Densho Digital Archive - John Tomita Interview (denshovh-tjohn

<Begin Segment 11>

KP: So when did you, when did you find out that you were gonna be evacuated?

JT: Yeah, let's see. I, actually I never went back to school. It was one thing or another. And then we, we couldn't just sit there and I remember a farmer came by and they needed help topping sugar, sugar, sugar beets. Gee, that was one of the hardest work I've done in a long time. You, you're on the back and every third beet you, you gotta cut it off. Yeah, by the time you get to the end of the row you gotta row over. But, that's one of the jobs we did. And, yeah, but everybody, all the young guys, we, we felt that you gotta make some kind of money. We didn't know how long we were gonna... and I think we did it for about a month or so and then they, the order came, we have to go to camp.

KP: How much time did you have before, from when the order to when you had to leave?

JT: See, seemed like it's about a week time, when the order came down that we had to go.

KP: What did your, what did your father do with his business?

JT: You know, those days, after the war, I mean, during, during that period, the older generation sort of faded away. Yeah, come to think of it, the war, I mean, the, there was no old people in the meeting no more. Yeah, that's right. It's always all young. So, the war really took the older generation out of the community. The one --

KP: So your father's business, what did he, what did he do with it?

JT: It seemed like, gosh, I look back at it now, looked like all the Issei people, they faded away from, they stayed away from the meetings. I guess they were afraid they gonna get picked up or something. It seemed like until then they were the leader. And, gee, since the war started, suddenly they're not there anymore.

KP: Became ghosts.

JT: They, they were, they were afraid they were gonna get picked up. Yeah, because they did pick up quite a few people. Some of 'em came back right away and some of 'em didn't come back for years.