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RP: Let's go over your siblings. Maybe you could start with the oldest first.

JO: Well, the oldest, you know, he was gotten... well, like anything, we all got together and he graduated and was going to UCLA when the war started. And then they wanted these volunteers to go up and build the, you know, the barracks and things up there in Manzanar. And so he went. And he was there about a month and a half before we got there. And when we got there he got the job of, as headin' the oil, receiving the oil and puttin' it out for all the different blocks and things like that. However, he didn't stay too long in camp because he wanted to go. He went out on that Idaho sugar beet picking for a while. Then he went Chicago and was doing other things there.

RP: What was his name?

JO: His name was Hisayuki. Yeah, he still lives in Arleta there. And they call it Nikkei Village. So he's there.

RP: After Hisayuki, who is next?

JO: Before that the oldest one was, got drafted also and he was in the MIS The next one is Yoshihito. By the way, we called each other because we had no American name, H-O, Y-O, J-O and N-O was the brother right above me. And that's how we were called when we were kids. Yoshihito, he was the mechanical minded type. I remember him workin' on trucks and motors and stuff like that. And he was very good. In fact, he was doin' that after he got out of the service. He was a mechanic and all that. However, he's one that was in the 442. He volunteered out of Manzanar and he was in G Company over there. He got wounded twice. And he passed away last year. So, and he and I got along very well. And then the next one is Naomi and they call him N-O or Niel. He lived in Eureka and I haven't seen him and I don't talk to him much because every time I call him he tells me he can't hear. [Laughs] But...

RP: What was he like?

JO: He and I did a lot of work together while we were in Manzanar. As I was talkin' to you before, we worked on the chicken farm, laying the concrete in the chicken farm and the hog farm. And laying the repair work and thing on some of the water mains and things like that. And he went and picked sugar beets also. 'Cause he graduated while he was in camp. He was a good friend of Bo Sakaguchi who was a dentist, [inaudible] And they... I don't know, he does a lot of traveling that I heard. But while in camp he got drafted and he was in the tank destroyer and went to Germany just sometime in the early part of 1945. And when he came back he says, "I'm lucky." I said, "How come you're lucky?" He says, "The tank destroyers were specifically made to go after the Tiger tanks in Germany." And he says, "We could out fire 'em but we didn't have the armor." He said, "We'd get in a battle with 'em," then he said, "that was the end of us." So he said they used to try to hit and run. So, but I guess he's doin' fine because they're doin' a lot of traveling and things. But actually the only time I saw him was at my other brother Yoshihito's funeral. But I haven't seen him since.

RP: And you had a, you had one sister, Misato?

JO: Yeah. One sister, Misato. She's the oldest in the family. They call her Mich.

RP: What do you remember about her?

JO: Well, she's the one that got married in camp. She would... had the one boy and he, during the Vietnam War, since I was in the navy, he decided he was gonna go in the navy and he was in the navy. He's now retired and lives in Las Vegas. She's still lives down there in that house which she moved into in 1951 or '52, all by herself.

RP: Where does she live again?

JO: In, Sun Valley over where Roscoe used to be. But it's Sun Valley now. So she's still there. I haven't talked to her for about a month. She and I communicate quite a bit but lately it's just sort of dropped off. And she's doing fine I think.

RP: What do you remember most about your father and maybe you could share some of the things that, maybe values or lessons that you picked up from him.

JO: Well, there isn't really too much that I... I know when I got out of line he used to chase me with a two-by-four but I could outrun him. But that was a lot... I wasn't, like you say, that close to him. I was closer to my mother than to him and, because he, I don't know, the way he was or what it was. My older brothers might be closer. I know the one that was, Yoshihito, was close to him. But I wasn't. It depends. I don't know. He had no favoritism or anything like that. But he was, he really calmed down a lot after we went to camp. He really calmed down. And so, but, there wasn't too much communication between us.

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2010 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.