<Begin Segment 4>

AC: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was bombed?

KT: I was on this farm, and we stayed there until we really had to evacuate to an internment camp at, what do you call that, Multnomah... the Oregon, Portland Livestock Expo building, where we went.

AC: Where were you when you heard the news?

KT: Well, I happened to go to Los Angeles, and on my way home on the train I got glimpse of that, "War on." I came home, I went down there to a lady that had a flower, and so she said, "Come on down that way and look it over." And that's when the war broke out, and I was on the train, but nothing was, it was kind of calm, but the war was on. I'm Japanese, see, but I came home on that, right at December the 7th, on the train, and that was right in the wintertime. And so when that happened, well, then, everything died off.

AC: What were your feelings at the time when you heard the news?

KT: Well, really didn't know too much about what... you know, the older generation might have thought a little heavier, but at that time, at that age, you really don't take it serious. Today, a ten or fifteen year old kid is about like when I was maybe twenty years old. You can't compare. So I really didn't think too much. Then as we came home, then there was exclusion, you know, you can't go out, this and that. Well, that really did everything, it just depressed.

AC: How did you, did it make you feel depressed?

KT: Well, yeah, well, you couldn't go nowhere, there was nothing... but my neighbors were very good, very fortunate to have good neighbors. And that happened to be one of the things that helped me, 'cause they had all the equipment, my neighbors took care of it, and some of the neighbors wouldn't take Japanese because, oh, you got Japanese, you would kind of favor 'em. So they were kind of... it isn't that they were scared of, 'cause you were kind of defending the Japanese, see, so there was people like that. It was quite tough right after war. But fortunately, my neighbor was very good, and took care of the tractors, so when I started, I brought the equipment over here to farm, and that helped a lot, 'cause there was no equipment to buy. Then I had good friends and businesspeople, landlords over there that... one of 'em was very good, he was a German. And he told me, he said, "I was in the First World War, he said, "I was shooting at my brother." Because he had a brother in Germany. And this is the same thing with the Japanese, I'm sure of that. You're shooting at your own brother, the relatives are all there. It's kind of sad, when I heard that, oh, gosh, then here this happened to us Japanese. So one of those things that we'll never forget, it's just the history that we will have to talk about. But that's the way it was, the First World War was just like, all right, my attorney over there said, "This is ridiculous. You're gonna sue the government for doing this." I had leased the place out, you know, and then I had a good neighbor to take over the farm, so that's how I kept it going. So we still have that real estate over there, and my sister, so I'm the executive heir of that, so I said, "No, I'm too old," so my son, he's taking care of it. So I said, "Let's split that all five ways." It was mine to start with, but it's okay. And I have a Japanese attorney that's taking care of that. But that's the way it was, and we still have some property over there, so it'll be in the heirs.

AC: How long did you know, when you received your notice to evacuate, how many days did you have to pack up?

KT: Well, this evacuation took in December, and the war opened right away then. And so when we moved from December, it was the next May. We had our crops growing already when we left for the "assembly center" there in Portland. It was around about between the fifth, eighth or tenth of May. And the Gresham people, they all had to go, I was out towards Milwaukie, Clackamas, you've heard of... so we all had to go. Not at one time, but there was a different area. So that's... and then the fellow that took over the place knowing that we had to go, why, he did a very good job. He's a Caucasian, and they were just a man and wife, they were neighbors, and they were, they had kind of a livestock and farm and they took over, 'cause they know about farming. So took them over to the market and had some training before we left, so they did a good job. But we left everything for them. Crops were growing and the money was all there, so there was no more income to us. But we did have the landlord that had, we were buying the property, so he was very good. He was a greenhouse man, he was an Englishman, and very wealthy, and he's the one that built those greenhouse down in the Willamette Valley, Thompson, that's the name, they're all gone now. And they built our greenhouse, and greenhouses is all gone now. It's out on my farm now over there. But they're all gone. We were lucky that he was very honest about it and took care of everything. So he also said, "This is ridiculous."

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.