<Begin Segment 7>

AI: What, what did it look like at Santa Anita? When you got there, what did you see?

MK: Well, as soon as I got there, I saw all these Japanese. We were told to, I think it was register, and then a truck came by and put on all our suitcases. Then we went to the horse stalls. I says, "Gee, this is where we're gonna live?" Unfortunately, it was. I think our, our road in front of us was called Sea Biscuit Lane. Sea Biscuit was a, a well-known horse, racehorse. But it was, alley was really hot when we went there, and naturally, the smell of the horse stables -- wow. I don't think, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. I can see, as soon as they build the barracks, that a lot, a lot of these Los Angeles people that were in the stables moved right away to the barracks. Opened up the barracks, horse stables for us. So unfortunately, we were stuck in a horse stable.

AI: So for people who don't know, Santa Anita was a well-known racetrack...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...in the Los Angeles area. Were you there in the horse stalls with your whole family...

MK: Yeah.

AI: ...your parents and all your brothers and sisters?

MK: Yeah. Yeah. They had all the mess halls there. I still remember mess halls were, Red Mess, Green Mess, Yellow Mess. Anyway, the mess halls were named after colors. They had this big grandstand, you know, where the racetracks were, and within a few days, they had us working, making camouflage nets for the war effort. So we went because we thought that was our duty. We didn't, we didn't know anything about resistance or protest or anything, but there was.

AI: There, at Santa Anita?

MK: There was some people beaten up actually because they were called "stoolies." I still remember large crowds going this way, that way. I wondering, "What's going on?" Pretty soon this army came in with these, what you call half-tracks, half truck and half track. And they had a machine gun on the back, and they're going up and down the streets, because of, they almost had a riot. I still remember that.

AI: What was going through your mind when you saw them going up and down with those...

MK: Well, they claimed that there was a...

AI: ...guns?

MK: ...informer. I don't know, I don't know what the real reason was, but that's what I heard. And a few people beat 'em up. So that's the only disturbance I saw in Santa Anita.

AI: So you were living in these horse stalls, and then during the day, you were helping out with the camouflage netting.

MK: Yeah.

AI: What about your younger brothers and sisters? What were they doing at, they're still about grade-school age?

MK: No, they didn't have any schools or anything, so they were mostly on their own. That broke up all the families. The kids went, ate together and did everything together. The mother and father lost really control of their kids. That's, that was bad. And L.A. had these, all these what you call "yogore gangs."

AI: Well, when you say, "yogore," for people who don't know, understand that, what did that mean?

MK: Yogore means, well, you know, "bad people." Yogore means actually "dirty people." And they had those kind of gang, zootsuiters and pachucos. The first time I saw it, I said, "God, what kind of people are those?" It was frightening, actually, because they, they would -- first time in my life we ran into what you call organized gangs. Yeah, each one I, went under the name of clubs, but lot of 'em were gangs actually. And they would beat up anybody that probably got in their way. And L.A. kids were really good at that. They actually intimidated -- [laughs] -- the northern California boys. Like one girl told me, "You guys are just like Lil' Abners." You know, square. I told my brother when I came home, "You know that girl told me we were like Lil' Abner." I said, "You know, Lil' Abner, I thought he was big, husky, happy-go-lucky guy." I thought that's a compliment. But he says, "No, no. You know what she means? She said you guys are this, square." [Laughs] Really squares. We were really squares.

AI: And she meant in comparison with the L.A. boys?

MK: Yeah.

<End Segment 7> - Copyright © 2001 Densho. All Rights Reserved.