<Begin Segment 17>

TI: So tell me about, when you went to Minidoka, most of the people there were from the northwest, either Seattle, Portland, Washington state and Oregon state. Crystal City, where did the people come from?

SI: They came from all over. Like I told you earlier, there was a group of people from Hawaii, many from California. In fact, the main group of people were from the state of California. There were a few of us from Washington and from Oregon, a family that I... a couple of families from Alaska that I could remember. Along with Japanese nationals from Peru, South America. And there might have even been one man from Bolivia, as I could remember.

TI: So tell me about the Japanese Peruvians. So were they just intermixed with everyone else, or did they have separate area for them? What was that like?

SI: Well, they came in together, so they were housed in one area of the camp. But there were no fences between the houses. Some were housed in victory huts because they came in kind of late. And all the other housing was already full, and so they had to raise some victory huts for them to be placed in.

TI: So how did you get along with the kids that were Japanese Peruvian? I mean, there's a language difference...

SI: Well, the only way we could communicate is by Japanese, we'd have to speak Japanese to them. Unless you knew Spanish, it would be very difficult for you to communicate. So most of the communication that took place between the Peruvian Japanese and us were through the Japanese language.

TI: And so how did you get along with the Japanese Peruvians? Did you guys play sports together?

SI: Well, I really didn't have too many Peruvian friends, 'cause they came in kind of late. And by that time, we were almost ready to get out.

TI: When you think of the kids who came from, like, California or Hawaii, did you see differences in terms of, based on where people grew up? Like the Hawaiians, did they seem to be different than, say, the Californians, different than the Washington state?

SI: I think we were more accepting of each other. Being that we knew that we were all in camp together, that all our dads were interned, and essentially we had to learn to be friends. So I thought that we did fine as far as getting along.

TI: Good. Now, was there anything that was a memorable event in Crystal City? When you think back to those days, there was one or several events that really stand out in your mind?

SI: I think one of the memorable events was when we were given the opportunity to go outside and go to a picnic down by the river. Which, of course, we've never seen a river for a long, long time. The school was, schoolkids were given permission by the camp authorities to go out with some guys to go to the Nueces River, where we'd spend the day down there having a picnic. I thought that was a very memorable event for us, just to be out.

TI: Good.

<End Segment 17> - Copyright © 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.