Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Fumi Kaseguma Interview
Narrator: Fumi Kaseguma
Interviewer: Tom Ikeda
Location: Las Vegas, Nevada
Date: November 6, 2007
Densho ID: denshovh-kfumi-01-0012

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TI: Okay, so we're now into our second hour of this interview. So we're talking about, about the Portland Assembly Center. And eventually you got word that you were going to move from Portland to someplace else. Did you know where you were going and what it was going to be like?

FK: No, not really, no. We were all put on a train, and when we got there, my goodness, it was terrible. You know, the laundry room -- not the laundry room, but the toilets, nothing was finished, so we had outhouses. And I think your folks probably told you, too, in the wintertime it was just mud. Oh, it was just awful.

TI: Now, when you got to --

FK: Dust in the summer.

TI: Yeah, when you got to Minidoka, so this was...

FK: September.

TI: September, was it already filled with people, or was it, were you one of the first ones there?

FK: Well, no, the Seattle people went first, there was a group that went first. And they, they, I don't... so we came later, I think the early ones in Seattle went, I think, end of August or something like that. So we were later, so they were already there, you know, and I think working with the, the administration and everything by that time.

TI: So what were some of your first impressions when you, when you saw Minidoka?

FK: Oh, my goodness. [Laughs] The barracks were bare, it was two-by-fours and nothing, no... and the potbelly stove like you've probably heard, that was all. And cots, and that was all. So we had to... of course, we all had our own beddings, but my mother had got the closet, one closet, but she got, she bought the material to hang, to make the, you know, to at least to cover the closet, things like that, and curtains. So the windows, you couldn't see from the outside.

TI: And so when you first got to Minidoka, so what did you do? Did you walk around to see what it was like, or I mean, who did you, did you start seeing some people from Seattle that you knew, or was it mostly Portland people, or describe some of the things that you did.

FK: I, well, it was mostly Portland people. And my, then so I used to get together with my girlfriends in Portland. Because they were all in the same, sort of same area.

TI: And so they had the Seattle area and then the Portland area? So they're two different areas?

FK: Sort of, uh-huh. There were some, the later ones, I think, that came from Seattle were mixed farther up from us. But most of the original Seattle people were all down towards the, administration building is closer to them, and we were farther out.

TI: And so initially, you're just staying around with more Portland people, and doing things?

FK: Yeah.

<End Segment 12> - Copyright © 2007 Densho. All Rights Reserved.