Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Yasashi Ichikawa Interview II
Narrator: Yasashi Ichikawa
Interviewer: Tomoyo Yamada
Location: Portland, Oregon
Date: November 20, 1999
Densho ID: denshovh-iyasashi-02-0018

<Begin Segment 18>

[Translated from Japanese]

TY: By the way, when you left for Puyallup, you walked to a bus stop and took a bus there. What do you remember about it? What do you remember most?

YI: Well. Puyallup. Puyallup wasn't too bad. But when we moved to Idaho, the ground was mud. That was a real headache. If you carried something by hand or wore boots, the ground became muddy. Really bad. They built housing where sagebrush grew. They just removed the sagebrush and built buildings. So it was really muddy. It was sticky and muddy.

TY: In addition, you had to walk with your small children. At that time, Shinya was not even one year old...

YI: He was just a baby.

TY: He was not even one year old.

YI: We first lived in house # 25, but a temple member suggested that we move to house #13 so that she could take care of my baby. So we moved to #13 and everybody helped me to take care of Shinya.

TY: How far was it between houses #25 and #13?

YI: I wonder how many people were there. There is a book over there.

TY: There is a group photo in the book.

YI: You must have seen it.

TY: Yes, by block.

YI: A book for our block.

TY: So how many rooms? You had eight people, didn't you? Total.

YI: Huh?

TY: Including Shinya who was a baby, the Ichikawas had eight people in total.

YI: My family?

TY: Yes. In Minidoka, you and seven children.

YI: They gave us the biggest room.

TY: Did you still get only one room?

YI: Huh?

TY: Did you have only one room?

YI: Yes, one room. The host room was small, just for a couple. The next one was big, and then two small rooms. The last one was big.

TY: So you took care of your children. By the way, was the restroom close by or far away?

YI: Temple?

TY: Restroom.

YI: Oh, that. There was a building for that. Where everybody gathered and talked. What was that building called? Don't you know?

TY: Where everybody eats meals?

YI: Huh?

TY: Where everybody eats meals?

YI: That's a mess hall. There was another building. There we took lessons, taught lessons and performed plays. There was a building for that.

TY: I heard that there was a long waiting line for the restrooms and mess hall...

YI: There was a restroom and a laundry. But we didn't have washing machines. We did it by hand using a washing board. Although some people brought a washing machine. A neighbor offered me the use of a washing machine but I didn't use it.

TY: You washed everything by hand. Of seven children...

YI: Yeah.

TY: Since your children were small, it must have been difficult to take care of their bathroom needs.

YI: Restroom, too.

TY: Even if your child wanted to go to the bathroom, there was a long line.

YI: No. A friend of mine was in charge of cleaning the bathroom and restroom. They gave everybody a job. We got paid some monthly.

TY: Did you do some work?

YI: I couldn't work. I had to take care of my children.

TY: I understand. Because your children were only one year old, two years old and four years old.

YI: But there was somebody who took care of our welfare. Since I had many children and had a lot of expenses, he applied to the office for me. So I received some money every month.

TY: Then your older children were thirteen, eleven and twelve. Satoru was thirteen. Couldn't he work at that time?

YI: When he was thirteen? No, he couldn't. This one (Shinya) was only a baby.

TY: How about Satoru?

YI: Satoru was about thirteen. He got paid a little for digging potatoes. Satoru and Kazuya, I mean.

TY: Another thing I heard is that it was difficult to discipline the children in the mess hall because of the long waiting line...

YI: We lined up. Everybody did at the mess hall.

TY: So there were some unruly children at the tables, I heard.

YI: No, the children were with us.

TY: I heard many stories of unruly children. It was difficult to discipline children. I was told it was very difficult to teach table manners. Because children sat far away from their parents, out of their parents' sight. Parents could not sit by them.

YI: Children didn't make it. But they colored Easter eggs and displayed them. A play was performed at that big mess hall.

TY: It must have been very difficult. Were you worried about your children's manners? Or were you just too busy?

YI: The children also had to go to school.

TY: So then...

YI: From kindergarten up. There was a person in charge of baby food. They gave us baby foods. Just like Caucasians. They were very good at those things. But, the problem was that the ingredients were not very good. We had dried shrimp every day. The soup stock was made of dried shrimp. Some camps, one at Tule Lake, California, served sashimi, I heard. I never ate sashimi at my camp.

TY: Then you got news about other camps?

YI: I guess so. And then, Columbia smelt, a small fish. We don't see that fish very much these days. We got that fish at the Columbia River. They served that fish often.

<End Segment 18> - Copyright © 1999 Densho. All Rights Reserved.