<Begin Segment 7>

VO: So can you describe a little about your father's desire to go back to Japan and how that...

YM: Well, the first time that we were talking, or they were talking about repatriating, because my aunt and my uncle, they had to go back because of their visa, I guess. He was there on a trader treaty or E-2 visa, so they made all those people go back on the first Gripsholm. And then we heard that we were gonna go, and I remember giving things away and getting ready to go and then we never went. And then when we went to Idaho, they decided to go try again.

VO: Your parents decided they would like to repatriate to Japan?

YM: So in September of '43, we went to Newark, New Jersey, to get on the ship to go to Japan, and the ship was called the Gripsholm. It was the second trip of that ship, and it's a Swedish vessel flying a neutral country flag. And I heard that the ship was supposed to go from the United States to Brazil to pick up some people there, and then go around the Cape of Good (Hope), Africa, and the exchange was supposed to be made in, I think, Sierra Leone or in Goa, India. Well, I can't remember where, but was a long trip. And then you would get on the Japanese vessel there, and then you would go back to Japan.

VO: Do you remember your mother talking to you about that decision?

YM: No, except that... yeah, we didn't discuss it, he just said that we're going back to Japan.

VO: And did you feel that she also wanted to do that as well?

YM: Well, I think that my parents decided they wanted to go back because they had the two kids there, and they didn't know if the family was ever going to get back together again, although I think that was a big decision, or the decision they decided to reunite with the family.

VO: So you went to Newark. From Minidoka, you and your brother and your mother went to Newark.

YM: We went to Newark and we sat on the dock in front of the Gripsholm all day, and then that night, they told us to get on this boat, I guess it was the Coast Guard, and my mother would just, she just refused to go until she saw my dad. But they talked her into getting on the boat. No lights, and we went out in the dark waters of New York Harbor, and from some of the other people that I talked to that was there at Ellis Island, they said that there was a searchlight, and we followed the searchlight into the building and we didn't know where we were. But I got up in the morning and I looked out the window in the building and I saw the Statue of Liberty. I said, "Wow, we must be in New York Harbor." And then they told everybody to go down to breakfast, so we went down there, and there we saw my dad. And my brother would call him ojisan, meaning "uncle," because he doesn't remember my dad. I think he was three years old at that time.

VO: How long had you been separated from him?

YM: Let's see, December of '41 to September of '43, about a year and a half, I guess.

VO: What was your impression, seeing him again?

YM: Well, he looked very good. Because I think the rest must have done him good, not working. He went from Missoula to Livingston, Louisiana, and then he went to Santa Fe, New Mexico, and then we met in Ellis Island.

VO: So did you get on the boat?

YM: No. [Laughs] The Coast Guard boat, or the tugboat. We stayed there about seven days.

VO: So what happened to the Gripsholm?

YM: They sailed on without us.

VO: And do you know why?

YM: Well, I heard that it was because of the prisoner exchange number count that a bunch of us got left out.

VO: But what about your luggage?

YM: What's that?

VO: What about your luggage?

YM: Oh, our luggage? Our luggage went on the vessel, and that went to where they were going to exchange prisoners. But we got it back about six months later, all intact.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright (c) 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.