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LT: Can you talk about how the rest of your family went to the assembly center and where you went and what you thought when you got there?

DS: We went to Puyallup Assembly Center, and they were just all barracks. They were just rooms. And we all were issued cots and mattresses, I think, and we just slept there. All our meals were at the mess halls, and it was, the showers, they were all outside. They were outdoor lavatories, which we in the city never experienced anything like that. I think country people may have, but I thought surely life was very different. But this is what we had to do. We had neighbors, these rooms had open ceilings. And I think, I can't remember now, but they probably were six rooms in one unit. And we were herded in like sheep. I mean, we ate at the mess hall, we did this, we just... people. And then I think that was in April of '42 that we went. And I think in August we were sent to Minidoka, I'm pretty sure. But life was very different. And I think one thing that happened was the family was not a family anymore. Because the kids would eat with their friends, and the family never was like a family unit, and I think that carried on into Minidoka, too, where we went to eat, but we went to eat with friends, not family. So I think they destroyed the family life. You were with your friends more than you were with your family. It was just a... those barracks were just a place where we slept. We ate at mess halls, we did everything in the, out of our rooms, so I think what the war did to us then was destroy us as a family.

LT: What did you and your family need to do to keep in touch when you weren't eating the regular family meal where you talked about your day?

DS: I think the only time was when we were in our room to sleep, or in the morning where you're still, when we got up. And my brother would go his way with his friends, and we had our friends, but I think we stayed closer, us girls, than my brother did, 'cause he was always with his friends. But I think the family as a unit, they just lost touch. Like I say, we were there to sleep, and then to get up in the morning, but then we had our activities or friends to play with. And I think my sisters and I kept closer because we were girls, and my brother was a guy and he went with his friends. So I think that's what happened. I think it stayed the same in Minidoka, too.

LT: So what do you think about your... so the kids spent more time with their friends. What about your parents in terms of the family unit? So if they weren't with the family, how were they spending their time?

DS: I think they spent it with their lady friends, like my mother would gossip with their friends. We still kept, we didn't isolate ourselves from my mother. We always saw her and took care of her, that whatever she had to do was important to us to take care of her. So we still saw my mother and conversed with her, and we were there with her all the time. Not all the time, not twelve hours a day, but we were always with her, that she was our primary, we had to worry about her well-being, and we took care of her. So as a family unit, eating and all that, we didn't... I don't think I ever ate with my mother. But I think she probably ate with her lady friends. But that was about the extent of it.

LT: Okay, and then how did your father spend his time, stepfather?

DS: My stepfather had passed away before the war started, too.

<End Segment 8> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.