<Begin Segment 20>

SG: And you had mentioned that your girlfriend was in the same camp. Was that, you were dating before you went to --

GA: Yes.

SG: And it's just coincidental you ended up at the same camp?

GA: What's that?

SG: It's coincidental that you ended up at the same camp?

GA: Yes, that's right. We could have been separated.

SG: What did you do for dates at the camp with your girlfriend?

GA: We couldn't do much. We'd just go out for walks. That's all I remember, just going out for walks, not much that we can do there, no privacy. I left the camp in April of '43, so I didn't spend too much time there.

SG: Where did you go in April?

GA: I went to Ohio, Ohio. I went to work for a battery manufacturing company, automobile battery manufacturing company in Dayton, Ohio, as a laborer. I worked there until September, and then I decided to come back to Idaho to get married, which I did.

SG: How were you able to find a job at the factory?

GA: There were, the War Relocation Authority had different, had offices in different cities trying to find jobs for Japanese Americans, and they were the ones that found this job for me and some other Japanese Americans, War Relocation Authority, a government agency.

SG: So how you, how would... you would apply through the camps?

GA: Yes. We had applied, before I left the camp, I had applied through the war, it's called WRA to find a job, and this is one of those that came up.

SG: And you said you were there briefly, and what happened after that?

GA: In September, I decided to come back to Idaho to get married.

SG: And you stayed in camp?

GA: No. I came back, got married, and started to work for a meat packing plant in Twin Falls, Idaho, and I was working there when I got hurt and landed in the hospital. And then I was living in Twin Falls, Idaho, at the time, and since I couldn't work, I went back into camp. I stayed there, I forgot how many months I stayed there. And since, when I got well, I got a job at the Tooele Ordinance Depot in Tooele, Utah, as an accountant at the ordinance depot, and I was there until 1946 when I decided to come back to Portland.

SG: It sounds like your injury at the meat packing plant was pretty severe.

GA: No. I got an infection, infection I think it was, so that's what landed me in the hospital. Yeah, it was an infection. That's why I landed in the hospital.

SG: So the government allowed you and your wife to live outside of the camp at that time?

GA: Oh, yes, yes, like we, since I couldn't work, I decided to go back into camp work, live off the government which I did for some months until I got this job in Tooele, Utah.

SG: And how did you find that job?

GA: I'm sure through the government, through the employment offices of the camp there. And since I was a veteran at that time, I was able to work in the office there whereas some of the Japanese Americans were working there were there to get their permit and I didn't need that. So anyway, I got to work there as an office worker.

SG: I was curious how you were able to live out and you said you lived in Twin Falls with your wife when you worked. Was it easy for Japanese families to live outside the camp, still considered in the west?

GA: Yes, yes. There was no known discrimination. I don't, I have, I didn't hear about any, so we, we both worked. I can't remember what she did now, but she was working, also working at Twin Falls. This was my first wife. This is my second wife here. My first wife died, 1974.

SG: Did you have to have a special permit to live outside camp at that time?

GA: I don't think so. I don't recall any.

SG: So there wasn't any special paperwork?

GA: No, no.

SG: And when did you decide to move back to Portland?

GA: 1946, 1946.

SG: Is that, how did you decide at that time to move back?

GA: A friend of mine who had been visiting Portland stopped by to see me on his way back home to the east, west, Midwest and he told me about this insurance company that was looking for a Japanese American agent, so I thought I'd go back and look into it and I did and decided to take it and came back to Portland. That was June of 1946.

SG: When did they start allowing Japanese to return to Portland?

GA: They started allowing Japanese to return to Portland about December of 1944. I didn't know that at the time, but I heard that some people had returned in December of 1944 even before the war had ended.

SG: And when did they disbanded Camp Minidoka?

GA: I don't remember the exact month, but it was 1945. I think even before the war ended, I think.

SG: Were your mom and sister still living there?

GA: No. They were living, my mother was living with us in Utah. My mother and father had come to live with us in Utah where I was working at Tooele Ordinance Depot. My sister had moved, had married and gone back East.

SG: So your entire family was out of the camps?

GA: Yes, yes.

SG: And do you know why the government was looking for a Japanese American agent to work in the insurance agent at that time?

GA: The government wasn't looking; a company was. Oh, I'm sure, this company had been very successful in Hawaii with Japanese American agents, so apparently that's why he wanted some Japanese American to come back to Portland to enter the Portland market where there was some Japanese Americans returning at that time. I'm sure that's why he was looking for a Japanese American.

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2003 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.