<Begin Segment 12>

RP: What else do you recall about that period before you left to go to Manzanar? What other arrangements were made for... you pretty much stored everything, or everything stayed where it was? You didn't have to store any furniture or anything else, did you?

AF: No, I think my father did store his new car in Little Tokyo, in a garage. That's right, we just bought a new car, well, he did.

RP: That's such a common story I hear.

NN: Oh, is that right?

RP: Yeah, farmers or Issei dads were doing really well at the time the war broke out, and they showed it by purchasing a new Chrysler or something.

AF: Yeah, it was a Chrysler. [Laughs]

KT: That's right, it was a Chrysler.

AF: He bought nothing but Chryslers, I remember.

RP: Well, do you recall the day that you had to assemble, and where did you assemble to go to Manzanar? Did you go by bus?

AF: Yes. It was at the Japanese school, our brand new Japanese school community center.

NN: Oh, was it there?

AF: Wasn't it?

NN: No, I don't know.

KT: I remember getting on the bus over there around Venice and..

NN: Lincoln, wasn't it?

AF: Yeah. But I think a lot of people went to Venice.

NN: From Venice, the gakuen?

AF: Gakuen, uh-huh.

NN: Oh, I see.

AF: And then, but we went to, yeah, you're right, in Venice somewhere.

KT: All I could say is I was amazed to see all those Japanese people in one place. Oh, I couldn't get over it. I'll never forget that feeling, you know, when we went on the bus, and when the bus drove into Manzanar we were sitting there, and see all these Japanese people. I couldn't believe it.

RP: Now, Kiyo, you just had started high school? You were about fifteen or so?

KT: Yes. I was in the ninth grade. I started in the ninth grade, huh?

AF: Yeah, we started in the ninth grade high school, yeah.

KT: When I went to camp.

RP: And both of you were in grammar school?

NN: I went to kindergarten and first grade.

AF: She was young.

NN: I started off in kindergarten.

AF: I was in the sixth grade.

RP: So was it difficult for you to give up your friends or school? What kind of feelings did you have of losing the...

AF: No, not particularly, but you must have, huh? 'Cause I was only in the sixth grade.

KT: Gee, I don't, I can't recall.

NN: Oh, Betty, Betty Jean and...

AF: Oh, our neighbors.

NN: Shirley Mae? They were Caucasian friends.

KT: Shirley Mae Blake and her sister Betty Jean Blake, I remember them across the street.

AF: Our old time neighbors we grew up with.

RP: Was anybody there the day that you left, or did they come over and offer words of support, or anybody?

KT: No. The only person that I could think of in that way is the bank... I can't remember whether he was a bank manager or what. But I remember it was on a Sunday, and he came over, and that's when we first found out about Pearl Harbor.

NN: I remember they -- oh, I'm sorry. Go on.

KT: I remember... what was his name. I remember him telling Grandpa that they might confiscate or close his accounts, and so they wanted to know -- he said that he would make arrangements for my dad to go there and get his assets out, I remember that.

AF: Oh, you do?

NN: And I remember the air raid warden coming over. And I remember receiving a doll from him.

KT: A doll? Oh, is that right?

AF: You were only five or six, huh?

RP: Leading up to Pearl Harbor and after Pearl Harbor, did you see any discernable signs of...

KT: Bigotry?

RP: Discrimination, bigotry, signs in stores maybe in Venice or Santa Monica or something, "No Japs Wanted" or that kind of thing? Was it pretty blatant or did you feel any of that after Pearl Harbor.

AF: Well, you were too young, huh? And I was just in the in between stage so I don't remember too much of it. But did you remember?

KT: I remember the Mandamakers across the street. There were two dairies, Rondos had a dairy and Mandamakers had a dairy.

RP: Oh, that's because they had sons in the Navy.

KT: His son was in the Navy and got killed, and so it was kind of very uncomfortable for us.

NN: So after the war, when we came back, there were two dairies in front of our house, dairy farms. And one dairy farm, the Rondos, had a son that was close to my age, so I would go over there to play. So they have a wooden fence separating theirs from the Mandamakers, and so we were on the fence looking at this pool, and Mr. Mandamaker came out and just cussed me out. And I got so frightened, I just dashed home. Yeah, I remember that. But later on, I remember, I can't remember, maybe it was a year or two afterwards, there used to be a Japanese market where we used to all our shopping. And I did see him in there, and so I thought, "Oh, I guess he had a change of mind." I was so, I was so, I think, sort of scarred by what had happened before, so I just didn't say anything to him.

AF: That's because he had sons probably that was killed at war.

NN: Yeah, exactly.

AF: So it's understandable, yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.