<Begin Segment 16>

TI: And then tell me about your, kind of, your life in Crystal City. What kind of things did you do there?

SI: Well, when I was in Crystal City, I was already a freshman in high school. So my daily activity would consist of going to school, doing some homework, and then after that, we would go out and maybe get together with some friends and go watch a movie or go play some baseball or whatever, go swimming.

TI: So first tell me your school, like your class. How many other people were in your class?

SI: I think that our class numbered about maybe (thirty-five) students.

TI: And these were all freshmen?

SI: They were all freshmen.

TI: So would that mean that the high school had close to a hundred, like a hundred students?

SI: Easily.

TI: And tell me who these kids were. Where did they come from?

SI: The children that were in the schools were kids that came from parents that were either ministers, schoolteachers, community leaders, businessmen, or just... fishermen, or just ordinary people. So they come from all different phases.

TI: So the school, I'm curious, how would you compare the school at Crystal City with the school at Minidoka?

SI: First of all, they had a building that looked more like a school than barracks. They had a building that had an auditorium with wings that came off from the auditorium that had little rooms for offices and for classrooms. It was more like a regular high school, whereas in Minidoka it was all in barracks.

TI: And how about the, just the quality of the education? Like the teachers, how would you compare?

SI: I think they drew from volunteer educators in the state of Texas or from other people, from other areas outside of Texas. There were all certified instructors. They were very devoted and dedicated people. And so I thought that we had a very good staff of teachers along with the principal, who were very sympathetic to our situation. Knowing that here we are, American citizens that are incarcerated by the government and denied our rights. I think that these were excellent people that we had for our teachers.

TI: And was that different than Minidoka? Do you think that the quality, the commitment of teachers at Crystal City was...

SI: I don't know if I could equate one over the other. When I was in Minidoka, I was still in the seventh grade, so I was younger, junior high. I can't really place any kind of a value on the, or the quality of teachers. I think they were both very good teachers in both camps.

TI: How about just the general size of Crystal City versus Minidoka? How did that compare?

SI: The what?

TI: The size of the Crystal City camp versus the size of Minidoka.

SI: Oh, Minidoka is much larger than Crystal City. I think at the peak of its population, Crystal City had perhaps 3,300 residents, whereas Minidoka must be close to nine, ten thousand. So it is much smaller than Minidoka, and also area-wise, there's no comparison. Crystal City was a camp that, perhaps, contained about 100 acres of land.

TI: So much smaller...

SI: It was quite a bit smaller, yes, in scale, than Minidoka.

TI: How about security precautions? When you look at the security at Minidoka, a WRA camp, versus Crystal City, a DOJ camp, did you notice anything different in terms of maybe the fencing, the guards, or anything like that?

SI: I really didn't notice that much difference. Both camps had barbed wire fences, both camps had guard towers, although it was, in Crystal City, being that the guard tower was right behind our school, we could see them every day. Maybe the security might have been heightened in Crystal City.

TI: How about things like religious services? You had lots of, I think, ministers there. Did you have, like Sunday services?

SI: Yes, we did have services in Crystal City. It was sort of an, all-Buddhist sects got together, so it was a united service of Buddhists. So there was no definition as far as sectarian, you know, services, in Crystal City. So we'd have not only Shin sect, but also Zen, Shingon, Nichiren, all together. So all-Buddhist service.

TI: And so did your father participate in this?

SI: Oh, yes, he participated in those services.

TI: So that was kind of a, I guess, a different type of service, to have them all together.

SI: Uh-huh.

TI: And so when they would do this, would they -- so I'm not familiar -- did they have similar chants, similar sutras?

SI: I think they stuck to chants that are general, that's observed by all Buddhists.

<End Segment 16> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.