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Topaz
Could you describe the conditions of Topaz?
Well Topaz was built on a desert and this is the former lakebed of salt lake city not Salt Lake City, salt lake that dried up and went up north. This was formerly part of salt lake. And that is why the soil was very salty. The only thing that was grew there was (greasewood). And they took the (greasewood) out and built these barracks on top of it in topaz. And of course they used the greenwood because they didn't have wood before hand so they just cut down the wood and brought and laid it down put the floors. And of course we got dust storms there a lot.
Well the floors when they put them down were put it together. But they dried out and opened up almost an inch apart. And of course they didn't shield then underneath of the houses. That’s why, it’s open and we had dust storms the wind comes up from underneath the house. And the dust just came up from the cracks. It was really messy and I wore a wet hankie to try to keep the dust out but it was hard to breathe. So it was real difficult time there.
That was one of the worst situations. Of course at the beginning we also suffered a lot because of the toilets were in all one place, laundry’s all in one place and of course what we call the mess hall was all in one place the kitchen and the mess hall. So everybody had to go to the same place. And sometimes a lot of people went at the same time and when a lot of people go at the same time you can't get in there.
So that was one of the difficulties in the beginning so we got orderly. And we said, "Ok, room number so and so to so and so will go at a certain time and room number so and so to so go will go at another time. So we set times because we learned to change the times to make it even out. And of course the laundry was the same thing, certain people laundry at a certain time. And we also had eating at the same thing we said " Number to number go at a certain time. Number to number goes at a certain time". That way you wouldn't have a big line. There still were lines but at least they were short.
Those were the things that happened at the beginning, but as time went on we learned to be more orderly and do things so that it was best for everybody. We learned to do these things and it was the same thing with children. At first there wasn't any place for children to go so we organized kindergartens. And we organized the grammar schools and we organized libraries. We made contact with the libraries outside and asked them if they could send old books that they weren't using to us so we could have them.
And things of that sort. That's how we got some of the old library books still. There were a lot of things that we sort of like art we had to ask people for material because there you need paper, you need brushes, you need paint and things of that sort crayolas and things. We asked friends from outside if they could send things and a lot of people were very nice and they sent these things in. We were able to open art classes and things of that sort.
So people were allowed to send things from outside?
Oh yeah they could send things in. They opened the box and they look at it to make sure that you aren't sending in guns and things of that stuff. Otherwise you could send things in. That was good because we could get these things and of course we got things like candies things sent in later too for kids, we could get them. Hard candies and things. That was one of the good things that came out of the camp.
We organized activities for people so that there wouldn't be people wandering around wondering what to do. For that reason for the young kids they organized baseball teams, they organized basketball teams. For the little ones they organized these slides and made them. That's another thing that came out of camp is the Issei didn't know what talent they had. The things that they made were amazing. These are men and women who never had any kind of education and all they did was farming all of their life. Yet they made these amazing things. If you look at some of the things that were made in the camp. You would be amazed at what they were.
That was another nice thing that came out of camp. People learned to paint, to use the crayons and make pictures of things. They gathered seashells, lot of small seashells were lying around because it was formerly a lakebed. They gathered these shells, cleaned them off and then they glued them and made flowers, animals, birds, and things of that sort. If you look at some of these things they are amazing I'm telling you. These were people who had no educational background in art or anything. It just came out of their mind and their hands and they made these things. Things like that came out was very good.
Were the art classes and the kindergarten classes were held outside or in somewhere?
At first they were held outside whenever the weather was good. And then as time went on they found some empty rooms and they started with the kindergarten, first grade and then they organized schools. They put up one block for school this they had planned ahead so they took one block for like high school and other schools together. They took one block and made it that school area grammar school, high school, and so forth. These things were developed as we went along.
We always thought keeping people occupied and educated. Like (Chirobyta), the artist who was at the University of California, he was an art teacher there, he was a famous artist. He came to our camp luckily Topaz and he organized the art classes to show people how to paint and things of that sort. He himself made some paintings in there too. These were some of things that we were able to utilize the talents of some of the people and people learned from them. (Myna Okubo) was another one, she went out to New York finally. She was another artist who (wasn't very well known.)
Were you part of a leadership in Topaz? What did you actually do?
I don't know what you mean by leadership. But I was an executive secretary at the camp council and because of that I was able to look into the different departments. The social welfare department was one of the ones that we used the most I think because we had many, many problems. You can see that when you have four to eight people in one room about this size no partitions in it, you have girls and boys mixed. You can see that problems are going to come up. So in some cases we had to divide up these families and had them use two rooms, we tried to find rooms for them. That's why when some of the students went out and a room opened then we would see if we could use it for some of these problem families and divide them up. Those were some of the things we looked into.
How did you get the position? Was there an election?
Yeah there was an election. Of course my name was known because I was elected in Tanforan already as a councilman. But I was only a councilman there.
Could you tell the story about when you ran for an office?
Well actually I didn't campaign see. This was all brought up by the Nisei Young Democrats; the organization was actually the ones who proposed these things. They said it would be a good idea to do it because we want to know what's going on and want to make sure the right thing is being done. The Nisei Young Democrats thought they were more capable of doing it than the organization like the JACL, which you know, wouldn't do anything if the administration said to do something whether they liked it or not it they would just go ahead and let it be done. Whereas they knew if they let the Nisei Young Democrats had (cut through) if they didn't like it they would bring it up.
They knew the difference and that was the reason I think why I got elected into the council. That's why by that time I guess progressivism was beginning to be recognized. I know that after I came out several people came up to me and said they liked my policies and stuff like that. I never campaigned; I never went down and talked to people and stuff like that. I don't know how much support I had after the elections whether I still had support or not I never knew.
How did you find other Nisei Young Democrat members?
We all come from the same organization. You get to know people in different blocks. If you look for any particular person you could find them because you just go from block to block. Or if you want to you can go to the registrar office and ask. Say you want to meet so and so because why you want to make sure that you (can't decide things again). You go to the registrar and tell them that, they'll look it up and say " Oh their in block so and so and room so and so." The room numbers are on; you can go there and knock on their door. And say I would like to meet you again and start talking.
Were you allowed in other people’s rooms?
No, your not allowed it's just like your own house unless you are allowed in you can't go in.
The administration didn't allow that you were in another room?
No they had to knock and go in just like any other.
What was the leadership structure like?
There wasn't anything in the camp. This council was the only thing that they had. There wasn't any other group that was organized, not at the time anyways. Maybe later on after I left they might have organized some things. But they probably had baseball clubs and basketball clubs and things of that sort. There was no administration or anything inside that controlled anything. No, like our political parties or anything of that sort.
How did people communicate with each other? Was there a newspaper?
Yeah we got a newspaper about once a month.
From outside or inside?
Inside, we mimeographed it. It wasn't really a paper but it was just a notice to go out and show what kind of things were going on in the camp. So that you know what is going on. The only way you can communicate with others is by walking. You just walk and go over and talk to some people. Because there are no telephones no nothing. You don't have the cell phones like you have today. So if you want to talk to somebody you just had to go over and talk to them. You had to go right over to the house.
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