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TI: Okay. So you described some of the social things and perhaps some of the fond memories. At Santa Anita there was also a fairly well-known disturbance that happened at Santa Anita.

MT: Yeah. I know exactly. We called it the Santa Anita riot.

TI: Right, some people call it the riot. So can you tell me about that, how it happened and what you saw?

MT: Well, some of the things are hearsay and some of the things are things I witnessed. The hearsay, of how it started, 'cause obviously I wasn't there. What happened is that there was some bad judgment made somewhere along the line. First of all, the camp was never prepared for any, for babies or prepared for people that were in dietary requirements. There was must mass food that you served in the mess hall and you just ate it, right? If you didn't like something you just don't eat it. Well you can't tell that to a baby. They have to have baby food. So Nisei mothers, Issei mothers might do that, but a Nisei mother wouldn't chew the food and give it to their child and so they would have to resort to different kind of things, and they would have friends on the outside, because even while we were in Santa Anita some Japanese Americans were not incarcerated, so they would come and see their friends, they would come into the place and see their friends to give them things that they needed. And what people started, women started doing, families started doing, they would bring in hotplates so they can make food and things like that, dietary food and so on. The food in the mess hall can't be very good, particularly at the beginning when they didn't have Japanese cooks. It was terrible. We were not used to that kind of food and they didn't care, so it was bad. So what happened really is that people started using a lot of hotplates. Well, those were the days of no circuit breakers. There were fuses, and so too many people used the thing and somebody had fans 'cause it's hot, and it'll blow the fuse and so they would have to get fuses and requisition the fuse from the authorities. And pretty soon they're all gone, and they would get their friends to bring it in. Well, some people, less than enterprising, dangerous, would put pennies in there to short circuit the fuse, and it was pretty dangerous 'cause once a fire started it'd be really, really dangerous. That place would've been just a massive tinderbox. So the authorities said we got to stop that, so they're gonna take, confiscate all of those things that would create the problem 'cause they weren't supposed to be there in the first place. So they started to confiscate, but then they said, well, we're gonna take the food away that people have 'cause you're not supposed to have food in the thing. Mothers have baby, got baby food, and this creates a problem for them, and people with dietary problems. But they didn't think about those things. And then they said that they'd, and then what happened is that they brought the civilian guards. Inside the camp were civilian guards.

TI: So these were Caucasian civilian guards?

MT: Caucasians, all Caucasians.

TI: Okay.

MT: And outside were the MPs, who, by the way, patrolled outside the camp, not inside. If they were trying to protect us they should've been inside the camp protecting us, but no, they were outside looking in. And so they were nice, the MPs were nice; they didn't give us a hard time or anything.

TI: And were the civilian guards, were they armed in any way?

MT: No, they were not. I don't remember them being armed at all. They might've had batons, but other than, they didn't have guns. So they were the ones now coming, and they had a Nisei, or a person of bilingual, could've been something else, that knew Japanese, interpreting for 'em as they went through each barrack room, and in our case every stall room, going through everything, in fact, ransacking rooms, looking for things. And the rumor has it, 'cause I never witnessed this, was that they were now ripping mattresses, cutting mattresses 'cause the Japanese had hidden the money there, cash. The people that were afraid of what's gonna happen in banks and how they're gonna get their money had taken the cash with them and they were hiding it, so they discovered that so they were trying to... because they would ask people to leave the room and they were ransacking.

TI: So it sounds like the civilian guards were actually, yeah, again, you said hearsay, but stealing. They were taking valuables, money.

MT: They were taking advantage of us, starting to take advantage. Not at the beginning, but as they became a little aware that we were prisoners and we had no rights, that they can do anything they want. The rumor has it that... then after we were through with our thing we had, didn't have anything. We didn't have any money, we didn't have anything, so it didn't matter. But then we didn't have food either and so it didn't matter, but when... so I went out to see what's happening out there and I happen to be in an area where, they were telling me, that suddenly when the riots, just as the riots started, I saw them -- it was just before noontime -- they had the tables set in the mess halls and there was a guy, they claim he was Korean or half Korean or something and he was a spy for the -- they said he was Korean, I don't know if that's true or not -- but that this fellow, Asian fellow was a spy for the authorities. And they caught up to him. The rumors were going on, when this thing broke up they started going after him, and they did injure him badly. I know that they claim that a typewriter was thrown on his head. I know he was cut and was bleeding, blood, later on I saw the blood. But they started chasing him through the mess hall and as they went through they would pick up the dishes and the cups -- they were porcelain, earthenware -- and they were throwin' at him as they would pass by. That I did witness.

TI: Everyone was?

MT: Huh?

TI: Everyone was doing that, or lots of people?

MT: No, I just saw him in that one mess hall.

TI: No, but in terms of who was throwing, was it lots of people were throwing?

MT: Several. These were all teenagers and older, older teenagers and older were doing that, chasing him. And one of the things that happened as the riot was going on is a lifelong lesson that I received, and that lifelong lesson was that, when I was watching one of the camp officials, a white official, stood up on one of these milk boxes, those sturdy boxes, and he said, "Stop it, stop it. You're gonna make it bad for yourself. Don't do this, don't do this. You'll make it worse for yourself." And I thought, wow, he's brave to do that. And this one guy, young, one teenager, older teenager said, "What do you care? We're all Japs." And he says, "No, no, you're Americans. Don't do that, don't do that." I'm thinking, wow, is he brave. And pretty soon he left -- I'm sorry, before he left I saw this, this one Kibei fellow, he was probably in his thirties, mid-thirties, he had gone down the ditch -- you remember the stream I talked about? -- and he picked up a rock about so big and he brought it up to a kid about seventeen, eighteen years old and told him in Japanese, "Nage yo." "Throw it." And I thought, what? Even at thirteen I realized how bad that was. I thought if that guy threw that rock -- he didn't -- if the guy threw that rock, hit that man and injured him, and he got caught he would go to jail. Whereas the guy that instigated it would be scot free. And I said, wow, that's a life lesson, lifelong, it was a lifelong lesson for me. 'Cause I would be in corporate situation or other situation, I'd be sitting there, whether it's school or anywhere else, if somebody say -- because I'm a little outspoken at times -- they would say to me, tell 'em this, tell 'em that. And I would always say, you tell 'em, and invariably they won't say a word. Lifelong lesson. In corporate, in corporations that would happen to me. I'll be in a meeting and somebody would say, tell 'em that, tell 'em that. No, you tell 'em.

TI: So that's a very powerful lesson, just that imagery in terms of someone trying to get someone else to do their dirty work for them.

MT: Oh yeah. Yes, and getting off scot free, not being blamed for it, instigators. It's a great lesson for me. Anyway, so that's happened there.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2011 Densho. All Rights Reserved.