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In the assembly centers, what did you do during the
day? How long were you there for?
We
were there, I guess, three months. I'm trying to think, what did I
do? My mother was not well, and so she spent her time in the hospital
which meant then my sister and I could go to visit her. She was at
one corner, diagonally opposite from where we lived, so that was how
we spent our time was going to see her. Then when she was released,
then we had to go to the hospital and get her food three times a day.
That kept us busy.
Other
than that, like for laundry, there's a laundry place where we go with
our washboards. I'm just trying to think where did we even hang the
clothes? I know when we went to Wyoming there was a place for hanging
clothes; I can't remember what we did in Pomona. We could hear the
neighbors because the walls were thin. All kinds of commotion one night
and it turns out the boy, the young boy there is a sleepwalker, walks in his sleep. So there was a lot of commotion
there.
Can you remember what the first thing you saw when you arrived at camp? You're fist memory?
The room. It's just one big room, and that was it. There were cots, but no mattresses. We had to go out and fill bags with hay. That was our bedding. Then the next thing we did was we could wrap bedding up in what my mother put together with seed sacks that she had sewn together. She wrapped bedding in that. That seed sack we then hung as a partition between my sister and I and the rest of them.
[The audio quality below is poor due to equipment problems.]
Can you describe exactly what you see in the room at camp? If you walked into the room now, what would you see?
If I walked into the room now, what would I remember? I really don't want to remember. There must have been a window on one side, a door. I think my sister and I were over in a corner with this partition. Since it was tied with ropes, we could use that rope and hang it up. Somehow we must have had nails and a hammer. Then my stepsister had a husband and an infant, so she must have partitioned off a section. My mother and stepfather must have partitioned off a section. So there we are: these nine beds, and I don't think we spent too much time in there.
What were the beds like?
They were just these steel—I wonder if they even had springs. I just remember this mattress that we had to fill up with hay and it was puffed up like this and we would sleep on it and you're going to role off until your weight is going to push down some of that. It was scratchy.
Did it smell?
It must have, of hay.
What did it look like? Did it look like barracks?
It's
barracks. They built these temporary buildings on the parking lot.
There were people, our neighbors were from Los Angeles and San Jose
so there were those two groups. Then, among those from the Los Angeles
area, there were those they called them the "Valley boys" and
the "City boys," and there's a lot of conflict there. Again,
it was just like with me a city kid going to the country. It's the
same thing: the "City boys" not getting along with the "Country
boys". They would talk about gang fights, and there might have
been.
Did they get really violent?
At most it would be punching each other.
What did you do during the day? Can you explain a
typical day in the temporary Pomona camp?
Temporary
Pomona would be picking up the food for my mother from the hospital.
I don't think I had made any friends there. I don't remember. What
else would I have done? My sister—my younger sister—went to work
in what they called a milk station because there were mothers who needed
milk for the babies. My sister was one of them who helped prepare the
milk that was distributed. I had started
college and they said something about my—I was hypothyroid, so I didn't
have to take P.E. That was my excuse for not working in camp because
then I didn't want to be a waitress in the mess hall. So I have this
excuse that I don't have to work. So, I know I didn't work so I could
just sit and read. There were books sent by churches and so there could
be like a library, if I could do that, and I could write to my friends
because all my friends were outside.
Do you still keep in touch with the friends
that you wrote to?
Yes.
What type of books did you like to read?
What type? Anything I could get my hands on.
Can you describe what the washroom was like?
I can only refer you to Mine Okubo book where she sketches them. I think that's another thing I've just blocked out.
What kind of music, theater or arts were you afforded at the camp?
Very little. They did have, what they call, talent shows so that—like Estelle Ishigo, she was a violinist. She put together a group. There might have been other musicians who put together some musical offering. Culturally, not much.
Did you ever participate in the shows?
No.
Did you have any knowledge of what was going on in
the outside world while in the camps?
No,
not in the Assembly Center because I think we were not allowed to
have radios. We could have, by the time we went to Wyoming. I said
in Wyoming all we got was cowboy music and whatever news we could get
on the radio, which wasn't much.
While you were at the camps did you feel that FDR
was responsible for everything that was occurring? Did you have knowledge
of General Dewitt or any other people who played a role in the internment?
I
don't think so. All I remember is we were brought up where we did not
question authority. Someone would ask us, "Why didn't you protest?" We
said we didn't know that word in those days. This is what my Caucasian
friends will say too, "We didn't know that word." That word came
into existence in the 60's, not in our time.
FDR had been an idol of mine because we grew up Depression days.
Then for him to have ordered this, well alright it must be for our own
good. On our quilt there are a couple of words, one saying that it's
something that couldn't be helped, it's something we just have to bear,
and if you bear with it, it will come out ok. This was our attitude.
I think, my brother might have felt differently, and my husband today
would say he would have been the first one protesting. But, the
times were different in our days. As my daughter today will say
we were too complacent, let it happen to us. I said, "We grew
up in an era where we were not politically active. The only group was
the JACL, the Japanese-American Citizen League. I was too young to be a
member of that, so it's just I was protected from all that."
How do you say that one phrase you were talking about earlier on your quilt in Japanese?
Yes. The one is the Shikataganai, which means it can't be helped. That's the way it is. The other one is Gaman, is you bear with it; you just go along with it. Those two words are words we grew up with.
Was there any difference between your outward behavior and reaction, and what was really going on in your head? Or were they the same?
My daughter will say it must have been different because the way I talk, she says. Because, I don't have friends from camp days. She says, "I think you isolated yourself." I think that must have been what I did because I could write letters to my friends outside and not make too many friends in camp so that I don't have friends from camp days.
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