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AL: What is your earliest memory?

AS: Of him or...

AL: Of your, in your life. Your earliest memory.

AS: Oh, when I came to live Miss Stuart, she was my foster mother, she told my father and he wanted to see me because he was no longer able to, to send money for me. He did send a small amount of money to Miss Stuart for my keep but he said he was sick and he no longer could send any money but he'd like to see me. So we met in downtown and I was about eleven years old. And on the street of L.A. I remember his being small, skinny, and dark-skinned, just sort of like me. That was the first and last time I ever saw him. Because he died of kidney failure shortly after and he was like in his in his fifties or sixties, probably in his sixties.

AL: So he was considerably older than your mother?

AS: Yes, yes.

AL: Okay. So, when you left the hospital as an infant, where did you, who cared for you?

AS: It was a Children's Village. I was placed there in the orphanage, Shoni...

AL: Shonien?

AS: Or Children's, uh-huh.

AL: So, is that the one that's the Shonien on Silver Lake Boulevard in L.A.?

AS: Yes.

AL: Before the war?

AS: Yes.

AL: Okay. Do you know how long you were there?

AS: From the time I came out of the hospital until 1942 when we went into the camp in Manzanar. So that was about like in June, 1942? So I was probably about three, three and a half years old.

AL: Do you have any memories of the Shonien on Silver Lake?

AS: Absolutely none. I don't remember playing with the children, no, absolutely, I don't remember about the orphanage.

AL: All right. And to your knowledge, you didn't have any contact with your birth mother?

AS: No. Because the government asked her if she wanted to take me back and she said no. So, I don't remember her. No contact except when I was born.

AL: What is your earliest memory in your own life? I mean, you said you don't remember Shonien. Do you remember going to Manzanar?

AS: No I do not. I don't even remember very much about playing with the other children. But I do remember going into the babies' -- they had a baby section with cribs -- and going on the stepstool and peering over the crib and laughing at the children, kind of tickling them to make them smile. But of course I was not allowed to pick 'em up.

AL: Yeah, so you would have been what, about three to six years old --

AS: Three and a half, yeah, yes, uh-huh.

AL: -- in Manzanar? Did you attend school in Manzanar?

AS: Yes, first grade.

AL: Who was your teacher?

AS: I think it was Ms. Brown.

AL: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 2> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.