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GH: But things were really happening rapidly, and then the notice of evacuation came on, I think, in February sometime. And in a very short time, Dad had to take care of the business end itself, but fortunately for my family, he was never picked up. And I never could find out the real reason why he wasn't picked up because he was active in a lot of these things, but there might have been informers that attended this meeting and my dad might have said something that was more pro-U.S. than showing too much sympathy and support for Japan. Anyway, he never did get the right answer, but we went as a family whereas a lot of the families were minus their fathers, and we reported in at Portland Assembly Center, rode a cab there, and we got there with what we could carry. And the moment we went through the gates, that was shut, and we entered into another phase of life. We're given number, given stall, and we were all stunned. We didn't acclimatize to the new surroundings, totally abnormal, and we had time. We would sit around and gaze up at the high ceilings of the, and looked over and ate, went to your bedrooms; and although they were compartmentalized, we were cramped together. We had communal shower and toilets, and the Issei women especially weren't used to that kind of, you know, communal togetherness. And the food was different. They had a Japanese cook, but they had them prepare what was given to them. And I'm trying to think... one thing that was popular down south was, we never tasted, I can't think of it right now, but that came out and they were serving, even the cooks didn't know how to serve that, and we got used to it.

And for me, it was, after a while it got sort of exciting with a new atmosphere or a new beginning and met more Nisei kids not only from North Portland that we knew through basketball, but kids, more kids from other areas and even from Washington from far away as Wapato, and these Japanese under the same circumstance, sort of feeling of comfort and security being with other Japanese even though you were all locked. But I think the thing that wore on me is the fact that we lost the freedom. We weren't free to walk out of the gate and go get milkshake downtown, and each person was assigned some kind of a job, and I marvel at some of the innovative Niseis.

Anyway, most of my friends got jobs from the athletic department, you know, building basketball courts, supervising games, softball diamonds outside. But again, I went by myself and found new friends, and we got to know each other, and one thing led to another, and I became a timekeeper. And I don't know the value of timekeeping when the top wages were eighteen dollars or sixteen dollars or whatever it was, but we'd go about two or three times a day to make sure there were, they were doing the things they were supposed to do. I got to know what the camp, you know, what made the camp work; the cooks, the waiters, the firemen, the policemen, the electrician, the athletic work, the mail clerk, and I got to know the older Niseis who were part of the, was main part of the timekeepers. They were doing the same thing, and Bob Takami was one of the, you know, real active student leaders that Lincoln High School, was the head timekeeper, and he was in the older group, and I marveled at his way of thinking. And one of the projects that occurred in timekeeping was they created a little room in the back, and we had room to build rooms in because we took the Henry Thealey space, and they had sort of a two-story arrangement, and what they finally built was a little crap-shooting room complete with a door and a sliding thing, you know, to see who's there, and this was lined with a wool blanket, L-shaped, with the blanket against the wall, and that was first class. And they let me watch, and I learned the game of 4, 5, 6 called shi go ro, shi go ro, marvelous game; the American version is Ship Captain and Crew. You learned to gamble. They never allowed us younger guys to gamble, but we could watch. It was an education, you know, and they treated us like younger brothers. And I remember when we left camp to go to Minidoka, the wiser people that I listened to would give me pointers on how to get along, you know. One was don't gamble, coming from a bunch of gamblers; second, don't get mixed up with any bad hakujin women. And with those axioms, you know, yeah, okay, we went to Minidoka.

And so camp life was exciting. Well, I knew, when I realized that our freedom was taken away, I was thinking of ways to get out, get back to more normal, and one of the ways was to apply for school. I finally did graduate from high school. They had ceremony for people like myself that couldn't finish grade school or high school or even college. They had a graduation ceremony, and I got chosen to be valedictorian, and I think I forgot when I said that I was full of hope and enthusiasm. Maybe, you know, I don't know if I believed any of what I said in the speech. I forgot what I said, but they had a ceremony. It was a substitute, and it was better than nothing. Anyway, played on a basketball team, got to know other people especially girls from other places. I went to dances for them, and we had competitive basketball, played with the lack of freedom. The fact that we were like in a zoo, on Sundays, people in cars would come around, you know, like a zoo and some of us would stand by the barbed wire, you know, they point out the, some men were playing, you know, baseball there. They got it good. So anyway, we felt like, you know, we're in a zoo or something, so I stayed away from the barbed wire near the highways. Anyway, I was ready to go on to the next phase and that was going to Minidoka. They loaded us into a UP cars, you know.

<End Segment 10> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.