Densho Digital Repository - Mas Takano Interview (Densho ID: ddr-ajah-1-5-9)

<Begin Segment 9>

BN: Okay, and then the rest of... you are still in camp with your mother?

MT: I'm still in camp.

BN: Your sisters have --

MT: Teri had gone to Cleveland.

BN: Your sisters had left, too, right?

MT: Yeah.

BN: Did they also work in camp?

MT: No, no. I worked in camp. I got a job in camp.

BN: As a kid?

MT: Yeah. I was a janitor in the high school.

BN: Really?

MT: And this friend of mine, he's from Cortez, he and I were the best friends in Cortez. He and I grew up together. And to this day, well, he just passed away two years ago. But he knew somebody, got a job to be a janitor, got this big broomstick, walked down the hallway in the high school, then we cleaned the windows and stuff.

BN: Really? They hired you?

MT: So he said, "You want a job? You could come with me," and he said I got the job. I said, "Okay." And so my father, when I started, I was making seventeen dollars a month, and there's three dollars and fifty cents clothing allowance every month. Well, he wasn't around, but I collected all that and my father came back and got that, he was really impressed.

BN: Because you're, like, twelve, thirteen years old.

MT: I was thirteen, yeah, twelve years old.

BN: I don't think I've ever heard of anyone that young working, but they needed people.

MT: They needed people.

BN: Yeah, there was a labor shortage.

MT: And then it's like who you know.

BN: Right, right. And then you were mentioning, when we were talking later, that your family were from, got to be friends with the Kodas, also.

MT: Well, they're from before the war.

BN: Yeah, right. They were also there.

MT: Kodas, yeah. And that was really ironic, because Livingston, I don't know if you're familiar with the Livingston community, but it was a community in Livingston, you had to be Christian to be there. And so when they all went to camp, the Kodas, who were in Dos Palos, were he had his rice farm, he ends up in 9-H, which was all the recent people. And I had a good friend, and I don't know, to this day, I don't remember how I met this guy, but his name was Mac Miyake, and he was a good guy, nice guy. So he and I got to be really good friends. And so I used to come down about five blocks down to see me, and we'd play or I'd go up there. But it was unusually, it was hard because at noontime, you had to eat in your own mess hall, you couldn't go to someone else's. You could sneak in, but everybody would look at you because they knew you weren't there. But I'd go up there and I'd see Mr. Koda in 9-H, and I'd say, "Good morning, Mr. Koda," he'd say, "Good morning," and he'd always wear a white shirt and slacks every day. He was tall, what a classy-looking guy he was. Amazing. And I'd see the rice bag and there he is on the rice picture, Mr. Koda.

BN: We still buy their rice.

MT: Yeah, I still use the rice, yeah.

BN: It's expensive, but it's good.

MT: Yeah, it's a little bit more expensive.

BN: So your sisters have gone away but then you mentioned that when you were ready to leave camp, they came back?

MT: You were having a little problem, Cookie was out of school, she graduated from high school, so now she could be there all day watching the kids and all this other stuff. So they looked at Teri and said, Cookie and Teri said, "We'd like to just have Cookie because she's out of school and she stays here, so Teri, we don't need you. So one of you have to leave," I think, is what they said. But they were happy to have two, because gas rationing, meat, and you get those coupons for everybody in the house, you get so many. So they got extra because of Cookie and Teri. But I guess Cookie told my father, said, "Maybe I might move to another place," and my father said, "Hey, Teri was there first, you move out. You look for another place or come back, one or the other." So she was, thought she would find a job over there. But then when they said they were going to close the camp, that was about April, I guess. And Amache was the first to close so my father got a hold of Cookie and said, "You come on back because we're going to move, you got to help us pack and everything." So, you know, she came back. And Teri stayed there another year, a year and half I think she stayed there in Cleveland. And then when Cookie comes back, she works at the... she's already out of school, she's sixteen, she gets a job with the naval air station, she's making a hundred forty dollars a month making more money than Teri. So my father said to Teri, "You better come back here, your younger sister's making more money than you are." So Teri came back, it's funny.