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AI: So you were able to recruit some potential employers.

CO: Yeah.

AI: Now, what happened then?

CO: Well, I didn't do, stay with that part of the program very long because, for two reasons -- one, although we had recruited jobs, we didn't have as many applicants for them as we would hope for. Anyway, so I felt, "Well, why not go to one of the camps themselves and tell them about what's available, what's out there." So that's how I moved with my wife and child. I had a two-year old then. And we found that Poston, Arizona, which is on the Colorado River, is -- it's a large camp. There were three camps in the big, the whole program there. And so we moved out there, oh, in about November, or October, November, and were there through the winter. Even though it was winter, it was hot. And my wife got a job as a social worker in the camp. And my daughter was age two, and she had a ball. She'd go around and, with her little bucket-like lunchbox and say, "I go to 'wook.' I'm going to work." And one time she went out on a highway, and some Nisei drivers found her and picked her up and brought her home. And she said, she told them, she was going to 'wook.'

Actually, we had a very positive experience at Poston. The quarters for staff are separate from the quarters for the evacuees. And although they weren't luxurious, they were a lot better than the quarters for the evacuees. We had, the government had furnished apartments with a kitchen and a bedroom, one bedroom and living room. It provided a water cooler for cooling and a separate mess hall which, although I think the food was probably very similar to that that was provided in the mess halls for the evacuees. Anyway, that's where we lived. We felt this was a worthwhile thing to do, even though there was some feeling sometimes among the evacuees that the staff were getting a great deal and -- [laughs] -- were tending to exploit the job on behalf of the evacuees. But by and large, our contact, our relationship, both mine and my wife's with our counterparts among the evacuees, 'cause they, where I was a relocation officer, there were relocation people on the staff in the camp of evacuees, so that they would be responsible for going out and bringing in people who might be candidates for relocation.

AI: And then what would you do? What was your role?

CO: And then, well, we would receive, and the staff would, the job offers from all over the country would come in, and we would post them and keep them available so that the other, the evacuee staff would have that material, too. And it was a combined effort that we would go out and recruit people for jobs and so on.

AI: And once you had been there a few months, what was your impression about the evacuees' readiness or willingness or interest in relocating?

CO: What was my impression of that?

AI: Right.

CO: Well, I felt that they were my counterparts and that I had, they had just as much concern about seeing people leave as I did. And our relationships with the, with the staff was very close. We became very good friends. So, anyway, that went on for me for about, maybe ten months. And during that time...

<End Segment 3> - Copyright © 2000 Densho. All Rights Reserved.