<Begin Segment 6>

JA: When you got the order to report, to go to camp, how much advance warning did you have?

SE: The notice that came to our neighborhood was dated May the third, and we had to leave on May the ninth, which meant we had about five days. Most of us kind of knew that it was coming, so we had prepared. My mother sold her grocery store early in April and we lived on what money she was able to get from the store. We started to sell a lot of our furniture and our stove and refrigerator which we couldn't take, and they were almost new because my mother had bought them from the gas company, we were making payments on those. She had a lot of houseplants that she loved and she wanted them to go to people and not abandon those. We gave a lot of our books to the schools that we were familiar with, our elementary school was nearby. And they had to close down because we were all gone, there were no more, no students to attend. And then we finally sold our grocery store to this young couple, Mexican American couple in the neighborhood.

JA: Did you get fair prices for the things you had to sell?

SE: Not really, although I think we got better prices than most of our neighbors. Some of them, you know, people just come and say, "Well, I'll give you a dollar for that; I'll give you five dollars." We had a lot of help from the principal of the elementary school and the teachers. They got their friends to come and look at things and we got a fairly good price for everything.

JA: So, what were you allowed to take, or how much stuff were you allowed to take?

SE: Well, we were told we could take only what we could carry, which meant possibly two suitcases. We were not to bring any furniture, like mattresses, but we were told to bring sheets and pillows. We had to bring a set of dishes and utensils for each person in the family. No pets of any kind. No contraband, no guns, no knives, even kitchen knives. What we carried were two suitcases. We had some duffle bags and some big traveling baskets my mother had brought from Japan. So our neighbors helped us take those to the train depot; we were able to put them on.

JA: Did you have a pet or any pets?

SE: No, we didn't have a pet then. We did have some cats and dogs before, but we didn't have any then.

JA: Tell me about getting to the train depot and the trip to Manzanar.

SE: The train depot was directly under the First Street Bridge and we lived, I would say about five blocks from there, so our Mexican American neighbors and we walked with our suitcases to the train depot. And there were guards with rifles standing guard, and we had to check in. They had given us family numbers so they would call the numbers and we would check, check our bags in, and got on the train. The train was a World War I vintage train, it had gaslights. And we had all our friends, our Mexican American friends and some of the neighbors who came by, were able to say, stand, you know, say goodbye to us. They had us pull all the shades down so we couldn't see outside and people couldn't see inside, and the train took off. It went through the San Fernando Valley, through Palmdale, Lancaster, all the way up to Lone Pine station, and took all day to get there.

JA: Were there guards on the train?

SE: There were guards on the train, yes. My nephew was six weeks old and they had a doctor and a nurse that went through the train to check on everybody.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.