<Begin Segment 16>

TI: And there were, like, boundaries for you to stay within?

RE: Pretty much, yeah. Us kids, of course, roamed around. Kids aren't gonna run away, so they didn't care. But it was fun. We communed with nature. But my sister raised the issue around February that the kids lack education. And they wanted to ignore the issue, but she forced Mr. Tenney to deal with the local board of education which was centered in Capitan, New Mexico, which was probably about another fifteen miles away, or twenty. And they were reluctant, but they, to do so, but they were informed that these were American citizens and they had a right to an education. So we went to school in Capitan for three days. It was a one-building, three-story high brick building, and housed everybody from first grade through eighth grade. There was nothing beyond eighth grade. The majority of the kids were Mescalero Indians. I think we were ahead of them education-wise, but nonetheless... another vigilante formed over there that routed us out, and we were told never to come back or we'll be dead. And so threatened to shoot the kids. That was the end of our education in February.

TI: And so the sister who kept raising these issues, was this Fumiko?

RE: No, Amy. Emiko.

TI: Amy, okay, Emiko. Tell me what she was like. I mean, it sounds like she...

RE: Very, she was very much like an activist today. She always was very tough, tough little gal.

TI: Okay.

RE: But she, she was then informed by Mr. Tenney that he's negotiated with the Clovis school system to provide books, and they all came in cardboard boxes, and she was relegated to be the teacher. She didn't know anything about teaching, so it didn't last very long. I still didn't know how to read or write.

TI: And so at that point, you have lots of time, no school, so what did you do to...

RE: We hunted rabbits with barbed wire, you stick barbed wire through the hole, twiddle 'em around. If you got a hunk of fur, that was bad, but otherwise we gingerly brought the rabbits out tangled up in the barbed wire.

TI: Oh, so these were like rabbit holes that you would, you would...

RE: Uh-huh. We'd find the other hole and block that off, and then run, you know, we'd steal all those barbed wire fencing. Our, we found Indian artifacts, we had plenty of things to do.

TI: And so as a, a boy, it sounds like, it's not too bad. I mean, actually --

RE: No, it was great for us kids. But then when the winter came along, they, they had financially, the state couldn't continue to feed us and do that. And so the immigration authorities told the Poston, Gila River, Topaz and all that, "We need to transport these people to these camps," and they gladly would accept us. So we were given a choice what camp we wanted to go. We chose Topaz 'cause my brother Hank was there.

TI: So before we go there, so how long were you at...

RE: We were there from January 20th through December 13th of that, 1942.

TI: So almost a full year you were there, so a whole season. So describe just the seasons there. So you got there in the winter...

RE: The winters there was snow, the summer was just gorgeous. I think it would be like going to Lake Tahoe in the summer. It was cool, it was on a higher elevation. There was a mountain, Sierra Blanc or something, you could see the snowcap on it.

TI: And what would the... so, and the men would go out and do, kind of labor like cutting trees, you mentioned, things like that?

RE: Yeah, and my dad had a nice garden. They gave him, brought him seeds, and he... you know, it was like virgin soil, it was great. I don't know what the other men did, my dad tended to his garden.

TI: How about your mother? What did your mother do?

RE: Pretty much the household chores, washing clothes. It was interesting, we had no soap, things were rationed, so we very seldom saw sugar, staples that were rationed. My dad said to get him some lye with animal fat that he would accumulate, he made soap. It was potent, it could burn your skin. But that was soap we all utilized.

TI: That's a good story.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2008 Densho. All Rights Reserved.