Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Hideo Hoshide Interview I
Narrator: Hideo Hoshide
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: January 26 & 27, 2006
Densho ID: denshovh-hhideo-01-0044

<Begin Segment 44>

TI: So Pinedale was an assembly center, so these were temporary detention facilities. These were a place to hold people until they built more permanent facilities. So eventually you left Pinedale. Can you talk about leaving Pinedale and where you went next?

HH: I think we had to take a train again, and it was shortly after the Fourth of July that we didn't know where we were going, but we found out that it was in Tule Lake, and we didn't know where Tule Lake was until we got there. But we found out that it was on the border, on the northern border of California and eastern Oregon, near Klamath Falls.

TI: And what was, what was Tule Lake like when you first got there?

HH: Tule Lake was no different as far as the barracks, because they were still building barracks. And especially Tule Lake, it was, they were all behind schedule. That's why they had to take 'em to assembly center. Manzanar, I think, was already inhabited by the California people. I think they were there already, before Winslow and Bainbridge Island people were evacuated. But all the others were not even finished completely.

TI: So when you got to Tule Lake, at Pinedale, you worked on the newspaper, the Pinedale Logger. At Tule Lake, they had the Tulean Dispatch, another newspaper. Did you work on --

HH: Tulean Dispatch, yes.

TI: Did you work on that?

HH: I also worked as a sports editor there.

TI: Now, was it kind of the same crew from Pinedale that worked on the Tulean, or was it a different group?

HH: I think... I can't really remember too much, but I think everybody left, and some of those people might have gone to other facilities instead, because I think Tule Lake was the largest. It was supposed to be able to hold 20,000.

TI: So as sports editor of the Tulean Dispatch, what did that mean? What kind of things did you do as sports editor?

HH: Well, same type of thing. By that time, they had a recreation department, and we were, our office was on the end of the barrack, which rest of the barrack was the recreation department. So they started having, like, piano lessons and things like that as they got, and in fact, I think we had a few Hawaiians. I don't know, I think they came from Puyallup, I think. Anyway, they had weights, in fact, the guy who was a lightweight, he broke some of the...

TI: Oh, so one of the weightlifters, I can't remember, I think was like Kono or somebody...

HH: Yes, I think so.

TI: He was a weightlifting champion.

HH: Yes, he was there, so they thought maybe they can get that kind of thing as part of the recreation department. And then we had to get a baseball field and basketball, things set up, tennis court. But the ground is very sandy there, and in the wintertime, it's really very cold. In fact, we didn't have any running water, we had to go to the toilets and such, showers, was in one smaller building, then the laundry facility in each block. So you had to go from your barrack and to get any water and everything like that, you had to get it. So they gave us a bucket, and so we would bring water in from there.

TI: So you'd get your water from these more central facilities, and then bring it to your room.

HH: Yes, outside of these facilities, they had a little faucet that you could fill your bucket, and then you bring it back in. And then in wintertime, I remember, at Tule Lake, had ice form on the...

TI: So the rooms were so cold that you had ice form?

HH: Yes.

TI: So that was below freezing.

HH: Yes. First year especially was bad because there were no inside walls, the exterior side was not, wasn't even plasterboard or anything like that. There's no ceiling installed yet, so really, it was very hard the first year. Because it was the second year that they were finally able to start putting up ceiling, walls, and the sides.

TI: So, I mean, from your perspective, because you had a really insider view of this, how important were sports in places like Pinedale and Tule Lake? Because you, that was something you really focused on. When you look at kind of the bigger picture of the camps and just how things were going, how important do you think sports were to the camps?

HH: Well, this is, in assembly centers, they didn't have schools anyway, they didn't have a building even large enough, and so they didn't have school there. But now it became a more permanent place, they didn't know how long you'd go, it was more duration of the war. But then they didn't get the schools built, but they were using these recreation hall, which is one barrack, same as the barrack building, that they started having classes for not only school, but also for crafts and little things that the adults could use to take some... unless they're working. So first deal is man all these people, workers, so that the camp could operate. Because they didn't have any civilian people manning as cooks and everything else.

<End Segment 44> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.