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SG: You had mentioned that when your family was forced to evacuate, you could only take what you carried. Do you remember what items you and your family took?

GK: I haven't the slightest idea. I can't remember. There were some bags and old suitcases and bags, and I know there was a toothbrush in there someplace. But beyond that, there was some bedding that we had to take and some eating utensils, but I can't remember specifically the items that we took. There were shirts and underclothes and things like that.

SG: Do you remember your feelings and feelings maybe of your family at that time?

GK: Well, it was, everybody was in a dilemma, you know. We knew we were going to this strange place. We had no idea what it was going to be like. But once we were there, we adapted, and we didn't know for how long. Or actually, we never answered the question, why, why is this happening to us? And the answer that we kept coming up with, we're American citizens and our rights are guaranteed by the Constitution, and so how can all this happen? And those answers were never clear. They became clear years later when we looked into the reasons why all of these happened. And, but at that time, it was a real dilemma and, especially for the families whose fathers were picked up by the FBI right after Pearl Harbor of the, FBI picked up the fathers of many of the families around town. And I know we were on the telephone most of the day, trying to find out whose father was picked up. But if any time we asked the question, well, why was he picked up, no answer, or where did they take him, they didn't know, or when was he coming back, they didn't know. They just seemed to disappear. And if you think about how the families felt, how the children felt and how the mothers felt, it was a real trying time for many, many families.

I know Pearl Harbor was on a Sunday. And so the day after Pearl Harbor, my dad had to go down to his work in Japantown to his importing/exporting business where his responsibility was the vegetables, the fruits and vegetables, the grocery section. And he called on Monday, and he said, "Well, the FBI are here, and they said that we won't be coming home tonight. We have to sleep in the store." And I thought, oh, gee, that's a rough place to sleep. What are the guys going to eat, apples and bananas and things like that. And we thought, well, it can't be helped. Many of the parents are being picked up and taken away. And then he called the next day and says, "Well, they say we have to stay for another day," and this went on for three days. And finally on the third day, they let him come home, so he came home. He still wasn't sure whether they were going to pick him up later. So once he got home, he grabbed his suitcase, and he threw some of his shirts and clothing in there, and that suitcase was right by the door ready to just pick up and go if they came after him. But he may have been disappointed because they never did come after him. Of course, we were happy because we stayed together as a family unit when we went to the assembly center and to, eventually to the internment camp.

SG: You must have been, you and your family must have been worried and scared.

GK: Well, yeah, mostly because we just didn't know what was going to happen to us. Were they going to shoot us, or are they going to send us all to Japan, and we can't even speak Japanese properly. And all we knew is we're losing all of our inventory, all of the assets that my parents worked for, for twenty years had to be gotten rid of. Most Japanese families didn't own property because the alien land law, and so they had, they couldn't hold onto their property. They just had to take everything that was in their property and dump it someplace or sell it or give it away and take off. So it was really an unsettling time, but it was surprising. We got to the assembly center, and here, we're all living in these trying conditions, this great big building. And all of a sudden, which used to hold horses and sheep and cows, now became a little city of over 3000 people, and they had to feed all 3000 people three times a day. So the assembly center became a little city within a few days. And most of it was under the control of the evacuees, and so everybody chipped in and made the best of it. Again, they stuck it out, did their best, shrugged their shoulders and said it can't be helped. This is the way it is. Right or wrong, this is the way it is. They all pitched in. So when you look at the pictures of the assembly center, you don't find a lot of sadness or despair, you know. People are smiling. People are doing their best at whatever task that they're assigned to. It's amazing. I'm proud of the ethnic group.

SG: What did, how did your parents, what did they do with their property?

GK: Well, my mother was running this grocery store. Of course, she couldn't own the store itself. She just owned the inventory. And as soon as word came out that we had to get rid of the inventory and everything, people came around to the stores, trying to buy it for a penny, and it became very distressing. So we had all these counters as well as the inventory and the coolers and all of that stuff. They finally sold it for a song to one of our best customers rather than sell it to these people who were trying to buy it for nothing. And that's how, then most of our pots and pans and furniture, I think it all went up to the Goodwill or to friends or the garbage. But we managed to get rid of a lot of the things. Some of the things, we had some valuable, for instance, dolls. They had these little Japanese dolls or dolls of samurai on horses and spearing tigers, quite valuable. And we found a place to store them, and they all disappeared during the war. So when we came back, we couldn't retrieve any of them, but that's the way it was.

SG: Was there something of value to yourself that you had to leave behind?

GK: Well, yeah. The year before, I delivered newspapers, the Japanese newspaper for three months and made ten dollars a month. So I ended up the summer with thirty dollars, and I wanted this bicycle so bad that my dad chipped in an additional eight dollars, and I went out and bought a thirty-eight dollar Columbia bicycle, a beautiful bicycle with front wheel brakes and balloon tires. And with that bicycle, for a whole year, I was able to travel from Southeast Portland to Japantown in Northwest Portland in a matter of minutes, and it was the greatest thing I ever owned. So I could go see my friends very easily and quickly with this bicycle. And just after owning it for a year, I had to sell it all of a sudden, and I missed my bicycle. And so eventually, when we got our redress payments of twenty thousand dollars, I think back, and I think well, George, what did you lose? And I think I lost my bicycle, and I got twenty thousand dollars for it. [Laughs]

<End Segment 5> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.