<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So eventually you had to leave for Puyallup. Do you remember where your pickup point was?

YN: It was in our neighborhood, I don't know exactly, but I do know when I entered into the fairgrounds.

TI: So describe that. What was that like?

YN: Couldn't believe it. I look around, there's the roller coaster, the ferris wheels, all the things, the horse stalls, the place where we ate was the (same area), today where you, the food fair would be, the grandstand was there, it was internment at its best for a child.

TI: So there's a sense of excitement, of...

YN: Absolutely, but just the opposite of that which my parents (must have) felt. But what I'm saying to the people, don't misconstrue it that this made it right. What I'm saying to them, therefore I (...) would go back to the Puyallup Fair (with mixed emotions), because I learned that was not a good place (to enjoy our memories), you see. But as a child, I didn't know.

TI: Well, describe the, the accommodations for your family.

YN: It was horrible. But again, for those that stayed in the animal pens where they exhibited the hogs or whatever, or the horse stalls, (...) we had a little shed (or barracks) that housed maybe four families. (...) Your bed was simply, you got a sack and you filled it with straw, whatever. But for a child, it's not a question. It's for those that understand America, that it's entirely different. And my difficulty in speaking for, for those experiences is because my gut level of what they paid as the price of being my parents, the Issei, or the older Nisei that knew what they missed, should never be interpreted through the eyes of a child.

TI: Right. And that's one of the reasons why we interview a wide range of, of ages. But from your perspective as a, as a child, a third-grader about nine years old or so, what did you do to, to stay busy?

YN: See, life being what it is, I sold newspapers. I was, when I read that the pay was nine dollars, today's world I was the Bill Gates of Camp Harmony.

TI: You mean the pay was, like, nineteen dollars a month...

YN: Nine dollars to about six-, seventeen dollars a month for -- and I earned that selling newspapers in camp. A paper that we hated called the P-I. Because it came out in the morning and I would yell and wake everybody up, "P-I paper," they must have been ready to "shoot that brat" again.

TI: So you would go someplace to pick up these newspapers?

YN: To the gate where the MPs were, Military Police, and we would get our paper through and we'd take it and I'd run for the mess hall, because I knew the older people that could read would want to buy it. It's amazing they had enough money to buy a paper.

TI: So how many other boys or children did the same thing?

YN: My father and I and one other person, and his father. Just the four of us.

TI: Oh, so you did this with your father?

YN: Uh-huh.

TI: And so he was the one that probably figured this out and made arrangements...

YN: He's the one that made it possible, talking to this other Issei, I wish I knew how they decided, I don't know. (...) I'll never forget going (...) up to (selling) a paper to the military person on top of the grandstand that was with the machine gun. And I hated heights and I, I shivered every time I had to go up to (deliver the paper as) I returned to Puyallup Fair. (...) I thought about those things.

TI: So you, I remember earlier you told this story, so you had to climb this ladder to deliver a paper.

YN: Through a hole, and he would come to the hole, 'cause he was on top of the roof of the grandstand, and it's pretty well the same. And the mess hall that we ate in is pretty well the same mess hall that our people ate in, where they sell hamburgers, and elephant ears and whatever (today).

TI: Now, do you recall, as you were selling papers, any interesting incidents or conversations with people?

YN: Only, only it's hard to believe, the very paper, as I learned in education (in later years), the Hearst papers, that was one of the prime movers (in the internment of) our people would still be read (by the Japanese Americans). We weren't sophisticated enough not to buy the paper.

TI: So here you were, selling a paper, a Hearst paper, that was very anti-Japanese, and you didn't realize what you were selling in some ways. I mean, if you did, do you think that would have changed your...

YN: If I knew with what I (know) today, there's no way in any form I would have been a part of that. But that only comes with understanding of time.

TI: Yeah, I'm curious. Puyallup was, was separated into various sections, A, B, C, D. To sell papers, were you able to go to all the various areas?

YN: Only where I was interned (in Area D). I could not leave the gate of the fairgrounds. That was my territory. The other ones were in the parking lots outside. Now, I'm certain if I had known better, maybe I could have gone out, but, but the boundaries were very clear, so I don't know how much, if you had a girlfriend in A, that you could go and see each other. I don't know, but as far as my life was concerned, that was big enough territory.

TI: So I'm curious; you said you were able to make pretty good money selling newspapers, how many newspapers did you sell a day, and how much did you sell each paper for?

YN: You know, again, it's very interesting. It was never economics, so I don't -- to this day -- know If I sold a hundred or I sold only ten. Whatever I know is only by what -- because I never saw the money. My parents must have had the money, but I know I'm the one that collected the money to turn in to pay for the papers, so there was an accountability, but I was a child. Third grade I was not the entrepreneur to bring it to the bottom line.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.