<Begin Segment 16>

RP: So you went back to Manzanar after you had relocated to Iowa to take your mom?

YS: Yeah, yeah.

RP: So did you travel with her to Philadelphia?

YS: I dropped her off in Chicago and I sent her, put her on the train and I let my sister know. 'Cause she was back there, remember I told you she was teaching back there? That, that mom's coming in on a certain, such and such a train and the arrival time is approximately this and, yeah. But you know I'm thinking back, I can't remember when I took her out of the, out of camp to take her back. I don't know whether it was in the summer of '45, 1945, or whether it was in the... when did the camp finally shut down?

RP: Oh, about middle of November of '45.

YS: Oh, okay, so it must have been '45 I had to take her out. 'Cause I couldn't quite, quite figure it out.

RP: And she, your mother and I guess your sister also were hosted by a Quaker family?

YS: That I don't, yeah, I don't know, I don't know. You mean back there in Philadelphia? See, I never did go back there after... the next time I went to see my mother was when she, they moved from Philadelphia back to Minnesota, Minneapolis. Because my brother was, Koichi was teaching at the military language at Fort Snelling. He was, he was... being a Kibei, you know, he was fluent in English and Japanese so he was teaching the army translators. And my mother came back to Minnesota to stay with him. And I did go up to see her but I can't remember what year. It must, it had to be forty, '46 at least.

RP: So you had your brother teaching at the MIS school.

YS: Yeah.

RP: And then you had your other brother, George, was teaching...

YS: At the, yeah, at...

RP: Oklahoma?

YS: Oklahoma. And, but then after his contract or whatever, he, he went into the, he went into the army. 'Cause he wound up either teaching or as a student at MIS because he, 'cause he was, being a Kibei, coming back from Japan, so during the war trial he both, both of my brothers were back in Japan.

RP: During the war trials?

YS: Yeah, the war trials. But you know, I can't... all these things, events take place, it's hard to figure out what year... so Manzanar closed up in November of '45. You know, it's funny because I think I came back... 'cause there's the one time I drove back from Iowa because there was a family friend in Manzanar wanted a car. So my brother picked up a car in Chicago, picked me up in Sioux City, and we drove the car back to Manzanar. And then from there we picked him up and then we drove down to Los Angeles and my mother went with us. And then for that reason I thought all of this couldn't have happened all in one summer. That's the reason I say when did it, when did it close up? I thought it was like, it might have been in '46, I thought I went back two different summers, but it's hard to keep track of time.

RP: So Yo, how do you reflect on your Manzanar experience from...

YS: Well, you know, I learned... I don't know what you call it, another trade or... if it wasn't for Manzanar I'd a probably never learned my music, you know. And for that I'm thankful. 'Cause it sure did help me out financially, it got me through going through college and whatnot. In other words, I've benefited a lot from it. And, well as a kid, you know, you just sort of rolled with the punches. I wasn't bitter about it or... the only thing that you really did not like about camp? The only thing that didn't, I didn't like, like I told my... to get drafted out of camp. That was the only thing. Yeah we wondered, after they put you in the center then they wanted to put you back in the army. See that was the only thing that really ticked me off. And I had buddies in Heart Mountain, Iowa... I mean, Wyoming, that, the kids that I went to school in L.A. relocated to Heart Mountain, that refused to go. They wound up going to prison. The guys that I went to grammar school and junior high school with in Lafayette. But other than that, the experience to me wasn't bad. A lot of guys say it was bad but I didn't, I didn't think it was that bad. The dust storms and of course they were terrible when we first got there. 'Cause you know, you didn't have lawns or vegetation to keep it down a little bit and I thought wow, yeah. Then of course all the floor, the woods are, and all that dust would come flying through and you wouldn't have any drywall on... and of course, other than that... but you know, for me it wasn't bad. Yeah, maybe other guys are bitter about it.

RP: Yo, thank you on behalf of Kirk and myself and the National Park Service, thank you for your, sharing your stories and your history.

YS: Oh, yeah, well, I'm glad to do it.

RP: Thank you.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.