<Begin Segment 8>

RP: So your dad is a successful established farmer in, in Niland and you're set up there and then the war comes along and changes your lives entirely. First of all, tell me about the experience as you recall it when the FBI showed up at your house.

YW: I, I remember a dark car driving up and I remember two big Caucasian men coming in. And in those days when we had company, adult company, we had to go into the kitchen or in the, the back room. So the children, we were in the back room and I remember my children, my sisters, sayin', "They're here. The FBI men are here. They came to take Daddy away." They were just running around saying, "That's what they're here for." The next thing I knew, we were told that we would be moving and we had to, we were burying... I was with my oldest brother and he was burying his hunting rifle and our family camera. Because he said, "Oh, we can't take this with us. So we have to get rid of 'em." So we were burying 'em. That's what I could remember.

RP: And the FBI man gave your father an ultimatum.

YW: Right.

RP: What was that?

YW: He said, "You have 24 hours to decide whether you want to, you, the father, go to the camp or you move your whole family inland." So my father decided he'll move all of us inland and that's why he was packing everything we had on this little pickup truck and the car.

RP: That must have been a terribly frantic time.

YW: Oh, we were all running around, I remember.

RP: Twenty-four hours.

YW: So we left our horses, our Caterpillar, big tractors and stuff.

RP: And what, what arrangements did your father make for, for the farm? Did he leave it to somebody?

YW: Oh, the fellow that the farm was in, the name of the person, the Caucasian person who loaned my father his name, he said, "Well you just go ahead and do what you have to do. I'll be here to take care of everything for you. The crops are ready to be harvested. I'll harvest them. I'll take care of it. You just worry about your family and just get in your car and move them where you have to." So that's when they, my brother was sixteen years old and my father had to get a special permit for him to drive, 'cause I don't think he was quite old enough to drive.

RP: Oh, sixteen. I was, I was --

YW: Was he sixteen?

RP: -- reading earlier that he was fourteen.

YW: He was born in '29? Or '27? And we were in '42?

RP: He'd be fifteen.

YW: He was fifteen.

RP: So yeah, he was underage.

YW: He was under age, uh-huh. So he drove the, he had to drive the pickup truck because my mother was seven months pregnant with my youngest brother and she couldn't drive the car. So my father had to drive the car with all the suitcases or whatever he could put in the trunk. And my brother drove the, the truck with whatever we could put on there.

RP: And what did you, what do you recall taking with you?

YW: On the pickup?

RP: Uh-huh.

YW: I remember my mother wanted her washing machine and her sewing machine. So I remember those two. I don't what else she had, they had on the pickup.

RP: Washing machine and sewing machine...

YW: Yeah. I remember my mother saying, she said, "Oh, we just did so well. We got $100,000 saved now for the next year we won't, I won't have to go out in the farm. I can stay home with the children, watching the children." So then that's when they had to pick up and move.

RP: And your father, at, at this point in his life is what, about forty-nine years old?

YW: Uh-huh. He's forty-nine.

RP: And, it's, it's tough to start over again.

YW: Yes to start all over, right. Oh, and then he took, he was taking care of these other families. So he, he quickly established a caravan of about five families and some of the families, the head of the household was no longer alive so my father took care of... they were very good friends of ours and they had, she had like three children and so he took care of them. So we all traveled in the caravan to... we were going, we had to go where we had a sponsor, and our sponsor was in Colorado, Rocky Ford. But since there was so many of us, they didn't have living accommodation for all of us so my father found another place that we could stay for the, that short period until they were able to find a living accommodation for all of us and that was in Boise City, Oklahoma. The fellow, Mr. (Kohler) was his name, I think he, my father knew him through seeds. I think my father purchased seeds when he was farming in Niland, through this person.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.