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What was the name of your camp?
It was Heart Mountain, in Wyoming.
How long were you there for?
I was there one year.
How was it different from Pomona?
This,
weather first of all because we were in Wyoming way up North where
it could have snowed in August and may continue, even now maybe. I
think they do have snow flurries there now. There are blizzards, and
we're from California, not prepared for that kind of weather. So we
learned to wear boots or, and someone said, "How did you get money for
that?" I became a teacher's aide and taught English—eighth grade—or helped teach. I had some money and we were given a clothing allowance,
I think of three dollars a month. In those days the times were different;
money went a little further. We could order boots, order heavier clothing
through the camp, through the catalogs.
Describe what a day in camp would be like for you?
I can better at Heart Mountain than I can of Pomona.
Well then for Heart Mountain if that would be easier for you.
We went to social workers and said we didn't want to stay any longer with our step family. So my mother, sister, and I were separated and had our own little unit. Then, since I had just started college, I could be a teacher's aide and I was helping to teach English to seventh and eighth grade. In the morning I would have breakfast in the mess hall, then I could go to school and go help teach there. I would come home in the evening or after school. Then I could either read—by then there were libraries: schools and churches sent books to the camps so there was a library. I could write to friends. The radio we didn't listen to in Heart Mountain because all you get is cowboy music.
Why can you remember Heart Mountain better than Pomona?
Something about Pomona, I just blocked it out. Because of being put into a room with nine of us. It's just change, going from living in a home, into a camp. The first experience of losing our freedom. Knowing what it was like, because there was a searchlight on top of the guard towers, that would scan the whole area. If you went to the bathroom at night, that light followed you. I think it's just the change, of all those things I had to experience, more than I really want to remember.
Your friends were all very Caucasian. Do you recall any reaction of being with only Japanese?
I remember my sister and I saying, "They all looked alike." But she went on to high school, so she had friends, and I was a T.A., a teacher's aide, so I couldn't necessarily have friends, other than the teacher that I worked with, and she was Caucasian.
Was she your age, or older?
I think she was just out of college, that might have been her first job.
So your ages were very similar.
That's right, that's right.
Can you talk a little bit about being a T.A.? What you were paid, what the job was like?
What would I have been paid, about twelve dollars a month. Is that medium range? Because sixteen was top. So I must have been paid twelve. The classroom where I first started was just a barrack with just benches. There must have been thirty kids in those little desks there. Their laps were their desks, maybe they had a book to write on. Where did those books come from? Wyoming, the public education system because the superintendent was from Wyoming. The first class was in this barrack room, and right next to it would be another room, and noise. Just all this noise. I don't see how the teacher controlled all these kids. I suppose she managed.
What was taught?
That was English. She was an English teacher, so that was what I was doing.
And your role in the teaching?
Take roll, grade papers. Maybe help sit in the back of the room and keep some of the kids quiet.
Why do you think that everyone immediately remembers how much they were paid?
Because today we think of it as so little. Because even as an au pair I'm sure I was paid more than twelve dollars.
What did you spend that money on?
Clothes. Ice skates, I remember I ordered ice skates. Clothes, because we didn't have any warm clothes. So boots, I remember. And books.
Did you enjoy your teaching job?
Yeah.
Would you have preferred to do anything else? Were there any other jobs available that you would have liked?
I could have done, the only other job, was a waitress in the mess hall. Maybe an attendant in the hospital. Teaching was more appealing to me.
How did those other jobs pay?
Probably about the same.
Did you choose to be a teacher or were you given that job?
I chose to be. In fact I wrote to my teachers, my high school teachers and such, for references.
Were there many people around your age, or just mainly
younger kids?
All
kinds because there are just families. I find as I talk with people,
they laugh now, but when you see another Nisei you ask, "Which
camp were you in?" You either know which camp or, "If you
weren't, how come you weren't?" So, all ages because there were
families.
If I were to walk into the barrack that your family
stayed in, could you explain to me exactly what it looked like?
One
room? Like our room. When we went to stay at Heart Mountain there were
just the three of us, my mother, my sister, and I. We had the end room
which had three windows, which meant if there's a sand storm, we really
got it. It was just the wood with just the tarpaper on the outside.
No insulation, no insulation for the windows. For awhile, there was
not even a ceiling, so you could hear everything going on next door.
Then, that room had, would have three cots. This is what was furnished: three cots and an army blanket. They
must have given us a mattress of some kind, too. Then, there was a
potbelly stove, and that was it. Anything else, if you wanted a table
or a chair, you made it. You'd go out to what they had a pile of wood,
maybe there were crates, wood for crates. I learned how to use a saw
and a hammer and made a little bench so we could sit on, maybe a corner
book shelf, a little table. That could keep us busy.
In
the potbelly stove we burned coal. We would have half a bucket and
go down to where the mess hall was, there'd be a pile of coal, and
you'd get that and bring that back and burn that. It would have just
those things: the three beds, and the table, whatever table or chairs.
