<Begin Segment 22>

TI: Okay. So you're, you spent two years in Europe, and then you were shipped back to the U.S. So where did you go from there? Where did you go?

AM: Well, they, we landed in, of course, we, they took us to the Statue of Liberty and all that kind of stuff, and we ended up in, in New Jersey, and we were processed. And I came back home, well, it wasn't home, but my folks, my mom and my sisters, had relocated from the, from the camps to Denver. So when I was on leave after my basic training was over, I came to Denver, and Mom fixed me a sashimi dinner and all that before I had to go overseas. So, of course, when I got shipped back, we came here, I came here, and then I wanted to go visit my, my aunt in Scottsbluff, and I stayed there for just a little while and helped her, just a little while, and then I came back. I was wanting to go back to Scottsbluff, and I wanted to start junior college because my benefactor there wanted me to go back to school. But my mom was working in the hospital laundry for thirty dollars a week or something like that, and I got three sisters still in school yet. And my brother had gone to school in Chicago. But I felt my need was here to be with my mom and help her out, 'cause she had a tough time.

TI: The last time we had talked about your father, he was still at a county hospital. So during the war and during this time, what happened to your father?

AM: Well, we used to exchange letters almost on a weekly or bi-weekly. And he used to tell me what, what he was doing there, which wasn't very much, and go for walks and talk with the other people that were there, the other Japanese patients. Used to read the paper a lot, keep up with the times. And he always had that message for me, "Always be good." Then one day I get the, I got a letter from my brother that, while he was on his way to Japan, that, January of '46, he had taken extensive training with the Japanese language school, MIS. But he was on his way to Japan in January of '46, and being he was in San Francisco, he had permission to see my dad. And he visited there and wrote me a letter that he looked pretty good and this and that. And then I think in... I can't be sure when, but I think it was February, a month later I get a telegram that my dad had passed away. And I couldn't secure any, any permission to leave to go back for the funeral and things. It was impossible, I tried the Red Cross and all that. But they had services here in Denver, I believe, and cremation.

TI: But he, he died, still, was he still in the county hospital in...

AM: Stockton.

TI: Stockton.

AM: French Camp, yeah. That address was French Camp telephone, San Joaquin General Hospital. But we used to exchange letters all the time. Write everything in English.

TI: By any chance, did you keep those letters? Do you still have those letters?

AM: I think I have a few of 'em.

TI: Yeah, those would be great keepsakes for your family, just to make sure you preserve those.

AM: Yeah, I still think I, I still have some. I'd have to ask my wife. She kind of keeps track of anything anymore. I'm getting too old to keep track of anything. [Laughs]

TI: Something that was just curious, in the Seattle area, people who were invalid, my understanding was that they even shipped the invalids inland off the coast. But in Stockton, they, they left people there, Japanese, even though it was a exclusion zone. And so I was just, just a comment. I haven't heard of people who actually, even though they were hospitalized, stayed in that zone. I thought they all, they had all left.

AM: I don't know whether they had guards there. That was never discussed with my dad. He, he... I know that he roamed the yard, you know, that was exercise, get out, and they pretty much encouraged getting out, walking and stuff like that. But he never said that there was guards around or anything like that.

TI: So we're now, it's after the war, after your military service, you're now in Denver helping your mom and your sisters, so what did you do? How did you help them out?

AM: Well, I took a variety of different jobs. I had no skill in anything. When I was in high school, of course, I washed dishes until my senior term, but that's no skill, being a pearl diver. Well, let's see. I think some friends got me a job at the Cudahy packing house, and I worked there for just a short terms, because they went on strike. And I don't even remember being a union member there. So then I went and looked for another job, and I went to work for, in the produce area. They was hiring lot of Japanese there, Japanese appeared to have a good record of employment and this and that, so there was a lot of Japanese working on the docks there, in produce. Being lot of those guys were farmers, they knew the produce, so it was pretty much their nature. It wasn't a career thing, but it was a stopgap until they took it, some of 'em wanted to go back to California or something like that.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.