<Begin Segment 4>

HH: At this point, the Second World War has just started. What happened to you after Executive Order 9066?

HU: Well, at the end of January, I was discharged. I think I got a job as a bus driver for the Evergreen Baptist Church, I think it was Kimiko something, day school or something. So that's what I was doing, and I had to get a license to learn how to drive a bus, and that's what I was doing. Then later on, we got this exclusion order on the telephone posts, and we were throwing away, I had a small glass, I threw that into an empty lot. Because we heard too many rumors about people having to get rid of the photographs of their relatives in Japan that had military uniforms on. But we didn't get rid of those things like that, but we heard other people had done that. And then, of course, we had to turn in our cameras. I had a box camera, I never did get it back. We took it to the closest police station. So then we had to pack and get ready for evacuation, and my father, he had a sewing machine in the shoe repair shop that, well, even before that, my father had to move his, all of his machinery and goods, and I had to rent a low bed truck because we had to take away the machinery. And then we had to take it to see the... the stitching machine was, we had to pay a royalty of five dollars a month and it didn't belong to us, I guess. So we had to take it back to the company that owned the machine and then we left all the other machinery right there. And then my father was also selling new shoes and rubber boots, you know, hip boots to the fishermen. And so we had to take them all back to Los Angeles and put 'em in the garage, and then we had to contact secondhand dealers to buy the shoes. And so we went through quite an ordeal. I think we got a pretty good price, and we got rid of all that merchandise.

HH: What was the first relocation camp you had to move to?

HU: Well, we went to the Santa Anita Assembly Center where there were about twenty thousand people there. Then we got a job there working in each district area had a post office, I worked in the post office.

HH: How many, how much time did you have to move from your home to Santa Anita?

HU: Well, I don't remember, but we had enough time, and so we had to sell off... I remember selling our gas stove, and then there were a few things that we left with our next door neighbor, who happened to, I think was a Mexican, and he kept that in his cellar for us.

HH: From Santa Anita, where did you go?

HU: Well, we went by train, you know, with military escort, all the way down to Rohwer, Arkansas.

HH: I see, okay. So you went to Arkansas. Now, prior to this time, were you affiliated with JACL?

HU: Well, I remember I was a member of JACL. I don't know whether it was Terminal Island or Los Angeles, I don't remember which one. But I remember going to the JACL office in downtown, Japantown in Los Angeles. So I think I was a member from way back then.

HH: Do you recall what motivated you to become affiliated with JACL at that time?

HU: Well, I don't know what motivated me, but I know at that time, the emphasis was becoming a better American citizen, you know, to register and vote.

HH: Mostly to, as another way of becoming an American?

HU: That's right.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 1994 JACL Philadelphia. All Rights Reserved.