That's all we needed because we ate our meals at the dining hall, which
they called the mess hall. There's the laundry, there's the bathroom,
so that's it.
How often did you have sand storms?
Frequently
I would say.
Can you describe a sand storm?
I think on our video she tells about they say, "It's coming! It's coming!" You
just try to get home so you can close the windows. It's just, it's sand so
it's blinding. You'd have to get your head down and run so you don't really
know where you're, can see where you're running. Hopefully, there's some kind
of a path so you can get from one place to the other. Well it was the same thing
in the snow with the blizzards that you had to be, know where you're going.
Can you talk about the sandstorms?
Other than they were all blinding? We were on the end room and so all that sand would come into the room, because nothing was sealed. It would come in through the cracks. In those days we wore head scarves, we called them bandanas, surely we covered our faces with that, you'd run as fast as you can.
Could you see them coming from a distance?
I think so. You see, on this quilt—The Sandstorm—of the mother protecting the child. This one here. And on the video, one of the women says that you could see it coming, and you tried to get home before it really hit you.
Was there a whole camp, a whole frantic rush, of everyone running home?
It must, yes, yes. The same thing with snow blizzards, because Wyoming had those too.
Did you ever have any confrontations with the guards
at the camps?
They
were out of the picture, except in the assembly centers at night. I
remember searchlights coming down and so that if you had to go to the
bathroom at night the searchlight followed you all the way. They had
what they call bed counts. Somebody would be assigned within a block.
A block would be how many barracks, a section of barracks and then
there'd be the mess hall, the dining hall, the laundry, and the bathrooms.
That would be one whole unit. Then, there would be within that a block manager,
and it would be his job, or her job, to see that everybody's in their
place when they're supposed to be.
Did you have any interactions with the guards while you were at Pomona?
No.
Were there guards at Pomona?
Yes.
Armed, military?
There must have been. Yes. They usually surrounded the camps.
Do you remember any interactions with the medical staff?
Not in Pomona—I must have. Because my mother became sick and so we had to see to it that she was cared for so she was in the hospital. They decided that it was her kidney that was affected, actually she's diabetic. So that means they did not have enough labs to test. It's their guess because her kidney was affected because of diabetes. We didn't know she was diabetic until Heart Mountain.
Do you remember if the doctors were white or Japanese?
They were all Japanese.
The whole medical staff was Japanese?
I know what it was in Heart Mountain, but not in Pomona.
Do you prefer not remembering about Pomona?
Must be. It's just the whole experience there, and yet, my mother was hospitalized and I couldn't tell you who was in charge.
How long were you in Pomona?
Must have been three months. That about right?
What time of the year was this?
About May. May through August.
What was temperature like?
It wasn't bad. I remember when it was raining—it was a parking lot so the parking lot of the Los Angeles county fair grounds—when it rained, everything was muddy. The one nice thing I remember was the fragrance of the orange blossom. Because in that area they had the orange trees.
Do you remember what kind of food you were served at Pomona?
No.
How did you get around the fact that there was almost
no privacy?
To
go to the shower at night. Here we are, our neighbors were a big family
from Washington, it was fellows, young men in there. Across the way
were also families and young boys. Here we are, my sister and I, wanting
to go take, get our shower in our bathrobes. You don't want to be seen
by these young men in your bathrobes. So, we would wait until late
at night, and as I said, and by then not much hot water. That's what
we did. Lack of privacy, we just felt, we needed some. I think that
was what bothered us most. We just, we don't want them to see us like
this.
Can you think of other examples of how you dealt with
the lack of privacy?
By
the time we went to Heart Mountain, and they got the ceilings. Then
we didn't hear the neighbors so much so that we felt we had privacy.
There were just the three of us, my mother, my sister, and I, so we
had privacy. Whereas, other families where there, like the little diorama
that I had, where there were the girls in the family, and the boys,
then that's where they really felt they needed the privacy. Other than
the fact that we couldn't go shower whenever we wanted to, or in the
beginning the toilet areas were not partitioned. There were partitions,
but no doors, the same thing with the showers It was an open shower,
and that kind of thing bothered us. But, then again we learned you
go at a certain time.
Were there any experiences that made you especially want to leave the camp?
See, I had a friend that I had met in Japan, who was in St. Louis, and I had been corresponding with her all this time. She was in St. Louis and said, come on up. So it's nothing special that would make me think "I need to leave." It's just I had a friend on the outside who said, come on.
So you were never abused, or mistreated?
No.
Were your letters read?
Yes. In fact I have a copy that is in the National Archives, that they have. This was because they wanted to know why I was going to St. Louis, and would I be taken care of when I got there.
How did you know they were read? What did you see?
I have a copy. You can write to the National Archives, and get it.
What does it show?
My letter.
How do you know that it was read?
It was opened and copied. So somebody had to read it.
So it was opened and copied, that's why it was in the archives.
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