<Begin Segment 15>

RP: Tommy, how did you and your family travel to Tule Lake? Was it by train or by bus?

TK: Tule Lake from Marysville? That's the train. From Florin to Marysville, you got on a bus at the depot, Florin depot. Then they took us to Marysville, and then from Marysville, well, we had to... I think it was bus to the train depot and then that was kind of, I don't know, overnight.

RP: Do you recall anything else about that trip? Were there military policemen in the, on the train as well?

TK: No, they didn't, they didn't come in. You know, those days, those trains, no air conditioning, oh, geez. It was so bad, even the regular civilian trains from Tule Lake, that went from Tule Lake to Chicago, god it was so bad. It was summertime or whatever, you had to open that... and all those trains, you open that thing, all the soot would come in, coal burning train. You look and it's all black, gee. That was bad. Takes about three days or something to go from Reno to Chicago.

RP: So how... when did you get to Tule Lake? Was it during the day or during the evening?

TK: I think it was in the morning. 'Cause by the time we left in the evening, they had, overnight in the dark, then in the morning sometime.

RP: Do you remember the shades on the train being drawn down?

TK: Yeah, it's always closed.

RP: For the whole trip?

TK: Yeah, it was always closed. You kind of look, but you can't see anything anyway.

RP: Can you remember anything about the atmosphere in the train? Were people very quiet wondering what was going to, "where are we going?" Did you know where you were going?

TK: Yeah, we knew we were going to Tule Lake. But you know, once you're on that, what else can you do? So we were just schoolkids. 'Cause I was graduated already, I was eighteen, so you know, just talked, sit down and talk, and sleep most of the way.

RP: Did you have friends from Florin that were also sent to Tule Lake with you?

TK: Yeah, 'cause lot of my friends' classmates, or people, high school, we were in the same block, Tule Lake.

RP: Which block was that?

TK: Block 20, Block 20. And Carol, she went to Manzanar. Come to think of it, it's funny, she lived on this side of the railroad, she should have...

RP: Gone with you.

TK: Yeah. Same side. They went to, I think they went to Manzanar. Well, they say, I asked some people, "How come," 'cause a lot of those people that went to Manzanar is from our church. And so I keep asking, "How come you guys went to Manzanar?" Well, one guys says, "Well, we registered late." They were still picking strawberries or something. He says, "I registered late, and people who registered late, they had to go to Manzanar." I said, "God, that's weird," thirty-some odd families. I think it was about 370 or something.

RP: A large group.

TK: Yeah.

<End Segment 15> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.