<Begin Segment 24>

GY: And found who our neighbors were, and we were happy to see friends from East LA. Well, I guess, the kind of feeling that we have when -- a person may have when we go to a summer camp with the family. You find yourself in the tent by yourself, and people -- it's kind of a strange feeling because you're used to having a house and bedroom and this kind of thing. But, but it's not a happy feeling, but we, well, here we are kind of thing. At least we're in a place where we're not getting all this stuff, propaganda about "Jap" -- "Jap" kind of thing that, that we didn't have to deal with that paranoia. So we're settled now for a while. Of course, there's this uncertainty in terms of the future. How long we're going to be there. And so the men who were already in the armed services -- what is my role in terms of what I'm going to do in the camp. One thing that was kind of interesting that one friend told me -- he was Nisei, about my age -- he went to camp, and it really blew his mind to see, eventually, the camp run by Niseis but not the running, administering the program, but to see so many different Niseis in doing different things, just a variety of things. For example, the newsletters, here's this journalist writing newsletters and producing the newsletter, distributing the newsletter. And here's this Japanese fireman, and here's a fire station, Japanese, Niseis there, hanging out, they're firemen. And there was a police station and a Japanese Nisei policeman. And in the hospital, there were the nurses, doctors, all Nisei. Let's see. What other things? Of course, we had some farmers who grew vegetables. There was a pig farmer here, setting up the places. Dairies. Let's see. What else did they do? Well, and then there were some building of schools, adobe -- in Poston, they built adobe schools. Teachers. It was a, again, a city in itself, a city in itself. Populated and run by Japanese. And here's this dance band, too.

And there's another friend who said, golly -- I guess he came from a small town in California. Here's this dance band, all Nisei faces playing dance music. He said that was so far out, so far out. And one of my friends -- whom I knew, and it was kind of the -- he's the only person mentioned. He saw, and when I was playing, there's one I sang one night. That was the only one, the only time I sang in my whole life at the time. He remembered. "I remember you there. And it just blew my mind, seeing some Nisei up there, singing away." So that was a new experience for many Niseis and to participate and do -- and to observe others doing that. They became schoolteachers. Well, to work as a cook is no big thing or wash dishes, but seeing all these different kind of things. So that opened the world for him. And it did for others, too.

<End Segment 24> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.