<Begin Segment 20>

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

TI: And why did you want to go back, or go to Minidoka?

FT: Well, I'm a bachelor going wherever I wanted to go. [Laughs] So I wanted to go to see Minidoka. So I went. And I worked for Jackson Sonoda (on) the Minidoka Irrigator newspaper.

TI: And so I want to ask you, so you spent a few months at Tule Lake, and then you go to Minidoka. What differences could you see between the camps?

FT: Well, the differences was that Minidoka was all my friends from Seattle. It was coming back -- going back -- to your own community. Whereas, Tule Lake was all Sacramento people and San Francisco people. We were all strangers until we met and it's not like going back to your own community where you see people walking down the street, "Hey. I haven't seen you (for a while)."

TI: How about in terms of running the camp, were there differences in administration between Tule Lake and Minidoka?

FT: See, I worked for the Irrigator, but I wasn't really into it. And so I made friends with (...) the admin people, and especially the chaplain. The chaplain would say, "Hey, let's go into Twin Falls," and he'd take me into Twin Falls with him (...). So I got to know (him) pretty well, (and) people in the admin. I was closer to them than the people working at the Irrigator. But there was Cherry Kinoshita, and let's see, who else was there? No, Bob Hosokawa had left by then. I don't know, several people. I think at the Wing Luke museum there's a picture of the Irrigator staff and I'm (...) in there.

TI: So going back to your experiences with the Minidoka administration, how would you describe them? Who were some of the people?

FT: I can't even remember their name. I can't even remember the chaplain's name and he used to take me, he'd say, "C'mon, Frank. Let's go into town." I can't even remember his name.

TI: But can you remember how they thought about Japanese Americans and what they were doing? You ever talk about those things?

FT: No, not very (well).

<End Segment 20> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.