<Begin Segment 19>

[Ed. note: This transcript has been edited by the narrator]

TI: And why don't you talk about what you did. What was your role?

FT: Well, I was a... at first I was writing little notes on the progress of what the camp, the building of the camp and so on. But after a while, I started a mimeograph-type newsletter and called it the Tulean Dispatch. And I had a little crew, typists and stenographer and a couple of guys that wrote, reporters.

TI: And so Frank, were you the one that set this up?

FT: Yeah.

TI: So what made you decide to start this?

FT: Well, sending (reports) to "Camp Harmony," I (thought), "Why don't I (...) do (this) for the whole camp?"

TI: So talk about some of the stories or articles that were important to write at that point.

FT: Well, we got a lot of releases from the authorities on the progress of other camps and so on. We wrote about camp activities (...), and announcements of various kinds, official and unofficial, gossips and (...) sports. We started inter-block sports, or intra-community sports. People from Seattle (...) formed a softball team and we challenged people from Sacramento, Marysville (and other areas). And we had weekly dances. (...) Every block had a community hall. One barrack was sort of a community hall. And we'd decorate it and we'd bring records and (...) we always appointed a chaperone, an older couple from that area. And we did all kinds of things like that.

TI: But let's go back to the newspaper. Because starting a newspaper is a pretty big undertaking.

FT: It was just a mimeograph sheet.

TI: And so this was distributed throughout the camp. And how was it received?

FT: We got letters from people, or comments from people, saying they didn't like that article. [Laughs] Or they did like it. Or they'd say, "Hey, how about reporting on so-and-so."

TI: So just like a regular newspaper. So letters to the editor, you'd have to reply, all those things. Anything that was controversial that you had to deal with?

FT: Well one controversy was the criticism of the food in the kitchen and the cooks and so on. And they got mad.

TI: So this was an article that you wrote, or someone wrote in the paper?

FT: Yeah, somebody wrote in saying, "Hey, the food is lousy," and all that stuff, and we just reported it. [Laughs]

TI: And so the cooks got mad, then what happened?

FT: They came up to us and well, they tried to crucify us. [Laughs] And so I had to write a response.

TI: I think we have copies of that, I think I have a couple.

FT: And then in the fall, they recruited people to go out to harvest. So I left camp in September, or October, and went to Idaho to pick apples. Other people went to pick sugar beets and that was hard work, so I said, "No, I don't want to do that." So I picked apples. And when I left, Howard Imazeki, who was editor of the (...) (Hokubei Mainichi) English section, (...) took over as (...) editor. And, incidentally, when I went to the occupation of Japan and worked for ATIS in the press section, who was there? Howard.

TI: So it's a small world. You keep running into people.

FT: (...) He was a civilian employee. (...) I think he was a Kibei, (...) so he was really well-versed in Japanese. But anyway, he was working in ATIS when I got there.

TI: So after you picked apples up in Idaho, then what happened?

FT: Then I went back after the apple season was over, (...) to Tule. And I taught at the high school literature, for about a couple of months, two months maybe. And then I decided to go to Minidoka.

TI: Who were you teaching that literature to? The high-school kids?

FT: Yeah, Tule Lake High School.

TI: So you were just literally, just a couple years older than some of these people.

FT: Yeah.

TI: How was that? How was teaching, was it hard, or was it pretty easy?

FT: Oh, it was easy. It was just conversation type thing, you know. I'd talk about various literature, works of literature and stuff like that.

TI: Now, did you have the actual books for the students to read?

FT: No, I didn't. I just did it all off of memory and what I'd learned at the U and so on.

TI: Wow, so that's probably hard to teach a literature course when they haven't read the literature.

FT: Yeah, it was more a conversation, talking to the students. They'd ask questions. Anyway, and then I went to Minidoka, I think it was in (February) '43.

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