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[camp overview - inserted from page 1]
I
had just finished high school, started San Jose State when December
7th came along. I had started college, but in those days it
was a quarter system. I had just gone one quarter and started the
next and decided I couldn't, well, the executive order came out that
we had to be leaving, and so then I left the family and went back to
live with my mother. The family that I stayed with, they were wonderful. They were just like family, they treated me like family. So that when
we go off to camp, oh they thought maybe if they knew someone in the
Midwest maybe I could go there, but they didn't. My school teacher thought
of this too, and my mother did too. She had a friend in Salt Lake City,
and thought maybe we could go there, but her friend said there was
nothing for her there, for her to be able to support her family. So
we just have to go along with whatever is going to happen to us. So
this is why then we just pack up then and go into camp. That time then
my mother had married this man who had children, by then he had a son,
a daughter who was married and had a child, and a younger son who was
about my age.
There were nine of us sent off to the Assembly Center. This was in
Pomona Assembly Center, which was, I said, on the Los Angeles County fairgrounds. Their parking lot. That's where we were. A group from San Jose
was sent there, so we were there. So there were nine of us in one room.
Then my mother got sick, and my sister and I thought we didn't like
that set up with my stepfather and his family. They had a social
service agency within the camp. We appealed to them and said
we would really like to separate, and by the time we moved to Heart
Mountain, Wyoming we had our own unit. We took my mother and my sister
and I. We had a little end room in the barrack in Heart Mountain.
So that's camp, going from Pomona then to Heart Mountain.
Has
anybody told you what it was like traveling from an assembly center
to the relocation area? Where we went on an old train, five days or more, every time you come to a city you have to pull
down the shades. It was an old train, that's all I remember. My
mother decided, I had just started college, I could be the spokesperson
for the whole car. I'm the one who told them when it was lunch time
or meal time. I think I even gathered money for a tip for the people
in the dining hall. Of course there must have been two MP's—Military
Police soldiers—assigned to each car, so that I would be talking with
them. You know I'm young then, I'm still eighteen or so, so at least
I had something to do.
Can you tell us about the train ride to Heart Mountain?
My mother decided for me that I should be sort of the go-between between the military police who were on the train, and those of us who were on the train. I think maybe there were two MPs assigned to each car. I spent more time with the MPs. They told us, "Pull the shades down,” or “Now it's time to go eat." I couldn't tell you now how many were in the car—there must have been infants as well as older ones. It must have been filled.
After
that then we traveled to Wyoming and assigned to our little room. Then
my mother still being sick, they decided she had diabetes, so she had
to have special food. She couldn't go to the mess hall that everybody
else went to. Special food was prepared for her from the hospital kitchen.
I think maybe sometimes my sister and I would go to the hospital to
get the food, and later on I think they would deliver to what we called
the mess hall. That was the dining area where we all went.
[end of insert - return to page 1]
What was the reaction of your family when you had
to be relocated? Was it sad?
We
don't know where we're going; we just have to get ready. Seems to me
that was pretty much the feeling. We have no idea where we're
going and just get ready for it and try to, what my mother did, or
I think this, I remember this, she sold the piano. Sold what
she could so she could get money so we could get clothes.
How long did they give you to pack up your
possessions?
I would say about less than a month, a couple of weeks anyway.
What are your memories of the trains going camp like?
We
were to meet at the San Jose train station and that's where we get
on to first to go on to Pomona. Then, that must have been
an all day ride. It was the ride from Pomona to Heart Mountain which
was the long one. That's all I remember. It was an old train, it could
be hot, it could be cold. I don't remember much about the food that
was served to us, but I think we went to the dining hall. We couldn't
have taken any food because we didn't have food that we could've taken
with us. It's whatever was served to us was our food. How did we sleep
for how many days and nights? Propped up I suppose, maybe we had pillows
with us. What I think now is, what did mothers do with little ones?
See I am eighteen or nineteen, so it's an adventure as it were, but
someone with family, or someone who's not well, I think they were
the ones that had the hard time. Here we are, we're going through El
Paso and now we're going through somewhere. Where are we going? We
just don't know.
Were you scared?
No, no, what was there to be afraid of? It was just we were being shipped, sent from one place
to another, another more permanent place.
Can you talk a little about how you got to camp?
Train. From the San Jose station.
What was that trip like? What do you remember about it?
Not much because I didn't want to remember. That's how I feel. I am writing about my experience right now, and I said, "I have a hard time writing about Pomona." As I think about why am I having such a difficult time, it is because when we went to Pomona, we were put into one room with my stepfather and his family. There was a daughter who was married and a child, and she was in that same room. My mother and my younger sister and I. There were nine of us in one room. So as I think back, I think why I can't write about it was because the whole experience of being put into a place like that was traumatic. Being with a family like that was traumatic, and losing all my friends. So, I think this is why I find it extremely difficult to write about that time.
When the proclamations were issued, did you recognize
the injustice?
Yes,
because I was going to San Jose State, and Saratoga was more than five miles out. I took public transportation in those days. The
bus driver said he knew where I go—went—and he said, "I can't
take you. I can't take you on this bus." I had to call the man
of the household who worked in the next town, in Santa Clara, and he
came and picked me up to take me home. Somehow we made arrangements
so that there was transportation for me to get to school and back.
There must have been special dispensations because Campbell is more
than 5 miles from San Jose where the doctors, the dentists were all.
I tell the story of I had a ticket to go hear Marian Anderson at the
Civic Auditorium in San Jose. Her concert was at night. I could not
go.
Why? Did they not let you in?
We could not go out after eight o'clock at night.
Tell them who Marian Anderson was.
Marian Anderson was a beautiful soprano, an Afro-American woman. If ever you
get a chance to hear any of her singing, you must. She want to sing at Washington
D.C. and the DAR would not allow it. So then, who was it who allowed her to
sing at the Lincoln Memorial? That's on a video somewhere.
Was it Eleanor Roosevelt?
Who allowed? Yes, who intervened. Was she the first Afro-American Opera singer?
She could be.
Was there any emotional confrontations with your family
before the camps?
No,
I think we were just busy. We know we have to go because there are
these posters that tells us what to take, gave us our directions. We
were just busy following that. I had to drop out of school, and I think
that's the hardest part.
Walking around in the street did you feel self-conscious
after the posters were put up?
No,
well see, I lived, we lived in Saratoga, which was a small community
at that time. Campbell, also, I lived on the farm. No posters, I never
saw those posters. But somebody had to because they went into town
to register us. I don't remember anything. They were told we're going
into camp for our protection and I thought, "I don't need protection."
There were signs or badges: "I'm Chinese" or "I'm
Chinese-American," just so that they wouldn't be mistaken for
Japanese. In those days there were not many—there were hardly any
Koreans—so you were either Chinese or Japanese.
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