<Begin Segment 11>

MN: I know you remember what day you left for Manzanar.

BK: [Laughs] Yeah, when I, that was my birthday. I had just turned sixteen on the day we left. So nothing to celebrate, but it's... the time when Ralph Lazo got on the train with us. He was just, and his classmates were about us, our age. They were from Lincoln High School. I was from Roosevelt. Very few people from Roosevelt on our train because most of them were Catholics, supposedly. Because my sister was helping the Catholics' community in registration, and we were tied in with them. So it's, it wasn't a very good trip. That was a long trip. And it took us all day and almost all night to get to, to get to Manzanar. Got off at Lone Pine and then they had busses there. We got on at Lone Pine and they bussed us up to Manzanar. And it was dark at night, got there very, very late. But it was sad. I mean, it's, it's dull. They had all the window shades drawn all the time. You couldn't see anything.

MN: You mentioned Ralph Lazo. Can you briefly tell us who Ralph Lazo was?

BK: Ralph Lazo was a classmate. He was a Mexican American who was attending Belmont High School, and he came down to see his friends off, down to the train station. So he got on the train and his friend had bought a newspaper, so he wanted to read the newspaper while he was waiting. He got on the train to return the newspaper and he stayed on the train. He didn't get off. Then he says, "Well," he said -- the train is moving very slowly. You could, you could jump off any time. He says, "Maybe I'll get off at Pasadena." He kept on and he stayed on the train until we got to camp, and then... people, they didn't know who he was, but he was on the train so they bussed him over to Manzanar and they put him in bachelor quarters. So he wound up in Manzanar. Eventually the camp discovered that he was not to be there, but he was there, so they called his father to tell Mr. Lazo that, "We have your son here." And I don't know what kind of relationship he had with his father, but Ralph talked to him on the phone and said that he was here with his friends and they have a high school. They're gonna start a high school. He'd like to stay here with his classmates and finish school in camp. And so the father figured, well, he's got to finish school anyway and he's with his friends, so he let him stay. That's an odd thing that happened, but it was good for us because he was a good friend. He was very outgoing friend. Ralph Lazo.

MN: Now, what were your first impressions of Manzanar?

BK: Well, it was cold. It was drafty, the room. It was very primitive. It was not private. I mean, all five of us had to live in the, one small room. And it was kind of a, I guess forced living. You have to live according to the instructions given to you. We didn't have any choices. There was very little privacy, and there was very little incentive to do anything. So it's like being in prison. You couldn't go anywhere, do anything. And you had to wait for orders, just like the army. Camp life was very, you would call it engineered for prisoners. Yeah, you had to follow instructions.

MN: Do you remember what block your family lived in?

BK: Block 26, Barrack 7, Apartment 2. Yeah, I don't think I'll ever forget that.

MN: What sort of job did your parents do at Manzanar?

BK: My father became a carpenter. He like tools. My mother became a, worked in the kitchen, drying dishes and things like that, whatever they had to do. And my sister became a book, a librarian with the library that was formed in camp. My other sister became a teacher in primary school, taking care of the little kids. And I became a student, working part time as a messenger boy.

MN: Now, your father, you said, became a carpenter.

BK: Yes.

MN: Are there still buildings standing at Manzanar that he worked on?

BK: Yeah, he worked on the building that is now the former gymnasium and also houses, the, the Manzanar, what is that they have up there? Visitors' quarters. It was at the gymnasium. They worked on, he was with the Manzanar carpenters' group, and he worked in building that building, which is amazing.

MN: Are you talking about the interpretive center?

BK: Yeah. He worked there to build the interpretive center.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2010 Densho. All Rights Reserved.