Interviews with Japanese in Utah: Grace Oshita

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Grace Oshita 2-26-85 s6:32 ** in the back. Ah. One light hanging from the middle of the ceiling in each room. One window, I think. Ah. The walls were whitewashed. And if there was a coke bottle on the window sill, it was painted over. You know, sprayed over. L Really (laughs) GO Yes and some ofthe cob webs were sprayed, you could tell. Ah, the spider webs. Ah. The floor had a very dark linoleum. And you just ** knew what was under that. They must have fumigated the place but you couldnever get rid of all the smell of the stable. Ah. The walls just wentup as far as the - what were they - sheet rocks of- some kinda sheet rock paneling and so above that, it was open all the way up and down the stables. You know what they look like? L Yes, so that all the aprtments were interconnecting them. GO Yes. Up until then, we were so busy that we --Yes, there were moments like Itol ~ou when my grandmother broke down and said, I can't take it anymore. I mean, thingslike this did happen. At home. But, ** I think when we really felt the sadness, the lonliness the uncertain~y was when we finally settled down,opened the wire cots and sat on that bare wire cot and all of us just bawled. Thinking this is it. L Thatyou would stay there. GO That's right.In a horse stable. With no furniture except for that bed. ** With nothing to our name except the two stuicases each. Can you p picture it? L Someof it. I can't exactly relive it at this moment ..... GO I think that - that might have been the saddest moment of the whole evacuation. Maybe there might have been one more time when we left Ta "'.\Uio.n, the Ta~v·~-Y) Assembly Center and we were al 1 sent out here