Densho Digital Archive - Alfred Miyagishima Interview (denshovh-malfred-01-0015)

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TI: So talk about Stockton in those weeks after Pearl Harbor and before people left Stockton for the camps. What was happening in Stockton? What kind of things were going on?

AM: We had some friends who used to call and tell us how sorry they were that we had to leave. We stored some stuff that we had that we couldn't take, and a neighbor about two doors down, we stored it in their garage or I don't remember. I think it was in the, underneath their house in the crawl space. And of course, at that time, you don't know when you're going to get back, just a temporary thing. And their name was Strong, the family's name was Strong, and they let us put lot of the stuff that we couldn't take with us. We didn't sell anything, we just, we told the Strongs that probably, time comes and you need to get rid of stuff, go ahead and do whatever you want with it. 'Cause we had no idea where we were going, what the duration was or anything like that. We had some families from across the street, and they come over, and there was crying about why we had to leave, and some were Italian people. They really sympathized with us, you know, but... then the bus came, and the truck came and took our meager belongings like blankets, I guess, and a few things.

TI: Now, before this, your father was bedridden. I mean, he was sort of ill. What was the family thinking about your father? What would happen to him?

AM: When, when they interviewed us as evacuees, and we identified my father as being an invalid. So they had to put him in the county hospital because they had other Japanese that were ill or something like that, couldn't be moved into a general area. So they were moved into the county hospital.

TI: And this is within Stockton?

AM: Yes, that was the, they called it the French Camp General Hospital or San Joaquin General Hospital, I think is what it was, San Joaquin General Hospital that was located in the French Camp, California. It was just a little farm town, small town. And so when they took Dad the first time, pretty sure they came and put him in an ambulance, and that was the last time I saw him. And the rest of us waited for the truck to come and they loaded, we didn't have enough suitcases or trunks for some of the stuff, so they, we just wrapped things up in a sheet, tied it up, and then wrote our, we had ID numbers, painted ID numbers on it. And they loaded it on a truck along with our suitcases. And then a bus came along and picked us up and took us to the fairgrounds. And then we were processed there and then given a, given a barracks number.

TI: So I'm thinking, you're a young boy, you're what, fourteen years old as this all happens, but I'm thinking, what a difficult experience to see your father leave in an ambulance and not really know when you'll see him. And then not knowing where you're going, packing, leaving your stuff behind, you're going to get registered and all this. Do you recall what you were thinking while this was happening?

AM: Not, not really. I don't have a really emotional remembrance of all that. It just seemed like we were just kind of in a trance. And like, go here, go there, you don't know what you're, you don't know what lies tomorrow. And you're really numb to the experience, I think. Of course, when Dad left, we didn't know when we was going to see 'em again, but here again, I think the whole process, we were just kind of numb from everything and the uncertainty of everything. And you don't, to me, it was just being like an unknown kind of thing, that you're, you lack the emotions, you more or less have fear, more or less, than you do the emotions. That's what I... because otherwise, I can't remember that.