Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Kazuko Uno Bill Interview I
Narrator: Kazuko Uno Bill
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: May 7, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-bkazuko-01-0022

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MA: So you'd mentioned earlier that you, before Pearl Harbor and before the executive order and all that, you had wanted to, you were thinking about applying to medical school. So when you were in Pinedale, was there any sense of, that you wanted to continue on to go to med school, that you felt like you could at all? Or had you sort of resigned yourself to feeling like it wasn't gonna happen at that point?

KB: Okay, there was, I can't... I was trying to think what medical facilities there were at Pinedale, but there was something, because I got involved in the medical laboratory. And there was... well, actually, there were three or four of us who were in this laboratory, and we did blood counts and urine exams and things like that. And there was one fellow who knew a little bit about it. None of us really had any real experience in this kind of work, but with books and some guidance -- and I'm trying to think if we had a doctor. There must have been a doctor, but I just can't remember who he was. Anyway, so I learned how to do some lab work, blood tests and urine tests and things like that. And this actually came in very handy for me later on. They had work for some people, not like in, after we went to Tule Lake, but my, I think my mother worked in the mess hall, we didn't call them dining rooms, but mess halls. [Laughs]

MA: So when you were working in the lab, I guess, what was the facility like that you were working in and what was the equipment like?

KB: In Pinedale?

MA: In Pinedale.

KB: It was, there was hardly anything. It was just like a small room, and we probably had a washbasin and maybe some tubes. It was very minimal, minimally supplied place. And I don't remember too much about it, actually, except I know that, that we did have this lab.

MA: And you eventually started working there?

KB: Yes.

MA: Did you get paid at that point, in Pinedale?

KB: I don't think so. I don't remember that anybody got paid in Pinedale.

MA: Okay. So you were in Pinedale until, was it around September?

KB: September, right.

<End Segment 22> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.