<Begin Segment 16>

JC: How do you think your experience has differed from families who did end up in a camp? What kind of, do you think that's influenced your outlook?

SN: I think so. I don't blame anyone being very bitter of being put into a concentration camp. I mean, there is no way that you can say that the person was happy being in there, incarcerated in a very bad place. Mary, my wife, says the sandstorm and so on, just the food was such a horrible... it really was a bad experience, you know, and she was so glad she was able to get out of there, but her sisters stayed there. The brothers eventually came out afterward, out of the camp, but the mother and father stayed there right to the end until they closed the camp and then moved to, back to Los Angeles.

JC: Why did some people leave and some people stay in the camps?

SN: I think if you want to go out to work or something like that, you were able to do it, leave. I think most, I think you got a place to go to and so on, I guess outside of the California area, I think it's all right, but a lot of the people just stayed. I think that that would be something to ask those people who stayed and ask, "Why did you stay when you could have gotten up and moved somewhere else?"

JC: When you were talking about your family moving, what kind of reaction was there among, with the Caucasians in the community? Were people saying, you know, "Get out of here," to you personally or were they saying, "Look we'll do anything we can to help you," did people offer help or only --

SN: I can't remember, but I think there were -- our clerk that worked for my father for years was very helpful. Her name was Saunders, Mrs. Saunders, Mr. Saunders. Mrs. Saunders was an accountant, and she worked in the store. And I didn't bring this up, but she, we let her run the store like her own store, made money off the store and did very well because, you know, and then with the promise that when we came back that she will give the store back to us, and that's what she did, just the store. I think my father was, he was always very nice to her and to the help there. And so she was very nice for the four years, ran the store until we returned.

JC: So once again, your connection, your close connection to the American community benefitted you during that time because you had someone you could trust.

SN: Right. I'm quite sure that it was good that she kept it and then, you know, people who leasing the property to us allowed us to keep the store there.

JC: Was that unusual?

SN: Well, a lot of places, I'm quite sure a lot of people kicked out their tenants, took it away, then rented to other people. I'm quite sure that went on.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.