My parents told me that children were taken from their families in 1941, and my mother had a child taken from her - with the goal of saving him.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I was six months old at the time that I was taken, with my mother and father, from Sacramento, California, and placed in internment camps in the United States.
My mother had a son from previous marriage and her husband died in Second World War.
My father was the orphaned son of immigrants to the United States from Ireland. My father never knew his parents. His mother died - we're not sure - either at or shortly after his birth, and he and all of his siblings were placed in orphanages in the Boston area.
My parents had three kids right after the Second World War, and we were all sort of sickly. Then I had a fourth sibling, with very serious asthma. The medical bills... So my parents always struggled.
My father was a Jewish immigrant who settled in Argentina and was left to his own devices at the age of 15. My mother was a teacher, herself the daughter of a poor immigrant family.
My mother was one of seven girls whose parents went to bed hungry so their children wouldn't. My father lost his mother when he was nine. He left school and went to work for the next 70 years. They emigrated to America with little more than the hope of a better life.
I was a sickly baby, and after two sets of adoptive parents took me home, they returned me to the orphanage because of a serious respiratory infection. But as they say, the third time's a charm, because my mom and dad adopted me and took me into their home where I was raised in a family full of love.
When I was growing up, my parents took in foster children. From a young age, I learned that there are a lot of children in need.
I received my parents' permission and went into the Navy on June 3, 1941.
My father took me back home, back to Greenwich Village, and he thought by taking me out of the orphanage he'd be out of the World War too. But no way - they got him anyway. He went in the Navy and then I lived on the streets.