<Begin Segment 9>

LT: So how did you learn that you and your family would be leaving Portland, or would be leaving your home and your market?

GT: Well, it pretty much is in the paper, or it's in the regular every day, telling us what we got to be doing, where we should be. Oh, yeah, they pretty well planned it out. Every day there was something about the Japanese to do this, do that, to get ready to go. Sure kept reminding us that we were subject to go anytime. And we ended up at the... I think they call it the Pacific Livestock Pavilion on North Portland. It's a big, big place now as well, it's a nice-looking place. But then, those days, they put us in a place called... it's where they gathered the livestock, where they slaughtered them, and sold on the market, but it was owned by the Swift company, S-W-I-F-T, Swift. Swift at that time was big in the meats and stuff like that, but they took those little, took those pens... oh, gee, they could have been about twelve by twelve pens, and they put plywood up in there so they couldn't look into it, but that's the home for one family. There could be six, eight, ten people, they were thrown into these little places. Until they were getting Minidoka ready, so that was what they called assembly center, so that's where they at least rounded up everybody so that they can keep an eye on the Japanese. And that was miserable living there. I don't know how long we were there, but we were there a few months.

My goodness, it was terrible where they put us, because you could still have that smell, the livestock in there. There might have been pigs in there, cows in there, but they were all slaughtered there. But for us, they cleaned everything else, swept, hosed it out, and put up plywood as they went up, but no ceiling, but just up the side with plywood all around. And that was our living quarter. But I could see that that was... seemed like everybody in the place had diarrhea. All the toilets, the restrooms, they just could not hold everybody, so people used outside the toilets, they were no shame to that. They just had to have a place to go, and that's about the whole thing. It seemed like it was one big restroom, and everybody it seemed like had diarrhea. It was miserable. But we survived while they were fixing up Minidoka. I'm trying to think what time of the year they shipped us out. It seemed like it was in, it seemed like it was the summertime that they finally got ready to ship us out.

LT: Before we move on to Minidoka, can you talk about your living accommodations and the food that you had at Portland Assembly Center?

GT: Oh, it was bad. I don't know where they found the food, but you can just imagine, so everything had to be done so quick. I'm not sure where they got this food, but we were fed a lot of fish, and I remember rice. Fish and rice, I think that was our main menu. And then a lot of stuff, I don't know where they found it, but it was food. And that's where a lot of the diarrhea came from, the kind of food they gave us. But I do remember, though, that it was mostly rice and fish, different kinds of fish. But it was not very well prepared, because everybody seemed like getting diarrhea from it, the situation.

LT: What about your living quarters?

GT: You mean in the assembly center? Well, there wasn't hardly anything. I don't know how they did it, but like I said, they had these pens. Oh, I'm going to make a guess like maybe twelve by twelve pens. And they must have had cots in there, because I don't even remember what kind of beds we had. But the whole family was thrown in one of these little pens, they called them.

LT: All six of you?

GT: Yeah, all of us, one pen per family, that's it, figure it out. So they must have had cots in there, double deckers, or whatever. But that was it. That was our living quarters.

LT: What was it like, you're an American citizen, you spoke English, you didn't have a lot of connection with Japan, the country of your parents has bombed Pearl Harbor, and you're in the middle and you're moved from your home and from your work. What kind of feelings did you have? What were you thinking?

GT: You know, Linda, when you're that young yet, I don't think there was any feeling, you just do what you're told. You're just like puppets or something like that, you just do as you're told. Because we do know that we were there for a very serious reason, but we didn't ask questions, we didn't... we just did as we were told. I don't know if we had feelings or not, but all I know is that... we had no feelings, I guess. We just do as we were told. And that's all I can tell you, because we didn't go around griping because there was no use. That's about the best I can tell you on that one.

LT: So at the assembly center, there were others your age, and you had your sisters and brothers. What kinds of things did you talk about, or what questions did you ask?

GT: Gosh, you know, that's sure funny, isn't it, I can't even remember. But I do know that that's where I did meet a lot of the Portland people. Otherwise I'd have probably never got the -- well, I'd met them in Minidoka, too, but I do remember a lot of Portland people that I've become good friends with. I don't know what we talked about, the normal stuff, I guess, that teenagers talk about. But I do know that we've become a lot of friends in there, acquaintance that... to this day, most of them are gone now, but to this day, that they were real good friends, become lifelong friends for many years.

LT: So coming from experiences where you spent more of your time with Caucasian friends and neighbors, you were now living with all Japanese Americans, so that was a switch.

GT: Oh, yes, it really was.

<End Segment 9> - Copyright © 2013 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.