Upon our return to Oakland on May 12, 1945, we were met at the 16th St. Depot by our dear compassionate friend who was an Oakland police officer, and we bathed and had dinner with his family at home.
For a month we stayed at a friend’s home in West Oakland and walked daily to our home on Sixth Street, cleaning the upper flat which had been broken into and waiting for the tenants to move out of the lower flat. I had given them 30 days’ notice to leave, as they had not paid their rent to our indifferent lawyer for a year, and they in turn rented out rooms and collected rent from four garages. They were abrasive, threatening and filthy and moved out with many things that were previously stored upstairs.
Our policeman friend helped us resettle at the Sixth Street house with the purchase of a well worn secondhand stove, and also patrolled the house at night as we lived in fear. Various violent acts were committed against returning evacuees—homes were burned, we were taunted on the streets, and ‘Japs not wanted’ was the trend of the times. The eventual return of my father and younger brother gave me inner strength, but the wave of homeless, penniless people began.