<Begin Segment 27>

AI: And we're continuing with George Yoshida on February 18, 2002. And when we left off at, before the break, you were in Poston Camp No. 1.

GY: Yes.

AI: And I wanted to ask you: because the Poston camps were on the Colorado River Indian Reservation, did you see Native Americans, Americans Indians there, and what -- did you know anything of them?

GY: Okay. I didn't meet any or see them during our daily lives. I did see several of them when we reached the train depot in a tiny town -- I forgot what the name of the town, town was. I guess it may've been Parker. But I just think, you can see them, they're just all hanging all the time and not working, doing anything special. They just were sort of standing around in the middle of the day. And this kind of thing I see quite often in some of the black neighborhoods, where men supposedly should be working. Young men still hanging out and just hanging out. And I thought yeah, Native Americans -- of course, they were "Indians" in those days. We didn't use the expression "Native Americans" -- nevertheless, it seemed to me that while in camp, this is the kind of life they were leading. The government provided us internees with food, some clothing, and with no direction in terms of what we might do, but we'll take care of you, so don't worry. And sorry for, have taking you off your land. Of course, this wasn't said, but that's the idea I got that -- but we'll take care of you. So you don't have to worry anymore, kind of thing. But that's not the point. To be fed and to be clothed, provided some housing just is not enough for a, a human being to spend for the rest of one's life when there's a need for more motivation of some sort, if not work. And I felt very much like the Indians -- or Native Americans at that time. Here we were fed. If you wanted to work, fine, yeah. On the other hand, in camp, we had some opportunity to work and do something other than just to hang out. I had no contact with any of them -- Native Americans at that time. Someone said long time ago that he had seen some, in his experience, Indians helping in the camp, working, but I never did. Most of the work, in fact all of the, all the work that was done in camp was performed by people who were in camp. So here was a new community, taken out of California or whatever state, and put into the desert, and continued on with our lives.

<End Segment 27> - Copyright © 2002 Densho. All Rights Reserved.