Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Seichi Hayashida Interview
Narrator: Seichi Hayashida
Interviewers: Alice Ito (primary), Sheri Nakashima (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: August 21, 1997
Densho ID: denshovh-hseichi-01-0028

<Begin Segment 28>

SN: Did the people in Minidoka, the Nikkei, the Japanese Americans, did they have a chance to maybe govern themselves a little bit? Like, did they have some say in how things were run in camp?

SH: Well, we got to self administrate the camp. They had guidelines to go by, but they had some good camp manager, they had a good camp manager, they had good block managers, and the communication was good. So they didn't have any problems. But I know in Tule Lake, they had lots of problems, between one block and the next.

SN: I'd like to go into that a little bit more. First of all, I just want to clarify one thing. The block manager and the camp manager, were they Nikkei, were they Japanese American?

SH: Yes, yes. They were usually leaders in their home communities before they were evacuated.

SN: So, how did they get elected?

SH: They weren't elected. The government, the administration assigned them. You applied for it, if you wanted to. They got paid a little more. But if you look at, if you were to go through the list of the block managers, most of 'em were outstanding, prominent Nisei members of different organizations, or just better known, better educated.

SN: So they were primarily Nisei then in these leadership roles.

SH: Right. They were Niseis, most of them.

SN: And what type of things, what would a typical camp manager do? What would he be responsible for?

SH: Block manager. Camp manager was a Caucasian.

SN: Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. The block manager, what would he do?

SH: He didn't have to do much. There wasn't so much to do. My sister was secretary to the camp, one of the camp managers in Tule Lake, for a little while. So, secretary do what secretary... there was really not that much. The block managers got orders from the camp managers. So, unless there was a faction in it that wanted to give the manager trouble, he didn't have much to do. It was just that if you had some problem, you had some complaints about the food, about this condition or that, you didn't go to the head administrator of the... at the headquarters, you went to your camp manager -- I mean, your block manager.

SN: And he would take care of it.

SH: And he would take care of it. Some of it he could solve right there himself, or he would take it to the camp manager.

<End Segment 28> - Copyright © 1997 Densho. All Rights Reserved.