Densho Digital Archive - Mika Hiuga Interview (denshovh-hmika-01-0015)

<Begin Segment 15>

AC: Then so after, so you got a leave to go to Salt Lake City to go and study business. How long were you on leave and how long did it take you to get that degree?

MH: Okay. While I was still going to school in Salt Lake, my folks had gone home. The camp closed.

AC: Oh, so this is at the end of the war?

MH: After the war. A peace was signed in August, and the government says in December of this '45, you must all leave. Okay. That caused a problem for many of the people. They didn't know where to go. Many of the people rented land in California and Washington, and I don't know about Oregon, but they didn't know whether to go back to see if they could farm or not. And so if, it really was a problem, problem to leave home, but this time, problem to where to go. I know there was a big processing plant in Seabrook, New Jersey, who took a lot of Japanese over there. My friends, some of my friends went there. If you had relatives in some of the towns, then you would go there. So they had to decide where to go, and my in-laws, I wasn't married at that, my in-laws came here because they had a friend who was here. So when my husband was in the MIS also before I married him when he came back here. This is where I got married in Hood River, but this is where I lived. And like I told you, I've lived here more years than I did when I grew up.

AC: So you, one of your older brothers went back to your place in Hood River?

MH: Uh-huh.

AC: Which one was that, out of the service?

MH: Uh-huh.

AC: So he was discharged?

MH: Yeah. All my brothers came home. So two of my older brothers has passed on. My brother above me has passed on. I have a younger brother that passed on. Out of eight, we have three left. I am the oldest, and I have a brother-in-law, but he had a sister in Coos Bay.

AC: So he came back. He opened up the farm. What, and then your parents went back to the place after. Then you were still going to school?

MH: So I went back.

AC: After school or, so did you finish school?

MH: After Salt Lake, I went back to Hood River because my brother said, "I think I'm going to be drafted. You better come home." So when he was drafted, I wasn't, I didn't know too much about orcharding or anything. Dad did, so it was kind of hard. I had to take care of the expenses. I had to write the checks. It was kind of hard for me, but good experience.

AC: So this was your older brother who was drafted? He had served in the military before?

MH: No.

AC: No. This is the one who was --

MH: Second brother.

AC: Second brother.

MH: My oldest brother was in or still in there. Then my second brother was 4-C. They made him 1-A.

AC: Tell me about him. So all of a sudden, now, they were going to form the 442nd, and he was drafted into the army?

MH: Uh-huh.

AC: Do you know what his, what happened to him?

MH: I really haven't followed, he was, I don't think he was in the 442nd, I don't think he was. But anyway, he and my younger brother both were drafted, went into the army.