<Begin Segment 6>

RP: Now, the folks who normally were sent to the Pomona Assembly Center should have ended up at Heart Mountain.

MN: That's right.

RP: How did your family end up at Manzanar? Can you speculate a little bit about might have been the factors?

MN: Yeah, I think it was something about he didn't want to go to Heart Mountain. I don't know if it was because it was cold there or because it was too far away, but he did something to get us to Manzanar. And I think it had something to do with donating some cherry trees. And at the time I don't think I really knew anything, I just knew that we weren't gonna go to Heart Mountain. And, you know, being asked about it later, I'm not really sure if those cherry trees ever got there or not. But people tell me they were there.

RP: Do you remember much about your trip to Manzanar?

MN: Not a whole lot. It was, because everybody else was sent to Heart Mountain, there was our family and there was one other family. And we went to Manzanar in passenger cars. There were, you know...

RP: Government cars?

MN: A government car so it was a caravan. It must have been oh, at least six cars and...

RP: Can you remember military police or soldiers as part of that convoy?

MN: Specifically I don't remember that. Yeah.

RP: Last night you mentioned that you stopped in Olancha?

MN: I think so. I think it was Olancha, yeah. And it was, well, I guess you know, being wartime and a lotta people were, you know, were, I guess they were scared of the Japanese or they were, they didn't like us. So, it was kinda scary. We just got some looks that weren't very friendly. Yeah.

RP: Did your father bring with him any plants or seeds or nursery stock on his trip to Manzanar?

MN: I don't know that. I don't know. I don't know if he had any access to anything from Pomona. But, knowing him, I don't know. 'Cause he'd been -- I shouldn't say this -- but he'd been known to sneak some seeds from Hawaii to the mainland. [Laughs] But I don't know. I don't know for a fact.

RP: Marian, what block did you live in in Manzanar?

MN: Well, were late in getting there 'cause we didn't get there 'til August. So we were first put in Block 36. And then later we were moved to -- I don't know how much later it was but -- we were moved to Block 6 where we, where we ended up. 6-10-2.

RP: Besides your family, were there extended family members like aunts and uncles or...

MN: No.

RP: No other ...

MN: No, neither my father nor my mother had any other relatives over here on the mainland.

<End Segment 6> - Copyright © 2008 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.