<Begin Segment 19>

TI: Let's switch to the social life. You talked a little bit about that, and the schools, to try to make it as normal as possible in terms of the school, which includes social life. So what was the social life, because you were, what, seventeen, eighteen years old?

MT: There was a block dance almost every weekend, I would say. And we would go to this block dance and we would go to that block dance, and I think that was one of the biggest things at least teenagers from my age looked forward to. And they did set up churches and things. Social life on the whole for the camp, they'd have different programs, Christmas and Easter and all these things, they'd try to observe it. And as each individual block, they had, they had a block leader, and they tried to do things within the blocks, and then jointly with the neighboring blocks and things. So organized and still being disorganized. I think they did a pretty good job of trying to keep people together, and trying to pretty much lead a normal life without the feeling of being in camp. I mean, that, that was always over your head, but they tried to make it a pretty normal life there in camp.

TI: So when you talk about these block activities like a block dance, how many people would be at a dance?

MT: Oh, I would say a good hundred, hundred fifty people.

TI: And so from that block, what percentage would be from that block, and what percentage would be sort of outside that block? What would the ratio be?

MT: Oh, maybe about a third would be from the block, and rest from neighboring blocks.

TI: And so, and so what you liked to do was attend these block parties? So not only your block, but then the other block parties you would go. Would there be, would you see the same people at most of these other block --

MT: Pretty much so, yeah.

TI: Was this about the time that you met June?

MT: Yeah, I met June in Puyallup. I was introduced to her, and then Minidoka I got acquainted with her and started going with her.

TI: So you said you were introduced to her. So she came from a small town in Alaska, Petersburg. How did, who introduced you to, to June?

MT: Well, I had a couple of friends that were in, I can't remember what block she was in. But had a chance to visit over there, and through them, I met June. She's a cute gal. [Laughs]

TI: And so you met her in Puyallup, and then you saw her again in Minidoka. And so was it from these block parties that you started sort of dating, or how did that come about?

MT: She lived, I think, the next block from me. So nice to know somebody from the next block that you can go date with her and go out with her and things. So pretty much from the very beginning of Puyallup, I mean, Minidoka, she was my girlfriend, we went together.

TI: And how does dating work in camp? I'm curious how the whole dating thing worked in camp in terms of, would it have been just like you were in Seattle, do you think, or were there different kind of rules, or different things you had to think about when you were dating in camp?

MT: I don't think there was really any difference. I think one of June's big disappointment was I wasn't a good dancer. She loved to dance.

TI: How about things like parents? How did they deal or view dating amongst the Niseis, like June's parents or your parents?

MT: I imagine the parents were quite concerned about not so much the boys, with the girls I think they were. Because they really didn't have strict control over them. I mean, like I say, whether you were young kids or teenagers, you went with your own friends in your dining room. Maybe in the breakfast you got together with your folks, but lunch and dinners, a lot of us never did get together with our parents. So I think for our mothers that had daughters, I think especially if they're teenage girls, I think they were much more concerned about their kids than they were with boys.

TI: Okay, so I'm going to ask you this, so as a father of a now twenty-one year old daughter, so I'm thinking as a father. So little things like did you, like, after a dance or something, did you, like, walk her back to her apartment by a certain time? Did you have to meet her parents? How did all that work out?

MT: As a casual date or something, I think chances of going in and meeting the family and things were very, very rare. Because you know, they're in a small room, there may be two or three others in there, so I mean, did the fellows go really pick up, meet the girls and take 'em back home, or was it a common knowledge to say, "I'm going to the dance and I'll meet you there"? I think it was more casual that way instead of in the sense of going over to pick up the girl in her barrack room, or nicer word would be apartment, but it's just a barrack. I think it was more just, more or less, a verbal thing, "I'll meet you at such and such a block at..."

TI: And so how about her parents? Was there any time that you met her parents at Minidoka and talked with them?

MT: I think the chances of that were very, very slim. I mean, over here, if you were a seventeen, eighteen year old and Buddhist church was having a dance, you can't tell the girl, "I'll meet you there." I mean, at least if it was a regular dance you had to go pick her up and things. There was very little of that over there. I think it was just a matter of meeting each other.

TI: So it's almost like your dating could be under the radar of the parents because you could more casually just meet at these places. And if you were in Seattle, you would have to kind of like sometimes pick her up and then perhaps meet the parents.

MT: That was the breakdown of the family, so, which was, I think, in a lot of ways, a very sad thing for the parents to see that.

TI: Or how about your parents, did they ever meet June? Did June ever kind of talk with them?

MT: In time they did, yeah.

TI: You know, that's interesting. I'm just, yeah, I'm just curious how when my parents talked about dating in camp, I was just always curious what that meant in terms of how that would differ from, like, dating in Seattle. So that's good.

<End Segment 19> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.