Densho Digital Archive
Manzanar National Historic Site Collection
Title: Bo T. Sakaguchi Interview
Narrator: Bo T. Sakaguchi
Interviewer: John Allen
Location:
Date: November 6, 2002
Densho ID: denshovh-sbo-01-0005

<Begin Segment 5>

JA: What do you remember about the process of getting to Manzanar, the trip there?

BS: Well, we had to register at an office in Burbank. And living at home at that time was myself, my mother and my father, my sister, oldest sister, and my younger sister who was going to UCLA, and I had a sister who was going to medical school at Berkley, UC Berkley, so she registered, my sister registered the whole family including my sisters from Berkley, but she also registered my brother who was going to SC dental school but was living in Los Angeles. So, when the day came for us to leave, to be taken to Manzanar, they took roll call and they said, "Where is your brother?" And my sister says, "Well, he wanted to stay in school as long as he can, and since he's living in Los Angeles, he didn't come." So the FBI went to the SC Dental School and arrested my brother a couple of days later and took him away to Santa Anita. And then finally, my brother was allowed to return to SC dental school to check out, check out his books and things. And as he's walking in the hallway, a fellow student says, "Did you know they arrested a Jap spy at our school?" And my brother was so embarrassed he didn't have the nerve to say, "I'm not the Jap spy, they just arrested me because of a mix-up." But he has resented that for over these sixty years. So he doesn't speak very highly of President Roosevelt. [Laughs] He uses that four-letter word.

JA: I can guess. What do you remember about the trip itself?

BS: The trip itself, I remember the morning we left, it was sprinkling, and as we boarded the bus my sister had overheard this lady say, "Look at, even the sky or heavens are crying for us because it's raining." So we rode on these little red buses to Manzanar. It was a quiet, quiet bus ride. I don't remember how long it took. And no one said much, no one said much. I remember my parents discussing, they wondered how we would be treated. But they said, "Well, this country is a fair, fair country, so they shouldn't treat us too harshly," so we just went to camp.

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2002 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.