(somber piano music)
- My name is Yoji Matshushima.
I was born in Portland Oregon.
I grew up in
Old Town or in Nihonmachi
on Third and Davis Street.
That was my home.
My father was born in Okayama Japan
1899.
And my mother was born in 1909.
It was an arranged marriage.
(melancholy piano music)
My father, my uncle
both got arrested on December the 11th.
The money from the store was all confiscated.
They couldn't touch the money.
He ended up at Rocky Butte Jail
for about two weeks.
Then he was transferred to Missoula Montana,
toward the end of December.
(somber piano music)
That was taken in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
And that picture showed the group from Portland.
I believe there was about 78
that were in that picture.
They were considered POWs, enemy aliens.
(melancholy piano music)
We were separated for over two years, almost two years.
My mother and dad, through the Red Cross,
communicated.
And they decided that they were gonna repatriate to Japan,
during the war.
I had a brother and a sister in Japan.
And they wanted the family together.
And they thought that it might be better if
we were together.
(somber piano music)
You have diplomats,
people families that were stuck in Japan
or maybe in somewhere else, like Philippines.
And they wanted to repatriate, come back.
They would exchange one prisoner for one,
one for one.
There was a Swedish ship called Gripsholm.
We went from Minidoka to New Jersey.
And we were by the dockside of the ship.
And we didn't see my dad.
He never came out.
(melancholy piano music)
Well we found out that we were gonna to go a place called
Crystal City Texas,
which is about 40 miles from the border of Mexico.
And we didn't even know that there was a camp like that.
It was a family internment camp.
(somber piano music)
But we had German families
and Italian families and Japanese families
and people from Peru and South America,
a very interesting group.
The Germans were segregated from the Japanese,
not by wire.
It was just a different area.
One thing is, we were under the Geneva Convention rules.
And the best thing about that was that
instead of barracks, we were in cabins.
Each family had a kitchen of their own.
It wasn't much of a kitchen.
But we had a kerosene stove.
And we had a icebox,
a little icebox that they'd deliver ice to everyday.
And they would deliver milk everyday.
And my mother would go down to the grocery store
and buy groceries everyday
and use special camp money made outta plastic.
(somber electronic music)
April the 3rd 1946, I remember that day.
I remember Mrs. Origami on the bus,
going to the city of Uvalde Texas to catch our train.
She was just jumping up and down.
I didn't think that East Asia ladies would (chuckles)
do something like that.
But she was just so happy.
(melancholy electronic music)
When we came out from camp,
the government didn't give us anything.
They gave us a train ticket home and 25 dollars.
And that was it.
(somber electronic music)