things because I found papers after my mother passed away and I read them, that he applied for his citizenship through that attorney that all those Japanese went through.

RM: Wayne Collins?

PS: Yeah. And it had a letter and then I think some money he gave him. And his statement why he said "no-no," and how he really didn't want to, but he did it because his mother and all of... and he was head of household now. Because his other brother had already... I don't know what happened. Either his brother had already been in Japan or he was, but George wasn't in the picture, George was married. And it was my dad, my stepfather Paul, and then he had a younger brother Gengo, and I think Paul was nineteen.

RM: Just to get it on record, was your stepfather's name Paul Sakamoto?

PS: Sakamoto, yeah.

RM: And could you say the rest of his family just one more time?

PS: It would be Paul Sakamoto, his brother Gengo Sakamoto, there was Jingo Sakamoto, Kengo Sakamoto, there was, I'm going to say Tom instead of Gihachiro Sakamoto, and Umeko, his sister.

RM: And that was all his siblings?

PS: Yeah.

RM: So he came from a large family.

PS: Right. And then George was married already, so he was head of household there. And then it would be his mother, so he was head of household for all of them. Because his father went, he was prominent in, I would say, communities near Santa Maria, they were farmers. And his father had built a Buddhist church there, he was very prominent. So when the war broke out, he was taken away to be interrogated. And then he had been in an accident with the horses, and he had broken some ribs before he was taken away. And I think then he was in the hospital. I guess when they were going to move the whole family, he wanted to go with the whole family, which was a bad choice because he ended up bleeding internally, and he died. So his mother was not happy about that whole situation. So that's when she said that they would have to give up their citizenship. Even if she wasn't a citizen, but all her children had been born here. And she wanted them to go back to Japan and take her kids with her. But then my dad said, my stepfather said that they got letters from Japan saying, "Don't come, it is not good here." So it was really hard for them to get their citizenship back. I don't think he got his back until the '50s.

RM: Do you know what part of Japan Paul's mom was from?

PS: Kumamoto.

RM: And do you know what her family did there?

PS: They must have been farmers is all I can think of, because they were farmers. In fact, his mother and father were first cousins.

RM: Oh, okay. And did they get married in Japan before they came to the U.S.?

PS: Yeah.

RM: And do you know what year, approximately, they came to the U.S.? I know I've been asking you about so many different people. [Laughs]

PS: I really don't know that much about that side of the family. Because the only one I remembered is my grandmother, and her name was Jino, my step-grandmother's name was Jino.

RM: And that's Paul's mom who originally wanted the family to go back to Japan. Did you say, did she eventually become an American citizen?

PS: No, I don't think so. She didn't speak English. I think you have to speak English to become a citizen.

RM: She stayed in the U.S.?

PS: Yeah.

RM: And did you... well, actually, let me go back to your mom and your stepdad meeting each other again, because you told us how they met was through you and your sister running around. But then how did he decide, having met these two little girls and their mom, that he wanted to court your mom?

PS: Well, I think because he was there a lot watching over my sister and I, and then eventually I think my mother, you know, she realized that he was a very responsible person, and he was a good person. And I think she decided that it was okay to date, and then eventually they moved in together and they moved the trailer to his family's backyard in the valley. And I remember living in the trailer back there, and eventually sold the trailer.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2015 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.