Densho Digital Archive - Osamu Mori Interview (denshovh-mosamu-01-0007)

<Begin Segment 7>

RP: You mentioned that life didn't change very much for you after the war broke out.

OM: Not really, you know, we weren't really aware of what rights were being taken. We had a very hard life, I mean, you're working, you're going to school, you're working. The fact is, it was kind of a relief from all that work. Gosh, you go to camp and you got all day free, they even fed you. I think if any, I got any trouble from at least my dad's point of view, I learned to play cards in camp. I mean, not gambling but just playing rummy and somehow it was kind of intriguing to me and I used to play it all the time. And I remember I used to miss curfew, I mean in camp we had curfew, when the lights got dark, the lights went out. I don't know how many times I got caught sneaking around the barracks trying to get home. And some guy would catch me and bring me home and then I'd get hell from my old man. It was really a kind of fun times, you know, for me in camp anyway.

RP: You were describing the fact that you lived in a strategic area with the oil refinery and there were other Japanese families that were asked to leave those areas even before, you know, the evacuation orders were --

OM: Well, we left the day we had to leave, which was April 3rd or something like that, 1942. But I know the flower people had left earlier. The people, our immediate neighbors, I think they left same time too. When we left, you know, we didn't leave by bus, we had a truck, as I recall, you know, a ton and a half truck, stake truck. That's what we left in. We threw everything in the back of the truck, they said to meet in San Pedro on Sixth street. So we went there, we lined up, and when they gave us the order to leave, I guess it was convoy, and we went to Santa Anita. After we unloaded, I think my brother drove the truck, there was an infield in the Santa Anita, and that's where they were parked, all the trucks. And the government sold it, I guess. That's the last you saw of the truck.

RP: Can you tell us how your family prepared for the evacuation?

OM: Yeah, that was kind of a... I know my dad had... I don't know if it was my dad or my brother. It was my brother I guess. He was kind of in charge of the farm at that time, he's barely eighteen maybe. And he had contracted with a buyer from the wholesale market and that's the usual process by you have farm products that are ready to be harvested and if the price is right, let's say there's a huge demand for celery, they usually come out and look at your products and say, "Well, in thirty days or whatever it's going to be ready to go, we'll give you X dollars for it." On February 19th when the order came out that you'll be evacuated, it didn't say when but it says you will be. A lot of people came out and looked at the celery that we had saying that, "Oh yeah, we'll buy it from you when it's ripe, ready to go." I can still remember when it was just a matter of days before we're going to go into camp on the 3rd, there was buyer that came out and said, we'll buy it from you. This was on a... I can't remember the exact date it was but the day before we were supposed to go to camp he was supposed to come and harvest it. Well, he didn't come and I would imagine he came the day after we left. But we didn't get a dime, not a dime, off that property... off that harvest. That's... on the farm side of it, that's what happened.

On the poultry side, my mother was a little bit more... it's not laying blame on anybody about the farm, because that's the way business is done anyway. But on the chicken side, she was able to get rid of all of the chickens, you know, before, several days before the due date, drop dead date. So she was able to do things, you know, okay. Paid off all the credits that she had, she didn't have much left but she was able to clean everything out. The only thing left was the building, all the buildings, because this was all on leased land. So she did... they got ready to go. I don't know about mentally whether they were prepared one way or another but I would assume that they were because they did what they had to do to get ready to go. But when we... when I came back, I think we were married, huh? Anyway, we went to visit the site and there wasn't anything standing. What I had heard later on was that the wood that was used to build these buildings were used during the war for other purposes. Because something, like I said, some of the properties, particularly the brooders, I'm not saying, it's wasn't hardwood but it was tongue and groove floors and walls so they were pretty well put together. But I could see where that could be used for other purposes. But the other buildings, I don't know what they did with them, firewood or whatever. There was ten, fifteen buildings, plus the outhouse. So I think they were pretty well prepared when they went to camp. But they stored equipment, brooder heaters and things like that, with our neighbor down the street. They used to have a... it was a cafe, a restaurant and they assumed, I guess, they were going to come back. That's why they stored things. But when we got back they were gone, the whole restaurant was gone, so I don't know what happened to the equipment or whatever.

RP: What was the toughest thing to leave behind for you, Sam?

OM: Gee, I guess it was what I thought were friends but I never... I think I did get a few letters from some of my friends but other than that I don't recall, I can't think of anything that I left behind really. There was some... I had a couple of good friends and then we kept in contact for a while but after a couple years we lost contact. So truthfully I probably didn't leave anything behind.