<Begin Segment 9>

RP: Can you tell us a little about this other gentleman who worked with the WCCA?

SK: I don't know much about him except he was very good-looking. [Laughs] He never noticed me, but yeah, he was a really handsome guy. He looked like a movie star. His name was Ben Yoshioka.

RP: Yoshioka.

SK: But...

RP: And what did he do? Was he kind of the coordinator for that particular office?

SK: No, he was doing the same thing I was.

RP: Oh, he was.

SK: Issuing permits. I don't know, I don't know where he came from. We never talked. But he had the same...

RP: Was he a college graduate, too?

SK: Yeah. He... but I don't know where or...

RP: Couldn't find work.

SK: No. Could be, it could be because a lot of college graduates, the men, were working in the produce markets.

RP: Or as gardeners.

SK: Yeah. Whatever, whatever you could get.

RP: Where was the WCCA office located?

SK: It was on Spring and, Spring and Fifth? It was a former bank building that had been converted into this agency office.

RP: But you had folks coming from all over Los Angeles to...

SK: We had lines and lines of people every day because they're so concerned. I mean, people wanted to know, "What's gonna happen to my business?" "Will I have to take my kids out of school?" You know, all those millions of questions that people have when they're forced to move from (...) the only home they know. And we were, in general, pretty well-established at that time. So, it was very difficult thing for everybody.

RP: How long did you work for the WCCA?

SK: Let's see... three months. Yeah, that's about it.

RP: Uh-huh. And you said you were, one of your jobs was to keep people notified of the evacuation... if there, if an order was sent out to evacuate a community...

SK: We presumably got the information first.

RP: And then did you send out press releases or...

SK: Oh, well, the newspaper probably, someone notified them.

RP: And then the, the evacuation posters would be put on...

SK: Yes, right.

RP: In that community and...

SK: Right, uh-huh.

RP: From your point of view, generally how much time did people have between the time that the orders were issued and when they were supposed to gather and...

SK: It depended on where you lived. If you lived close to the coast, you were the first to go and some people only had forty-eight hours, like the people in...

RP: Terminal Island?

SK: Terminal Island, right. The further you lived inland, the more time you had. So, in our family's case it was June, I think, it was June. I went as a volunteer to Poston in May and it was about June or July when our family was supposed to move and to join me, which they never did.

RP: Did you, did you have requests for... you mentioned the Terminal Island situation when people had only forty-eight hours, were, did you have any involvement in trying to located housing for displaced Japanese Americans?

SK: What I learned later was that most of those people were taken care of by churches in East L.A. They were housed there until they were sent to Manzanar. Your question was about those people in...

RP: About displaced people and being able to...

SK: (...) My friend, Maki Ichiyasu, was also transferred from the (position of) director of the Japanese YWCA to our agency to take care of people who had situations like that who lost their earnings, who lost their homes, whatever. But she knew what the resources were and she took care of those people on an individual basis. But when you mentioned Terminal Island, that was a whole bunch of people that had to be resettled...

RP: Move quick.

SK: Uh-huh.

RP: A lot of 'em, I think, ended up in Boyle Heights.

SK: That's what I meant, East L.A, yeah right, uh-huh.

RP: And...

SK: The churches...

RP: The churches, the Quaker groups?

SK: Yes. Uh-huh.

RP: So you were aware of all these other organizations providing support and assistance.

SK: Right, uh-huh.

RP: Uh-huh, yeah. There was also a curfew that was established, too.

SK: Yes. Yeah. We had to be home eight to five in the morning, something like that, yeah. And that was no problem for us.

RP: You were traveling from Covina to Los Angeles?

SK: Yeah, well, I always got home before eight.

RP: The other situation that developed after, just after Pearl Harbor, was the rounding up of the Issei community leaders and anybody who had any standing --

SK: Uh-huh, right.

RP:: -- in the community. Do you remember, did that, that, didn't touch your situation personally, but do you remember other men in the community being take away?

SK: I don't remember any. Most of (the Issei I knew) were farmers, I guess the people who were taken away were mostly (from the city of) L.A. ... you know, they were leaders. They were heads of Japanese American associations, Buddhist priests and Japanese school teachers. But I don't remember it happening to anybody in our community.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.