Densho Digital Archive - Sab Akiyama Interview (denshovh-asab-01-0013)

<Begin Segment 13>

LT: So you left camp to work. Can you talk about school and leaving camp and what you did afterward?

SA: Well, in 1943, WRA was trying to have more people relocate so they can close the camp, you know. But... so I quit high school in '43, because I was told I had enough credit, and gave me a diploma. Then in early '44, spring of '44, we went to... we went to Montana to work. There was about four of us near Great Falls on Sun River. That was a little different experience. But then we came back in '44, no, fall. Came back to camp fall of '43. And that's where I met Grandpa for the first time after a long time. He was back in camp.

LT: And this was at Minidoka, is that right?

SA: Minidoka, right. Yeah. I left Tule Lake to go to work and came back, the family had moved to Minidoka, right.

LT: So what do you recall about your first meeting with your father after he had been in the DOJ camp?

SA: You know, that's a funny thing. I didn't have any big emotional feeling. I mean, we'd been separated since 1941, and with camp life, I think the family composition was kind of breaking down. You didn't have the unity like you used to before. You depended on each other for food and whatever, you know. Because camp life, you're becoming more independent because you were fed, room and board, so I think the family composition was kind of disintegrating. But when we were first seeing Dad after a long time, we didn't have any emotional feeling, 'cause I never was too emotional, I guess. It was nice, but that was about it.

LT: What did he say about his experiences, what did you learn about what he had been through?

SA: What he'd been through? We didn't talk much about it, his internment times. I know he did a lot of, kind of woodcarving he brought back, you know. I think there's something down at the port where they had the Japanese exhibit. But family feeling was really changing, to me, in a way, because, like I say, you're getting board and room and you're not depending on each other anymore, you know. I think it's kind of a breakdown of a family unity.