<Begin Segment 23>

MA: And then were sent again on another trip away to Tule Lake.

KB: Right.

MA: So what was that journey like? Did you have a better sense of where you were going at that point? Did you know...

KB: No.

MA: So you still...

KB: We still had no idea where we were going. The only thing is that they, we were not the first ones to go, some of my friends had gone before us. I guess they, I think it was by bus, and so they only took us maybe two or three busloads at a time. So it took maybe a week or so before everybody from Pinedale was transferred to Tule Lake. So when we, when I got there, some of my friends were already there and they came to greet us, meet us. So it was kind of nice that way, that we weren't going to a completely foreign place.

MA: Were these people you knew from back, back in South Park, or people that you'd met in Pinedale?

KB: People we met in Pinedale, uh-huh.

MA: And so what was your, can you describe that day of arriving in Tule Lake and what your living situation was?

KB: Okay. I don't know whether you're familiar, have any idea what Tule Lake was like. It was a huge place in the middle of a desert. And the camp had, like a moat, it was like a... didn't have water in it, but it was like a ditch, let me say, okay. And that was at the far end of the camp. I can't remember... let's see, it was probably on the north side. So what, that area was called "Alaska" because you had to go across this ditch in order to get there, and there was like a wooden bridge that crossed that ditch. We were assigned to the most, farthest cabin in that Alaska section. So it was like the most remote area from the entrance to the camp that we could get to, right under the guard tower. I think there was a mess hall that was probably at the far edge of the camp, and we were next to the mess hall. So it was a long, long walk from the entrance where we were left off with our luggage and a few things that we had, we had to walk over there. And so some of the people that had been transferred there earlier came to meet us and help us carry our things over there.

MA: So you were pretty isolated then, I guess, if you were so far...

KB: That's right.

MA: There was actually, like a bridge that you had to cross to get to the main camp.

KB: And I don't know why we, I think most of the people were put there were from Washington. The rest, the large area was made up of people from California, and some of them had already been there, and some were to come later, but they were in the majority, the ones from California.

MA: Were there people from South Park that you knew who were in Tule Lake with you?

KB: Oh, yes, uh-huh. South Park and then maybe from Kent, Auburn, that area. Tacoma, there were quite a few people from Tacoma.

MA: So at that point you were in Tule Lake, and did you have any idea how long you would be there? Or was it sort of like this is where you're gonna be for a long time? What was your family's, I guess, thinking at that point about your future?

KB: I think we didn't know what was going to happen. The future was very indefinite. And the way we were treated felt like, just get prepared for a long stay. And they, like accommodations were a little bit better. They gave us three rooms, our family, so the girls had one room, the boys had one room, and then my parents had the third room. You could try to set up a little kitchen with hot... what do you call it?

MA: A hotplate?

KB: Hotplate, and many people decorated their rooms. Somehow they -- well, the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs were used a lot, so that they can get clothes and supplies and cloth to make draperies and whatever. People innovated any way that they can, and tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible. Because it felt like we were in for a long stay. As time went on, things improved, especially the food became much better.

MA: What was your memories of the food when you first got there?

KB: It was terrible. I think they were opening cans and they were using material that was like C-rations. But then they started farms, they raised pigs and cows. I know my father worked out on the farms to raise vegetables, so we got fresh vegetables. They were raising the animals so they were slaughtered for meat. There was plenty to eat, and the cooks prepared food that was more suitable for the Japanese, so there was rice and tsukemono maybe, even. I don't remember that, but... I personally worked at the hospital. There was quite a large hospital in every camp, and since I started doing lab work in Pinedale, then I was able to get a job in the hospital at Tule Lake, which was much better equipped. It was a regular laboratory, we had technicians who were trained laboratory technicians, mostly from California. The hospital was staffed by doctors from California.

MA: By, were they white doctors?

KB: No.

MA: They were all Niseis?

KB: They were Japanese, yeah.

MA: So the whole hospital then in Tule Lake was mostly Japanese Americans?

KB: Right. The director was... wait a minute, I know the camp director was not Japanese. Seems to me the hospital director was not Japanese, I think he was a white doctor. So... let's see, we were talking about food, so the hospital food was very good, and I had a friend who was a dietician, and she would tell us, "Okay, eat at the hospital today, we're gonna have steak." [Laughs] Then we'd all eat there instead of in our camp dining room.

MA: And so this was food that was prepared for the patients at the hospital?

KB: No, it was prepared for the staff.

MA: Oh, for the staff?

KB: Yeah. I don't know what the patients ate, I don't think they had steak and the good stuff. [Laughs]

<End Segment 23> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.