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4-Camp Life
[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.
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?
24 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.
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.
Can you talk about the sandstorms?
10Other 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 bandannas, 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 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.
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.05
What did you say to the social workers in regards to the separation from your family, and why did they approve it?
04My sister and I were both au pairs, and had left. We just didn't want to be back with them again. The social workers must have agreed.
And your mother as well?
My mother listened.
Do you know why you were moved from Pomona to Heart Mountain?
All we knew was that we were going to be moved to a more permanent place.
Were you glad to leave?
I think so.
Can you talk about the differences physically between Pomona and Heart Mountain, the geography?
Oh, the geography.
Also the buildings.
The buildings are just that—Heart Mountain was way out there in the middle of nowhere. The only thing growing was sagebrush, and the windstorms, the dust storms. We were assigned a small room, which meant an end. We were on the end, where it was open, so we got all the dust.
Do you remember what the food was like at Heart Mountain? I know it seems silly, but..
No, no, not at all, because I go to schools and talk about this, and I always take a vegetable, and I show it and ask them do they recognize it? And it looks like a turnip but it's not, it's a rutabaga. And I said, they were mashed, like turnips, mashed turnips, and it was awful. The other thing we had was a lot of bread pudding, because the Japanese like rice, and not much bread. So a lot of bread is left over, so we had bread pudding. So, I don't eat bread pudding. We also had a lot of scrambled eggs, but those were powdered eggs. They must have had powdered milk too, to add to the scrambled eggs. Then we were fortunate in that in our mess hall there was someone who had run a restaurant, so he could doctor the food, as it were, more to our palate.
Were you ever able to eat non-powdered eggs, or drink real milk?
When I went out of camp. The teacher I was working with, as an aide, her in-laws, her father in law, was the director of the hospital. So I was privileged in that they invited me out to dinner, to Cody, and so there I would get real food.
Do you remember being afforded any luxuries in camp, being brought chocolate or something that you really missed?
Only from the Morrisons, who would send me things.
What would they send you?
Chocolate chip cookies.
How well did you stay in contact with the Morrisons?
I wrote to them all time I was there. I also have a high school friend who also sent me things.
Was this high school friend Caucasian?
[gestures "yes"] And I corresponded with my teacher, my physics teacher.
Heart Mountain Social Life
Can you talk a little about your social life at Heart Mountain?
I didn't have much of a social life. The only ones I really knew were the kids in the immediate neighborhood, and they were my sister's friends. My daughter now says to me, I just went within myself and decided not to have friends. And I think it's because I did more corresponding more with friends outside. Of course Claudia had friends outside, and I was thinking of getting out. So the other thing I was trying was correspondence classes at the University of Nebraska, Wyoming, and such. But they all cost, and I didn't have the money to take those classes. But I surely applied to all those. I got catalogs, began to see what was available. And I think I spent a lot of time that way, rather than socializing.
So you didn't go to any dances, or play sports?
No sports. I went, maybe, to watch them. I did go to dances because I say on this quilt, "dancing," and I'm often asked, "How did that go about?" And I say, "That's where I really learned to social dance." Because that was the time of—especially because my sister belonged to a social group, and I was friends with them. Whenever they had a dance or a party then I'd join them. I never learned to jitterbug, but I enjoyed social dances.
What kind of music and dancing was there?
Oldies, that you hear today. Glenn Miller, especially.
Would you have preferred to have more of a social life?
I don't think so. I think I was perfectly satisfied the way I was.
Who'd you dance with?
There were fellows. We liked to dance with the fellows who came from Washington because, I said, they took you all over the floor. The ones from Los Angeles just stayed in one spot. You just rocked. It's more fun to get all over the floor.
Did you have any boyfriends in camp?
[gestures "no"]
Did you carry that same snobbish attitude, that you said you had, into the camp?
I must have, that's why I didn't date.
Another person we interviewed, Rose, said she tries to think of the positive things she took away from camp, while you said you try to block out all these memories. Can you think of any positive effects of being in camp?
See, I stayed just one year, to get out as fast as I could. So what would have been the positive?
She said it made her resilient. It made her learn how to spring back from things.
I wonder if it's just camp life that could have done that. I'll try to think—I really think—that's something I'll really have to think about. I couldn't tell you offhand.
