Densho Digital Archive
Densho Visual History Collection
Title: Mary Hirata Interview
Narrator: Mary Hirata
Interviewers: Beth Kawahara (primary), Alice Ito (secondary)
Location: Seattle, Washington
Date: March 27, 1998
Densho ID: denshovh-hmary-01-0016

<Begin Segment 16>

BK: What were your first reactions upon arriving at Minidoka?

MH: I couldn't believe that that's where we were going to be, but like I say, my folks never made a fuss about anything, so it was just part of our life, so... I used to think, "My God, the dust!" You couldn't see one barrack to another one, it blew. And then the wintertime, or when it rained, you lost your shoes if you weren't careful. At least the men were nice enough to make little walkways for, from barrack to barrack. I think about Mom having to scrub all our clothes on the washboard. And I think, oh I was so awful, I didn't ever help her and I feel... now I feel guilty. [Laughs] But she never complained. And we lived in one room again.

BK: Can you describe that?

MH: It was a larger room. Mom used to come home from the bathroom with toilet paper, I could never figure out what it was for. And I'd see her making little wads and plugging up the holes, so she wouldn't have to clean all the time. You could see the little piles of dirt with each crack where the dust would come in.

BK: So she would be plugging up the holes of the outside walls?

MH: Uh-huh, because there were no inside walls. They were just outside walls. So, like around the windows, there would be little holes, and the dirt would just kind of pile up in little piles there. And we had a pot belly stove. And I don't know how I did it, but I remember I got two dollars -- I don't know whether Mother gave it to me or what -- but I went to the canteen and I bought two bedspreads. Can you imagine? For a dollar apiece. And my brothers and I, we hung 'em up to make a little room for Mom and Dad. Because, if we stayed up late at night to play cards or whatever, then at least they could go to bed in peace.

BK: So, here again, were there six of you, in that one room?

MH: Yes, uh-huh.

BK: And, again, sleeping area was spread all over, or did your brothers again build up?

MH: My brothers took the... they had one closet, and they fixed that into a bunk bed. And so, over by Mother's, where we had Mother's bed, we put up a hanger, so we could hang clothes. And then I slept on one side of it, and then my brother Ak -- we slept at kind of an angle, so that's how we slept in that one. And we had a round table. One of the neighbor's men was a carpenter, and he went around and made tables for everybody, so we at least had a table and a chair. They'd get the scrap wood from the, building these buildings, and then he'd go around and make furniture for all of us. My dad even made a chest of drawers, and I thought, wow, my dad. My mother put up all the shelves. I was so surprised. [Laughs]

BK: Do you still have that?

MH: I think one of my brothers has it.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 1998 Densho. All Rights Reserved.