<Begin Segment 31>

TI: Now, were you aware that there was a camp just miles away from Twin Falls?

CH: What camp?

TI: Minidoka.

CH: Minidoka camp was between Twin Falls and Idaho Falls.

TI: Yeah, so it was pretty close.

CH: North of Pocatello, I think, around there someplace. I remember I stayed there couple of weeks or something, I stayed there. They got, each camp got a hostel for visitors. And I knew some, I had a girlfriend, too, that why I knew her. That's why she introduced me, few people, this and that.

MN: So you just went to Minidoka, you wanted a, sort of a rest from farming, so you went to Minidoka, you just walked there?

CH: Recuperate.

MN: Yeah, you walked in and said, "I want to stay here, I'm gonna visit a friend"?

CH: You could lie. "I got a friend," I lied so many times, I went to different camp. You could, I know there's room open. They had to for the people, visitors. That's why it was nothing, no problem.

MN: How long were you at Minidoka?

CH: I was there about eleven days, something like that. Little over ten days.

MN: And then you just walked out?

CH: Yeah, I tell 'em, "Thank you very much." I've got to go Manzanar. In Twin Falls, there was hostel over there. Not hostel over there, living place. Two guys came by, they went back over there. From there, they had to go home. They had to go back Manzanar. So I told 'em, "Hey, I'll go, too." Which I was eligible, I went. I went all the way to Manzanar. They didn't check me, I went on the same bus. They're from Manzanar, the seven guys. I was the eighth guy. I went Manzanar, they just let me in. But somehow --

MN: But wait a minute, wait a minute. Before you got to Manzanar you stopped at Reno.

CH: Oh, yeah, you know, I made seventy-five, eighty dollar, hard labor, every else, same thing. You know what? We went to Reno, there's a gambling place. Hey, I lost everything. Everybody lost. What a dumb guy. You know, we always say when we go Reno we're not gonna gamble the blood and sweat money we made? Well, everybody agreed, that's hard work. Harder work than fisherman. Anyway, we lost all the money. But the other guys, they don't care. That's their home. So when I, when they put me in, when they put me in for how many days? They put me in, then they find out that I was illegally in that camp.

MN: In Manzanar.

CH: Yeah, Manzanar. "So how come you came Manzanar?" So I don't have no father or mother, only uncle I got. So you know, that's the way they let me in. Then find out, I don't know how they found out, but they found out I was there. "So I'm sorry, but Mr. Hamasaki, you got to get out of this camp, you don't belong here." Well, where I'm gonna go? I ain't got no money, no nothing. You can't put me out, your government put me in relocation center. I got, I don't know where the sixty-nine dollar he gave me. Sixty-nine dollar. And me and the other guy, other guy, he had his family over there, so he didn't want to stay there so he came out with me. So coming out, they took us to Reno, and Reno to Salt Lake City we went, 'cause Salt Lake City, you know what a chick sexers are? Chick sexer, my friend, there was about ten chick sexers living in this hotel in Salt Lake City, so that's the only place I could go. So sixty-nine dollar, then I stop at... what the heck is the little town in Nevada? From Reno it's about a hundred miles east. Elko. You know the town Elko? I stopped, I gambled, I lost the whole thing. Made the other guy, too. [Laughs] Salt Lake City, we know we have good thing over there, so they put us in over there, they gave us that to go back to Ogden, Utah. Ogden, Salt Lake, did I work over there a little bit? I worked a little bit. I did. To get money. So that's why I went to Ogden, Utah. Yeah, Ogden, Utah, I went. Was that before or after?

MN: When you went to Manzanar, though, which blocks did you visit?

CH: Block 10.

MN: Because why?

CH: Because Block 9, 10, 11, was all Terminal Island. Block 10. So they got something going right now, Block 14 they're gonna make. You heard about that? See, I know where Block 14 is. Us guys, 9, 10, 11.

MN: So it was like a reunion for you.

CH: Huh?

MN: Reunion. You had a nice little reunion at Manzanar at that time.

CH: When?

MN: When you visited. When you smuggled yourself into Manzanar.

CH: When I smuggled into Manzanar?

MN: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

CH: That was 1944.

MN: Yeah. You haven't seen your friends for two years, right?

CH: Huh?

MN: You didn't see your friends for two years.

CH: My son?

MN: No, friends.

CH: Oh, yeah, yeah. Two year I didn't see, it was two years. I didn't see 'em for two years, yeah.

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.