page 10 of 11
Play MovieMay 15, 2007 - Part 4 of 5
Section below transcribed by Joseph Werhan (intern).
Please report errors to: info@tellingstories.org.
Councilman in Tanforan (cont)
In the first interview you talked a little bit about how when people were interned, there weren’t police knocking on their door, but that they had to show up at one time. You talked about how everyone abided by it. Do you think if people hadn’t abided by the law and had rebelled against it—united together—would you have been able to stop it?
No, as I said—Japanese are all law abiding. There was a lot of talk about it beforehand—that we were going to be evacuated. People more or less had an idea and people were getting ready for it. Some people were already selling stuff and things like that—waiting for the order to come. When the order did come the authority just put a poster up on the telephone poles in the areas. It said that you should all assemble at a certain place—at what day and what time—and you were only able to take what you could carry. That's all. The authorities were kind of loose on this too. They didn't check to see what you were bringing. That's why some people brought more than the two cases, but that's why both sides were kind of loose on this.
Was there anyone that just didn’t show to that certain time?
No, there wasn't. Not in going.
Did anyone try to hide?
The only one is Fred Korematsu. He tried to hide but I think his girlfriend gave him up—told the cops where he was. He was supposed to meet the girlfriend some place and the cops showed up instead of her.
Were you ever intimidated by the government and by how much power they held?
Intimidated by what?
By the government, or the guards, or anyone in power?
Intimidated by what?
When you were interned were you ever intimidated by the guards?
No, I never was. I don't think there were any that were intimidated. Some guards at the beginning when people—especially younger girls—were going to the toilet they put the flashlight on them and follow them [gestures: with the flashlight] and stuff like that. I don't think that was intimidation, it was just kind of annoying.
Life in Topaz
Could you describe the conditions of Topaz? How it was on a daily basis?
What do you mean, “how it was on a daily basis?”
Describe Topaz and what it was like living there. Just describe what it looked like first.
Topaz was built on a desert and this is the former lakebed of Salt Lake, which dried up and went up North. This was formerly part of Salt Lake. That is why the soil was very salty. The only thing that grew there was greasewood. They took the greasewood out and built these barracks on top of it at Topaz. They used green wood because they didn't have wood before hand. They just cut down the wood and brought it over and laid it down. They put in floors the floors and everything. And of course we got dust storms there a lot. The floors—when they put them down—were put together, but they dried out and they opened up almost an inch apart. They didn't shield underneath the houses. That’s why it’s open. That's why— when they had a dust storm—the wind comes right through from underneath the house, and the dust came up through those cracks. It was really messy and I wore a wet hankie to try to keep the dust out, but it was hard to breathe. It was real difficult time there. That was one of the worst situations.
At the beginning we also suffered a lot because the toilets were in all one place, the laundry was all in one place, and what we called the mess hall was all in one place—the kitchen and the mess hall. 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 they can't get in there. That was one of the difficulties in the beginning so we got orderly. We said, “Okay room number so-and-so to so-and-so will go at a certain time and room number so-and-so to so-and-so will go at another time.” We set times and we learned to change the times to make it even out. The laundry was the same thing—certain people laundry at a certain time. We also had eating at 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 would be 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. Then 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. That's how we got some of the old books in the library. There were a lot of things—like art—that we had to ask people for material because there you need paper, you need brushes, you need the paint—and Crayola's and things. We asked friends from outside if they could send these things in, 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 looked at it to make sure that you aren't sending in guns and things of that sort. Otherwise you could send things in. That was good because we could get these things and we got candies sent in later for kids—that 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 the camp. People learned to paint—to use the crayons and make pictures of things. They gathered seashells. A lot of small seashells were laying 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 it's amazing I'm telling you. These are 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 that came out were very good.
Were the art classes and the kindergarten classes held outside or in somewhere?
At first they were held outside whenever the weather was good. 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 high school and other schools together. They took one block and made it the school area—grammar school, high school, and so forth. These things were developed as we went along. We always thought about keeping people occupied and educated. Chiura Obata—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 are some of things that we were able to utilize—the talents of some of the people and people learned from them. Mina Okubo was another one—she went out to New York finally. She was another artist.
You keep referring to we—we did this and we worked in that. Were you part of a leadership in Topaz? What did you actually do?
I don't know what you mean by leadership. I was an executive secretary at the camp council and because of that I was able to look into all of the different departments. The social welfare department was one of the ones that we used the most 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. In some cases we had to divide up these families and have 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 to this position? Was there an election?
Yeah, there was an election.
In the whole camp?
Yes, in the whole camp. Of course my name was known because I was elected in Tanforan already as a councilman. I was only a councilman there.
Could you tell the story of how you ran for an office? Tell us that story of how you decided to run for a position and what you did to try to convince people. Tell us about that.
Actually I didn't campaign. This was all brought up by the Nisei Young Democrats. The organization were 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 that the right thing is being done. The Nisei Young Democrats felt that they were more capable of doing it than the organization like the JACL, which 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 that if the Nisei Young Democrats had control—if they didn't like it they would bring it up. They knew the difference and that was the reason why I got elected into the council. That's why by that time, progressivism was beginning to be recognized. I know that after I came out several people came up to me and said they liked my policy 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 in these camps?
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's office and ask. Say you want to meet so-and-so because you live close by—you want to make sure we contact each other again. You go to the registrar and tell them that. They'll look it up and say, "They're in block so-and-so and room so-and-so." The room numbers are on [gestures: the wall], you can go there and knock on her door and say I would like to meet you again and start talking.
Were you allowed in to other people’s rooms, or was that forbidden?
No, you're 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 to go in just like any other.
I'm still confused about the group of people that helped enforce orders—like the art classes. Was there a president of the group that helped establish all of the art classes and schools? What was your 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 may have organized some things. They probably had baseball clubs and basketball clubs, but there was no administration or anything inside that controlled anything. Nothing like our political parties or anything of that sort.
How did people communicate with each other? There were several thousand people, there were no phones. 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, it was just a notice to go out and show what kinds 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.
