<Begin Segment 26>

TI: Now, in terms of your family unit, when you went to Pinedale, how many were you? Because I know some of your older brothers had their own families. So how, what was your living arrangements at Pinedale?

MY: Well, I don't remember how many, how many was assigned to a room, but I remember that Dad's cousin lived with us, and my mom said, "Well, since bachelors sign up separately," she said, "you better sign up as part of the family because," she says, "in the situation that we're in now, we don't know what's gonna happen. So he's a bachelor, he doesn't have any other relatives, and if he gets separated from us, what's gonna happen?" So she said, "Just sign him up as part of our family and if they object, then we can always change it." So he went with us, and he got one of these metal cots. We got those canvas cots, and he had a metal cot. It was so hot that he couldn't get cooled off. And I can just, I can still see him: "How come they can treat an old man like that?" But he was so hot that he didn't know how to get cool, and he was laying on that asphalt thinking that that would cool him off, but that was worse than being out in the weeds. It was hotter and just reflected the heat. And so I thought, "Gee, whiz," that's why I realized more what was happening to that little kid, that big brother put him down on that concrete or asphalt. But I don't know, it just seemed like every once in a while, you think of something else.

TI: Well, during your time at Pinedale, what did you do to pass the time? Did you have a job?

MY: Yeah, I got a job as a preschool, preschool attendant. So that was kind of fun. The little kids would come around the door, you know, and sneak in the door and holler and this and that. And then this, this one boy from Seattle, I can't think of his name now, but he was slightly retarded. And so he would act kind of goofy, so these kids would... well, they have a notion of picking on a kid 'cause he can't fight back or something, I guess. And so they started teasing him. So that's the first time I sat all those kids down and I said, "Did you see what happened out there?" And they said, "Yeah, well, that guy's crazy." I said, "Well, do you know who he is?" "No." I says, "What if that was your brother?" And they said, they just got quiet and looked at me. I said, "If that was your brother and a bunch of kids came and picked on him like that and teased them," said, "what would you think?" And they said, "Well, that wouldn't be very nice," and they had different opinions. And I thought, well, it's too bad it has to be this way, but at least they learned something from an uneducated kindergarten teacher, you know. But I thought, "Oh, man, kids could be so cruel." And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that guy, the brother to this guy committed suicide, he was from Seattle. But he was the older one, and he, and so I thought, god, what kind of life must he have had to try to defend his brother all these years? And I thought, well, I guess I opened my mouth to those kids, but I hope some of 'em, one or two of 'em remember that. Because they don't know, they just watch what other kids do and do what they do. And right or wrong, they're gonna follow through. So I thought, well...

TI: Yeah, as you were saying that, it just made me think about how, when you go from, sort of, a home where you're, you have a small nuclear family... what's the right word? It's like more things are not seen. But when you live all together like that, and how everything just sort of is more laid bare. It's hard to, probably things come up that maybe not come up before.

MY: Yeah, we were poor, but at least we managed when we had those bad times, or have anybody be ornery or nasty or anything.

TI: Well, so after Pinedale, you then moved to Tule Lake. So what were your first impressions of Tule Lake?

MY: That wasn't much better, I'll say that. [Laughs]

TI: But it was a little cooler, wasn't it?

MY: It was hot. It was hot.

TI: It was still, Tule Lake was hot?

MY: Yeah, yeah. So I got another job taking care of preschool kids.

<End Segment 26> - Copyright (c) 2009 Densho. All Rights Reserved.