<Begin Segment 14>

MR: And how long did you stay in Denver?

HY: Well, I was in Denver from September of '42, and I left I think in August of '45.

MR: Did you graduate from college in Denver?

HY: Yes and no. See, I got accepted to the Hahnemann Medical College in 1945, so I started, matriculated at Hahnemann in 1945, September. And after what, in those days, after one year in your graduate school, that year is applied to your college, so they retroactively apply one year of medical school to the college, so I got my college diploma in 1946 when I was attending medical school in 1945. So it was kind of funny, but that's the way they did it in those days, I just threw out my college diploma by the way. I said, "What am I going to do with this anymore?"

MR: Don't tell your children that you did that.

HY: Pardon?

MR: Don't tell your children that you did that.

HY: Oh, well, what would they do with it?

MR: At the end of the war, let's just kind of place where was everybody at the end of the war.

HY: At the end of the war, this is 1945. Okay. Let's start from the top. My father was still at the Santa Fe alien detention camp. He didn't get out until January of '46. My mother at the end of war was in Denver. And then Chop.. oh, he was, he and Miki and Joan and they had a new baby by then because in December of '45, well, this is '45, no '44, I'm sorry. December '44, they had a new child, Tom. He was born in Ontario, Oregon. So they were in a little tiny place called Fruit Land, Oregon. Min was in '45, Min was in Chicago. He went back to Chicago after he got out of camp. Roku was in Japan in the occupation army. Wait a minute, Michi? Michi was back in Denver, back in Denver. She was married by then too. Michi... then Roku was in the occupational army. Shu, Shu was in medical school, Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia. I was in the School of Medicine in Hahnemann in Philadelphia, and Yuka was just graduated, let's see. I think she just graduated from South High School in Denver. That's, oh, my aunt and uncle, Uncle Dotso, was in Minidoka. They just got release from Minidoka.

MR: And what finally prompted your father's release?

HY: What finally, end of the war, six months later, five months later.

MR: Did he just get out because the war ended, or did they have to go through any --

HY: I think so. One thing they had, the Justice Department had a big expatriation, repatriation program, but my father always refused to sign that. He said, "No, I don't want to be expatriated or repatriated." So he always refused that, so they had to decide what to do with these thousands of Issei at the end of the war. Most of them, most of them were released unconditionally. Some I think, I heard, were released on parole, but most of them were on unconditional release. But you got to remember, war ended in August, and a lot of these men like my father was not released until five, six months later in January of '46. So he was unconditionally released.

MR: Did anyone return to Hood River?

HY: Oh yeah, approximately half of the people, oh, you mean my family?

MR: In your family, yes.

HY: Oh, the only one that returned in the family from my family was Chop and his family. By that time, he had three kids. So there's Chop and his wife Miki and then Joan and Tom and Phillip. They're the only ones of the Yasuis to ever return to the valley. They're still there. Well, Chop and Miki are dead of course, but the children are still there.

MR: Then where did, where did your parents go after that?

HY: Well, they stayed in Denver for a month or two wondering what to do. And then they moved to Portland, Oregon, and they stayed the rest of their lives in Portland from 19, sometime in 1946 until they died.

MR: So then now you're in Philadelphia?

HY: Oh, at that time?

MR: At the end of the war.

HY: Oh, yeah.

MR: They're in Portland; you're in Philadelphia?

HY: Right, right.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.