<Begin Segment 56>

TI: So I'm curious because here, all the way through up to this point, you had always worked on sort of the camp newspapers.

HH: Yes.

TI: And so what was your connection with the Minidoka Irrigator?

HH: Well, the Minidoka Irrigator, being next-door to us, and they knew that I came. And by that time, like Dick Takeuchi... no, I think it was Dick. Anyway, some of the editors were already relocated, and they were looking for someone to take over. And I happened to know Jack...

TI: Yamashita?

HH: Yamashita, who was a business manager for the paper. And he was able to leave camp, and he had also a camera that he could use for the newspaper. The paper was printed in Jerome, Idaho, which is some miles away from Twin Falls.

TI: But before you go there, so here you were working as a community analyst, which was one job, and your office was actually in the same building as the Irrigator.

HH: Yes.

TI: And so they asked you to help run it, to actually be editor-in-chief. How could you do both jobs at the same time?

HH: Well, it wasn't that hard to take over, because I believe Jack was having trouble with the three girls that were now editors. But I think one was more or less considered for editorials or something like that, which happened to be a person by the name of Kimi Tanbara from Portland. And we had people in Tule Lake that came from Portland and that area, Oregon. And then two others from Seattle, three girls were having a little, I guess, difficulty among them, I guess, being editor. So Jack asked me would I be an editor-in-chief, in other words, I'm over all the three. So I said, "Okay," but I didn't have to do any writing or anything, running the editorial or anything like that. I was only a figurehead editor-in-chief. But my experience that I had in getting like a newspaper, just like at the time it was linotype machine, and typed and format and everything else was just like a regular newspaper, and I had experience with the Courier and putting out the paper like that. So we had to, this was weekly, so every Friday we had to go to Jerome and make up the paper out of the articles that we sent in, and they would have us make up the paper like a regular newspaper.

TI: So you and your staff were able to leave the camp, go to Jerome, and do this work.

HH: Yes. They took us out on a truck, and they stayed with us until we came back.

TI: So were you a little surprised? I mean, so they were using a fairly sophisticated printing process for the Minidoka Irrigator compared to, at the Tulean Dispatch, that was a much simpler process.

HH: Well, that was mimeograph. We had to crank the machine and everything else.

TI: So in terms of print quality, the Irrigator was a higher printing process.

HH: Oh, yes, just like a regular newspaper, like the Courier.

TI: Now, why do you think that was? Why was there such a difference between Tule Lake and Minidoka?

HH: Well, I don't know why they were able to have like advertisement from Twin Falls and the surrounding areas, there weren't so many towns or anything like that, but mostly from Twin Falls. Because some of the residents of Minidoka were able to leave the camp and if they had a job, like my brother-in-law, Jack Yoshikawa, he was driving a big semi truck, which I don't think he had any experience before, but he would sometimes bring that big semi into the camp, he was able to bring it into camp. But he was living outside in Twin Falls.

TI: Okay, so the Minidoka had a better printing process than the Tulean. I actually wanted to ask another question about the Tulean. After Tule Lake became a segregation camp, what happened to the Tulean Dispatch?

HH: Tulean Dispatch, Otani, I can't remember his first name now, anyway, he's formerly from Seattle. He was not on... he was on staff, but he was not in the editorial side, but anyway, he took over after all of us left.

TI: So it kept going on after that?

HH: And then the Japanese editor, he stayed. And then some of the others that ran the mimeograph machine or something like that, they also stayed. But they were not Seattle or Tacoma personnel.

TI: But a lot of the people who started the paper, when it became a segregation camp, they all left.

HH: They left.

TI: But a few people were still there.

HH: Uh-huh.

<End Segment 56> - Copyright © 2006 Densho. All Rights Reserved.