<Begin Segment 4>

JA: Do you remember when the order came that you had to leave and go to camp?

GI: Well, there was all kinds of posters put on, in every block just about telling us that there's going to be a mass evacuation and this-and-that, and we had to, we had to conform to the, to their, whatever we had to do to prepare ourself to go. But in those days, the elder, or the oldest brother, always was in charge of the family, and the same case was with us. So the oldest brother took care of all the things that had to be taken care of to get ready to go to Manzanar. And we sold, we didn't have, we didn't have much responsibility to that, on that.

JA: How did you all decide what to take with you since you couldn't take everything you owned?

GI: Well, they told us what to take and what not to take. And so we just took, every one of us, I think, we just took what we wanted to take, and that's what we did.

JA: What did you do with the things you couldn't take, household...

GI: We put it in storage. I know that it was put in the, we had a basement in our house, I think we put everything back there. But, and then I found out that people had gone through that thing during the war. And we're not the only one that suffered, suffered pilfery from the, from the American people. There were a number of other -- so many stories that have been untold about different Japanese American families that the people just took whatever they wanted. And, well, that's why I like to say one thing about the evacuation: the American people -- I won't say certain, certain people or a great amount of people -- they didn't care whether, you know, there was a dead Jap or not. That was the attitude, and we were cursed at and spit on and thrown stones. We were told to go back to the country where we came from and I said, "Well, this is where I came from. What am I going to do about that?" you know. That was the situation.

JA: Yeah, yeah. You had to have that attitude I guess. So, so when you came back after camp, your house had been broken into? What was the situation?

GI: Well, I can't say too much about that because I was in the army when, when they were all told -- I think back in 1945 after the, after the war ended -- they were all told to go back. But it wasn't, it wasn't all that... well, it sounded bad because they were told that they were going to, they were going to be evacuated from Manzanar and go back to where we came from. And I wasn't around, but I know that they were all given, I forgot, I don't know how much they were giving to each family to survive until they can get back on their feet again.

JA: And what did they find at home?

GI: I never did ask them. 'Cause because by the time I got my discharge they were all settled at home.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.