<Begin Segment 16>

TI: But let's pick it up at Santa Anita, so you go to Santa Anita.

JI: Yeah.

TI: And what are some memories for you about Santa Anita?

JI: Well, Santa Anita is, is the same. They wanted me to work on the newspaper, and I said, "No, I didn't want to do anything that required brainpower.

TI: Now, why, why is that?

JI: Well, I was in a blue funk. And so I, having worked in the post office, I worked for the postal thing. Well, the newspaper would have paid me twelve dollars a month, and instead, I took the post office job which was eight dollars a month, that is in script, you know. You got script to exchange for ice cream or whatever you wanted. And so I worked at this menial job, but it was, it was much, much more relaxing than the other. However, the other memory I have is, did you know Ruth Kurata? She's a kind of left-wing newspaper person from San Francisco area. But she had worked in, at the Kashu Mainichi with me, too, part of the time. And after the war, when I saw her, I asked her -- I mean, she started talking about her memories of camp, and she said she was standing in line, and her brother, incidentally, stayed in L.A. all during the war. He adopted a Korean name. [Laughs]

TI: Interesting.

JI: And I don't know how, why he wasn't turned in by Koreans, 'cause obviously they would know he wasn't. But he --

TI: By any chance, do you know if he's still alive?

JI: I don't know.

TI: Or is Ruth still alive?

JI: No, Ruth, I'm sure, is gone, 'cause she was older than I was. But she said she was standing in line to go into the mess hall, and overheard two Japanese women talking about how wonderful it was to go in and be able to eat food that you didn't have to prepare, and not have to wash up afterward, and they felt liberated. And probably had life of servitude, may have been picture brides or something even, brought over to be slaves within the household. And they... and she saw then the different side of camp that for some people, this was -- and for, like, my brother-in-law, who felt secure in Manzanar, and not threatened. It's interesting to get this point of view, which I hadn't heard before. I wasn't aware of it in the camps I was in. I know that our camp was, we had terrible food.

TI: But going back to that comment, do you think there was a distinction? So Ruth mentioned these two Japanese women, and you mentioned your brother-in-law, who was a Japanese citizen. So do you think it was more the Japanese nationals that felt that way versus an American, the Japanese American citizens?

JI: Not necessarily. My brother-in-law's brother, who was born in the United States, probably in Seattle, was so ticked off by, by the war that he went to Tule Lake as a hard-core person.

TI: Yeah, so again, the distinction is, so the U.S. citizens were the ones who were kind of ticked off, upset, but the Japanese citizens...

JI: Yeah, but no, he wanted to be repatriated to Japan. That's the reason he went to Tule Lake. That's where they were going to be repatriated. I don't know that they ever did. But Tule Lake was a kind of camp for hard-core people.

TI: Right, right. No, but I was just thinking in terms of expectations. So if you're a U.S. citizen like you, I mean, you're kind of ticked off, like, "This is my country." But then here, the people you were mentioning, like in the mess hall line, they were Japanese citizens who felt that this wasn't that bad, this was, they were being treated...

JI: Well, I don't know, because it was their status, they were women who had to work hard all the time at home, and here they could relax, in the camps they could relax. I'm not sure what their, if their husbands shared this view or not, I don't know. And I, I don't know what my dad thought about this, although I don't think he supported Japan in the war at all.

TI: Okay. Let's move on from Santa Anita --

JI: One more thing about Santa Anita. I was there when a Korean, who was assumed to be a spy, was attacked. And he got in a corner and it probably saved his life, because they threw a typewriter at him, but it was wedged in the corner. But anyway, the Santa Anita had got a bad reputation as being a place of troublemakers. Oh, another thing is, that happened, is police had come through inspecting rooms, and several people reported things stolen by so-called police. And then they blamed the Korean, who I didn't know there was such a thing as a Korean there at all, and I don't know that he was identified as a Korean until this happened. But anyway...

TI: So let me, let me make sure I understand this. So the police, you're talking about internal security?

JI: Yeah.

TI: So these were Japanese Americans.

JI: No, no.

TI: Oh, they were Caucasian.

JI: Yeah.

TI: Okay, so they went through and the claim was that some things were stolen. After this happened, there was a...

JI: Kind of a mini riot.

TI: A mini riot, and then focusing on this, this Korean who, the Japanese Americans felt...

JI: As an informant.

TI: ...was an informer, and he was kind of planted inside the camps to inform on Japanese Americans. And the thinking was probably because he looked Japanese, that he could probably mingle and...

JI: Yeah, I can't tell the difference. There are people who... there are friends of ours who started an orphanage in Korea who claimed they could tell the difference, and I said, "I can't."

TI: And so he was cornered, and then a typewriter was thrown at him, but it missed him but was wedged in the back. And then, so what happened then?

JI: Well, he was let off and taken away from the camp. But when we went to Amache in Colorado, the food was considerably better, but the people from Amache were first from Tulare in northern, in central California, and they asked not to let us go there because we were troublemakers.

TI: Oh, so the Santa Anita group had already been identified as a rougher, troublemaking group.

JI: Yeah. And, but another thing about the contrast between Santa Anita and Tulare was I decided if the post office was a fun, relaxing place to work, but I decided I'd work in the kitchen, which meant less pay but you could get decent food. [Laughs]

TI: Oh, so when you went to Amache.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.