<Begin Segment 13>

TI: So with so many people, describe your living arrangements. I mean, how, I mean, you have two, four, six, eight, ten people.

KK: [Laughs] Where? Living where?

TI: At Santa Anita first.

KK: In Santa Anita, okay. We were given two units, so we put all the boys in one, and all the girls in the other. And the same with Amache. We did the same thing.

TI: So what are some memories of Santa Anita for you, besides the barracks and maybe feeling a little left out with activities? Other memorable moments of Santa Anita?

KK: I had to go to school, and school was in the grandstands. And then, if you did something wrong, you had to go and run around the track. And, of course, I didn't realize I couldn't see, that I needed glasses, and, because I couldn't see the board, I was always talking to somebody and asking. So then if I was talking, then the teacher'd make me walk around, run around the track, and I did that quite a bit. And I was not a good student in school, because I couldn't see, for one thing. And I didn't realize I needed glasses. It wasn't until I got to Crystal City that I got glasses, so all those times, in Amache even, I was having a hard time. And, as I said, a lot of the kids spoke Japanese, played Japanese games, and I had to learn Japanese from them, in order to play the games with them, you know.

TI: But so you were around other Niseis, though, right? They spoke Japanese?

KK: A lot of them did, because they were from the farm areas and they were, you know, with their parents on the farms. On the farms most of them spoke Japanese. They could speak English, in school and all, but, I mean, just to play or anything they would go back to the Japanese. You do that.

TI: Now, would you get teased, then, by them?

KK: Oh, yeah. Or I would be left out. And more often than not, I'd be left out.

TI: Any other memories in terms of, like, well, I guess one question would be, in terms of knowing where your father was, when you were in Santa Anita did, did you receive correspondence, did you know where your father was?

KK: Yes.

TI: So describe what you know about that.

KK: Well, just that letters would come and my mother and my sisters would read them. They still left me out a lot, unless I was there and I heard, but I knew he was okay but that he wanted to go to Japan. Oh, my, well, maybe we wouldn't have a dad anymore, you know. But we were getting used to not having Dad, just because the way we were. And Santa Anita was, in a way, fun, and yet sad, because we didn't have to cook or anything, but we had to go to mess halls and stand in line, you had to go to the bathrooms and all of that. But there was a lot of free time to walk around and to do things. And my sister Amy was very friendly, and there was one girl who had two children and the father had, was African American, so the little, two kids were black. And Japanese are very prejudiced, and they, nobody would talk to her and so Amy and I would go over and visit with her and play with, I would play with the kids and all. I never knew what happened to them after Santa Anita.

TI: So when it comes to things like this, in terms of racial prejudice, you mentioned other Japanese were prejudiced, why was your family different?

KK: I guess we just were. Partly, I think it was my mother's Christian belief. And because where we lived, we didn't live among Japanese, we accepted people and people accepted us, so I think that was us.

TI: Okay, good.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.