<Begin Segment 16>

RP: Did you have any, any awareness of what was happening to Japanese Americans on the West Coast and being removed from their homes and sent to camps?

GK: Well, yes, I think... well, you know, my brother-in-law was one of those that was evacuated, and he just left just in the nick of time, I think. The last day, he got a truck and he got his dad and mother and grandma and grandpa and loaded everything. I think they had to have a friend help 'em, but his older brother was in the army, and he was stationed here in Denver at the Fitzsimmons, and they were on their way to Michigan, I think. That was one of the states that were allowing the evacuees to go to, and he stopped in Denver to see his brother, stopped, and I think his brother said, "Why don't you settle here?" he says, "This is a good place to settle." So they did, but they had a farm in, near, in Turlock, I guess, near Modesto, and that's where they had a farm. And they just really left in the middle of the night almost, just to make that deadline to get out of there.

RP: Did they lose the, I imagine they lost the farm.

GK: Beg your pardon?

RP: Did they lose the farm?

GK: I think so, yeah. I think they lost it all.

RP: Did stories like that prompt any suspicion or rumors that something like that might happen to Japanese families in Colorado?

GK: I don't think so. I don't think we ever...

RP: Did you feel safe where you were?

GK: I think so, yeah. I think we felt safe here. We were away from the Coast. But I used to hear all the stories from in Hawaii and things, and I think we were so lucky, we didn't have to uproot or have slop as they say, slop thrown in our faces or whatever.

RP: Good old SOS?

GK: Yeah. I think we were okay, we were fine.

RP: There was an effort in 1944 to pass a law that would strip Isseis of their land ownership in Colorado. Fortunately, it was defeated.

GK: Yes.

RP: But you don't recall that?

GK: I don't recall that at all. I didn't, I didn't know that, yeah. I just remember, I think when the war ended, it was August 14, 1945, and that was my birthday. And I thought, "Wow, this was really something to remember for the rest of my life." I think it was August 15th in Japan, but it was August 14th here. I thought, I just was glad it was over.

RP: Did those, did that sense of prejudice that you, did you feel a little bit relieved after that?

GK: I think so. I think so, because...

RP: People might go back to being...

GK: Yeah, and the fact that America won, you know. Although I really felt badly for all the people that got killed in Hiroshima, and when we went to Japan for the very first time, about six years ago, we did go to Hiroshima peace, with the peace conference, and we went to Hiroshima and they had all these cranes just everywhere, where the children and everybody had made those cranes. But they just had that one section where they kept. And it makes you realize what devastation they must have gone through. So you feel badly for them, but you're still an American. But it did, it brought it to life, really, when you see that and realize the suffering that they had gone through. It's just too bad it was Japan.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.