<Begin Segment 9>

AS: We had a really good... my father, every month we used to go for one month vacation and everything.

RP: Where did you go?

AS: Oh, we'd go to Sierra Nevada Mountains, and then we'd go to visit up to San Francisco and Sacramento. My mother's old, I guess he was my mother's teacher in Japan, Mr. Koda, he's the one that, Kokuho rice. In fact, I don't know if his one son is still in that. He's the one that, he was the largest rice grower in California, and he's the one that I guess devised that Kokuho rice. You see that now. I mean, I like that. I always buy Kokuho rice, but he was... and he, I think he helped my father, too. I wondered, when he needed help, and my mother said he was, my mother was like his little sister, I guess. He was, and she says, "Yeah, he did help," but my father helped them also when they had... my father, he's always going out of his way to help people. Like his son had a broken arm and I guess they, wasn't put together right, so I remember my father would take care of his son, and he had a real good doctor, 'cause my sister had a congenital hip so she used to go, she was in children's hospital. So spent a lot...

RP: Was that Mary?

AS: Frances, the oldest one. So anyway, it was a lot of time. But my father, now he'd help his friend and he told that Dr. Jones, "Now this man is wealthy, so you could charge him," but I remember this minister's son that had problem, so he told the doctor, "No, he's a minister's," so the doctor didn't charge him. My father's that way. You know, trying to help people.

RP: You said that you took some trips to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

AS: Yeah, in the summer we used to go out in that old truck. I mean, we had a old automobile, and we'd go fishing and stuff.

RP: Do you know where you went? Did you go to Mammoth? Lake Tahoe?

AS: No, we went to, just to Sierra -- yeah, Tahoe. You know, Tahoe was so pretty in those days. You wouldn't know. Just nobody there except the Indians. It was beautiful. We'd go there and a couple times, yeah, we went there and it was so pretty. We'd go up there to the Sierra, and you could camp on the side of the road. [Laughs] Isn't that something?

RP: Was that, did you take the highway that goes to Manzanar? Highway 495?

AS: I think we went up there, I think I remember the, I don't know which highway, but I remember going up there.

RP: Do you remember going through Bishop and Lone Pine?

AS: Yeah, Bishop. I remember that, but it's...

RP: And then you ended up in that camp, a few years later.

AS: Yeah, isn't that something, though? But... the saddest thing, like I was saying how they told us, I was telling my girlfriend, I said, gee, we got off the bus, but you know all of us people, farmers, we went on, they picked us up in front of the city hall. Our neighbor took us there. But we didn't want to look like straggling, what do you calls, refugees, so all the people, all the fellows dressed nice in a suit. We all looked nice, like we're going someplace. Isn't that something? We just didn't want people to think we're really... we get there to, and then we get off the bus and they gave us this canvas bag, and they says, "Around the corner" -- I mean, not the corner -- "it's, over there's hay. Fill it up. That's your mattress." And you feel... you know, just feel like, ooh. After we leave our nice home.

RP: We're gonna backtrack a little, and I wanted to ask you about your sister Mary. She was, because wasn't she sent to another family for a while, kind of boarded out for a while?

AS: Oh yeah, when Frances broke her hip there. I mean, not, she had, she was born congenital. She had to do a lot, and Mary, we're only about two years difference in age, and so Mary, I guess fell someplace. She was must have been probably only about three or four years old, so the neighbor, Japanese neighbor, took her. Because then I was along. I was an infant, so we were all close, about two years apart. And so she stayed with the... neighbor took care of her. My mom went through a lot, and here she was born and she didn't have to do anything, but, like she always told us, "If you're educated or could read and write..." Isn't that true, though? All stressed throughout our life. Yeah, my mother's that way, hardships and all. She never did, she never crabbed about it either, when I think about it. She had to take care, cook and... she didn't know how to, but she read books and took classes in cooking and stuff. And I guess when you get, have education, huh?

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