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Play MovieTranscription below by: Jessica M (2010)
Edited transcription by: Joseph Werhan (intern)
Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org
The Trip to Manzanar
What do you remember about the day that you left to go to Manzanar?
They came around in a truck with one of these [gestures signifying a cover] and the soldier had the bayonet on the end of his rifle, and that's it. We got on there and they took us to a staging area right down near the harbor. Then they walked us on to the ferry that they rented out and that went directly to Seattle.
Could you describe that scene a little bit more? Who else was there? Who was watching? How many people were there? Describe that a little bit more, that point of getting on to the ferry.
Say we're fifty families, maybe there were about 200, in the family, with all the kids and all. Then some of the people took off from school—our classmates took off from school—and they came to the staging area and they said our goodbyes there. There were a couple—about eight guys that used be on either the basketball team or the football team—that came to say goodbye to the staging area and they said goodbye to us. Then they took the regular commercial ferry and they were in Seattle, and they saw us when we were on the train when they put us on the train to go to Manzanar. We were looking out and here's these guys from Bainbridge, following it down all the way down the tracks there on Railroad Avenue.
How did that make you feel?
Oh, it made us feel great. As it turned out, some of them volunteered for the Army and the Marine Corps and the Navy. They were the ones that really defended us, even during the time to come back. Several wrote letters to the editor.
Did you go to Manzanar with friends or companions besides your family?
Yes, all of them. I knew all the people on Bainbridge Island because my mother was a teacher there. In a way they were our friends and our neighbors. Since we were the first ones—first family group to be evacuated, escorted by the Army. After that, you got the whole 120,000 Japanese on the West Coast that got put in the camp. I think actually we got better treatment too. They gave us a good train to be honest, they had a diner and all that. After that, all the people never got anything like that. They got old cars with sandwiches and so on.
Was the journey comfortable?
It was, yes. It was a new experience for me and a lot of us. We were country folks out there in Bainbridge Island. I didn't go to Seattle more than maybe twice a year. When school would start in about September, I would go to Seattle and do my shopping. Otherwise, I would use the Sears catalogue and they would just deliver it. Some of the others—there were a couple families—one fellow that had a jewelry shop in Seattle. He would go in Monday, and then stay all week and come back on Friday.
So not the daily commute the way you described?
No, now they can go back and forth in thirty-five minutes. It's a bedroom community where people have their homes on Bainbridge Island. They drive their car to the parking lot, then take the ferry and then walk to their office. The homes have suddenly gotten up there about like San Francisco.
[during tape change]
I used to be able to talk, now I can't even get a sentence out correctly, it really is a...
Is it painful?
No, it's, my head doesn't work right. Not thinking.
We're not noticing it.
Oh, boy, you people are so kind. Jessica, your letters are so polite!
Thank you.
