<Begin Segment 13>

RP: Do you remember the day that you assembled to go to get on the train to go to Manzanar?

LU: Yeah, we had to go to Elk Grove. That's about five miles?

GU: No, I think it's more... I would say about ten miles.

LU: Ten miles from Florin, and we had to go to the railroad station there. All I know is each one, we could only take one suitcase. I don't know how we got there, whether one of the neighbors took us or what. Somebody, we got to Elk Grove and then got on the train.

GU: Yeah, I always thought we left from Florin, but like you say, we went to Elk Grove. Because Florin had a train station, too. But we had to go to Elk Grove.

LU: All I remember was once the train started moving, once we come into a town, they want you to draw the blinds. And after a day or two, we wound up in the Mojave. And we had to stay there, we were kind of derailed because other train had to go. I remember staying there overnight, it was pretty cold out there. And then it was either there or Lone Pine or someplace, we got on the bus. And from bus we went to, they took us to Manzanar.

RP: Had either one of you ever been on a train before?

LU: No, for me that was the first time, I think.

GU: Same here.

LU: Like I say, we were pretty isolated in Florin.

GU: Yeah, that's the first, that was the first train ride and the first bus ride. [Laughs]

RP: When you get into Manzanar... well, you came in sort of toward the end of May, I think.

GU: It was somewhere around there, April, May, yeah.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.