Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mary Hamano Interview
Narrator: Mary Hamano
Interviewer: Megan Asaka
Location: Denver, Colorado
Date: May 14, 2008
Densho ID: denshovh-hmary_2-01-0017

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MA: And what were you thinking when you got off the train and saw, you know?

MH: Well, we had no idea where we're going. We're just told that we're going and we found that we were in Colorado. And as I remember in history, Colorado, they say, that's the coldest country in the world, they say. Oh, it snows a lot and this and that. I heard of Colorado being a cold country, but it was windy. Out there, it's windy, and it's more of an open country. And this little town of Granada is only a mile from where this Amache camp was. So we went through the town. The train stopped in Granada, and then the army truck, there was, they hauled everybody in there to take us to camp, to the campgrounds. And then we were, there was a man there to advise us to be careful that there were rattlesnakes and there's these cactus plants. And when the wind blows, these needles, they do come with the sand and they might prick on you so be, that's why we advise you to wear long trousers and heavy boots and long-sleeve shirts, because of the wind is so strong. And to have a hat or something. So we were prepared for that and they explained all this. And then they take us, they took us to our block. They had so many blocks and happened to be, where I was going to be sent was called 11-G, Block 11-G. It's way in the back. About a mile, this campus, almost like from the entrance to the back end, it's about a mile long. It's a good walk. And we were, the last block was 12-K, I think, and we were 11. And then, and there was from 6 Block up to K. There's a, let's see, E, F, G... E, F, G. E ,F, G, H, there was a H, I think. So we happened to be G. There was an alphabet. They go by alphabet.

MA: So what was your barrack like? What was your living condition?

MH: Well, one block consist of a mess hall, and one building was a mess hall. And the next building was a laundry room and the shower room and the office. And a laundry room, shower, and then one block, one side had six barracks, and on the opposite side, there was six barracks. So there's twelve barracks, and one recreation building in the back. Each block, each building had six units. The two end units were small, and for couples. Then the second unit was a little large, maybe a family of, maybe five or six people. It was a little larger room. Then the middle two were smaller size, enough for our family. I was in one of the middle ones. Maybe two children and a parent. And there are four people, probably anywhere from three to four people. All in all, it was considered each block had about 300 people, considering.

MA: What about your own family? Your family's accommodations? What was that like?

MH: Well, we didn't have, they had a cot ready for us and a bucket, and a mattress. And of course, our, our bedding stuff came in later. They had a wood stove, a coal stove. It was a... some of them were pot-bellied, but ours was a cylinder type. It was about so high and it was round. And that was our heating purpose.

MA: Was it all one room? Did you all sleep in the same room?

MH: No, it's just one room. And they had a closet on one side. And then right next to the closet was the stove. And that was your, in the winter, that was your heating, all you had was coal. And there was somebody assigned to go down to Granada town, when the train would unload coal, they would go pick up the load and then bring it to camp. And each, each block, every, not block, each block, at least building, it was a bin, big bin in the front which carried the coal in. And there was three, I think there was three, because two had to share one big box. And they would dump it in there. And so, in the summertime, well, you don't need it. But it was the wintertime that it was very cold. And our barrack color was kind of a beige color. It isn't black like the one we had in Santa Anita, it was a black tarpaper. But ours was a beige color so it wasn't too bad. The picture I have there, it shows it's a light-colored, so it didn't look too bad. And then as time went on, we had tree planting. All the young men went down to the riverbed and got all the seedlings, the elm seedlings and we planted trees in the back of our barrack. And I think it was either three, three or four. Anyway, the picture shows it, it tells it. We planted trees and then after that was done, then we had a ranch, what they call Koan Ranch, down below the camp.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.