<Begin Segment 11>

TR: So in April of 1942, the notification started going up in other places in the Western Defense Zone that persons of Japanese ancestry would have to assemble. Did you know people who had to go to assembly centers at that time who might have lived in other parts of Oregon or Washington?

AN: Yes.

TR: Did you have any communication with them at that time?

AN: Oh, I know Tom's family was from Seattle. That's my husband Tom. They were from Seattle, and they went to Minidoka, and I know Jimmy Sakamoto was a relative. He was Tom's sister's husband, and he had written for the paper, the Japanese paper in the assembly center where they met in fair, they had the fair in, what is that name of that place, where they had the fairs over in Seattle?

TR: Puyallup?

AN: Maybe, I don't know. It's some of those towns. But anyway, he had written this letter, written an editorial, and I still have it. My son-in-law found that recently on the internet, and it tells that we're having a hard time now, but we need to cooperate. And it was a very fine editorial, and I thought it was just a, really a wonderful thing. Then he also had written, he had written to President Roosevelt how they, let's see, what was it that they, they wanted to take away the citizenship, our citizenship, but he wrote a very eloquent letter about that. They did not, it didn't come to a vote to take our citizenship away, but it was getting to that point. I still have the letter that he wrote to the president, I mean a copy of that letter. There's a lot going on that we don't know about that we don't hear about, haven't heard.

TR: You mentioned your husband. How did you meet your husband and when did you get married?

AN: Oh, he was related to some friends of ours, the Kichikas, Mr. Fuji's brother, the Kichikas, so I've known him for quite a while, just, he was even in the area in Nampa at that time. And then we were married while he was with the 442 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

TR: What year was that?

AN: Oh, dear, I don't know. It was during the war.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2004 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.