Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview II (denshovh-nhenry

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RP: How much time did you have to make these decisions and considerations? Was it weeks or...

HN: I don't think there was too much time. It might have been a week. It might have been ten days. I, I don't remember. Yeah.

RP: And, most of the family was in support of this, this course of action that you took?

HN: Oh yeah, yeah. So we were pretty well-prepared to leave. The other families... it was another family that, that we took -- well, they were friends of ours -- we took... says, "Okay, you just come, come to our house until evacuation." Because they had to leave their house and of course our uncle and their family, they came to live with us.

RP: And you were all together.

HN: It was just a matter of two or three days or a week maybe.

RP: You were all together. You left together.

HN: We were all together 'til the time that we were going to evacuate. And it was, so happened that it was just... the point of pickup for that particular area was right across the street. So...

RP: From your home?

HN: From our home.

RP: Where was... was it at a church or a...

HN: Well, it was at, on the corner of, of... our house was on... what was that name of the street now? Not Purdue, but the next street, Corinth.

RP: Corinth.

HN: Corinth, yeah. Corinth and Olympic Boulevard. The, that intersection, the northeast? Yeah, northeast corner was a vacant lot. And that's where, that corner was a designated area where we were all to meet to be picked up to go to, go to Manzanar.

RP: Can you describe the scene that you saw that day while you were waiting?

HN: Well, it was early morning. And, being young, it was kind of a festive thing. [Laughs] And it wasn't, it wasn't solemn or anything like that, it was just, we had to leave. And we were... I remember that that was the same time that I was supposed to report to the draft board for where I was... and I went to the draft board -- probably it was day before or whatever it was -- and reported and said and told 'em what the situation was. That I have, have the draft notice and I also have the notice to evacuate. So, I gave them the choice, "What do you want me to do? You want to draft me or do you want me to get evacuated with..." I guess the draft board decided, "Well, you'd better get evacuated." That's how that came about, but eventually I got drafted out of the camp.